Mill Pond Village & The Immigrant Story

The neighborhoods of East Dedham sprung up around the mills for good reason. The mills were in constant need of laborers and creating housing near the mills helped attract the men and women needed to meet the labor demand. Many of these laborers and mill employees were immigrants. Census records from the 19th century indicate the mills recruited men and women from all over Europe and North America, not just the Irish or Germans but others came from Canada, Italy, Eastern Europe, Lebanon and Syria. In 1865 over one quarter of Dedham population were foreign born. The neighborhood along this section of the mill pond, Colburn Street to Maverick Street to Curve Street is densely populated neighborhood with many houses that were built or owned by the mills or by employees of the mills.

Erastus Worthington noted in his History of Dedham in 1884 that “The greatest change in the inhabitants has doubtless been affected by the establishment of the woolen-mills at East Dedham, where the operatives live only for a time and then make room for others. But numerically these constitute a considerable proportion of the inhabitants.” The “operatives” Worthington referred to were immigrants. Over time they were operatives and immigrants no longer, they became citizens of Dedham. In 1800 the population of Dedham was 1,973, by 1830 it had grown to 3,057 and by 1865 it had swollen to 7,198, at which point 27 percent of theresidents of the entire town were foreign-born..

 The neighborhood to your left, that abuts the Mother Brook above the 2^nd Privilege and the Mill Pond, was developed to provide housing for mill workers over several centuries. Mill owners, mill workers, shopkeepers and craftsmen all lived within a tight-knit community. Thomas Barrows one of the wealthiest mill owners in Dedham lived on High Street near the Maverick area. In 1855, The Maverick Woolen Company owned both the 1^st and 2^nd Privileges and the surrounding neighborhoods totaling over 33,000 acres. Much of the worker housing developed at this time and later still exists today. As you walk along Colburn Street, or if you venture up the side streets you will see fine examples of the mill housing. Although the original clapboards may have been replaced by vinyl siding, the windows have been replaced or the front porches enclosed, the buildings are still intact. In this neighborhood are examples of boarding houses, mill owned houses and speculative houses.   

Immigrants made up the bulk of the workforce in the mills and when they arrived they needed housing close to the mills. Skilled mill hands began arriving in the 1820s from Scotland and a steady stream of new citizens continued to arrive throughout the next century. The French Canadians were one of the first groups to arrive, followed by the Irish. Many Irish fled Ireland during the Great Hunger or An Gorta Mor who came in large groups 1845 through the 1850s. German workers then followed. At the end of Colburn Street, near the Boston line, the neighborhood up until the 1960s was still referred to as Germantown. Some of these German and Austrian families were of Jewish descent such as the Greenhoods who went on to become large landholders in the area. The Italians, Eastern Europeans, Lebanese and Syrians were the last large immigrant groups to arrive beginning in the 1890s. By the time the 1900 census came around large areas of the Maverick-Colburn areas were inhabited by immigrant families.

The Dedham mills were among hundreds, if not thousands, of mills across New England. Conditions in the mills could be harsh for these immigrant workers. Workers stood at their stations from 5 am until 7 pm with half an hour for lunch. Their time was carefully controlled by bells and punch clocks. Accidents were frequent and there were no regulations to protect worker safety. The noise was deafening and the air inside the mills was filled with cotton or wool fragments; many workers got black lung as a result. Although interior conditions were highly flammable there were no fire escapes. Men's wages were more than twice as high as women's – children made least of all. With the rise of labor unions conditions gradually improved in the early 20th century when child labor was sharply curtailed, the workday was reduced substantially. Despite the harsh conditions, many immigrant mill workers were able to rise to become members of the middle class, homeowners and citizens of Dedham.

Irish immigrant Thomas Murphy is one example of the above statement. Murphy arrived in the United States in 1850 and was identified in the Federal Census of 1860 as a 25-year old wool spinner who lived in a boarding house with over a dozen other mill hands. By 1870 he had been promoted to an overseer position in the mill and was the head of a boarding house where he lived with his wife and two sons. By 1889 he became Dedham’s Superintendent of Streets and a decade later was listed as a real estate speculator and contractor who made dozens of real-estate transactions. In 1882 he purchased land along High Street and laid out 20 parcels, ten of which would cluster around Hill Avenue. There he built speculative houses that he rented until his death in 1907. From mill laborer to manager, to Superintendent of Streets and to real estate developer, a fine example of the American Dream. 

Historical Sketch Of Mother Brook, Dedham, Massachusetts, Erastus Worthington, 1900

The History of Dedham, Erastus Worthington, 1884

Dedham Historical Register, 1829