http://www.cooganresearchgroup.com/crg/index.htm

05 January 2014

COOGAN story

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appearing in "HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD: BLACKSTONE CANAL 
MILLBURY SEGMENT HAER No. HA-147" (developed by the National Park
Service for land that was "Abandoned, scheduled to be filled/
demolished, 1998) [Philadelphia, PA], c.1998, PAGE 8:

...

Coogan's Mill:
The earliest historical account of the new mill site at the 
southerly end of this canal level states that Asa Waters (of the
prominent family of manufacturers in Millbury Village) "secured
the privilege and built the dam" after the canal was abandoned.
Waters's connection has not been corroborated. Instead, the land
records indicate that James Benchley initiated efforts to establish 
a dam here in 1846. However Benchley's role was a brief one and it 
was Michael Coogan who was most closely associated with the first 
mill at this privilege.  

Michael Coogan reportedly built this first mill in 1850, and he 
operated it for a time as a woolen mill, producing beaver cloth. 
Coogan was a native of Ireland who left his original profession as 
a gardener to become a wool manufacturer.

The earliest depiction of Coogan's mill is on the 1857 Henry
Walling map of Worcester County.20 The Walling map shows the canal 
terminating at the mill a short distance below McCracken Road. 
Although it does not appear on the map, the feeder dam had been 
built across the Blackstone River 250' north of the Worcester town 
line and a feeder canal connected with the main canal just south of 
the site of Lock 43. There is no clear evidence whether the spillway 
was a part of the water-power system at this point. However, a 
spillway or waste weir to carry off excess water in time of flood or 
when the gates to the waterwheel were closed would have been a 
likely component in the system. The manner in which the canal ran 
directly into the mill strongly suggests that there was a means to 
draw off water from the canal upstream from the mill. Otherwise the 
mill would be in considerable jeopardy in the event of a flood.

Greenwood Mills:
The next figure to become involved in the mill site was Henry H.
Chamberlin. Chamberlin was associated with Coogan for a time in wool 
manufacturing and then, in April 1865, purchased several parcels 
from Coogan and neighboring landowners. His key purchase from Coogan 
was the "Greenwood Mills". The Greenwood Mills referred to Coogan's 
mill site and probably took its name from its location on land 
formerly part of the H. K. Greenwood farmstead. One of Chamberlin's 
deeds makes reference to his acquisition of "Coogan's upper 
privilege"; judging by the general absence of any documentary 
references to a lower privilege at this site it is probable that the 
majority of the water power was concentrated at the upper privilege. 
Chamberlin paid $10,000, financing this purchase through two 
mortgages: one from Coogan for $8,000, and the other from Joseph 
Pratt for $6,000.

Chamberlin's acquisitions apparently were in preparation for an
expansion at the mill site. Some expansion had occurred by 1869,
judging by the increase in the property's value, but by that time
the property had passed out of Chamberlin's hands, been briefly held 
by a New York firm, Turnbull, Slade and Company, and been acquired 
by William H. Harrington, a Worcester woolen manufacturer, for 
$45,000.

Burling Mills:
In the same year that he acquired them (1869), Harrington sold the 
Greenwood Mills for $55,000 to the Burling Mills Company.
Harrington apparently formed this Millbury-based corporation just
for the Greenwood Mills enterprise, and he served as president. The 
company was capitalized at $100,000.

Under Harrington's direction, the Greenwood Mills, now known as the 
Burling Mills, prospered in the 1870s. While Coogan's mill building 
remained, a large new mill had been added to it, and the mill's 
capacity had increased from the four sets of machinery operated 
prior to 1864, to eight sets. (In woolen mills capacity was measured 
by "sets" of carding machines, which were arranged in groups of two 
or three.)  In 1879, the Company employed 150 workers who produced 
18,000 yards of French beaver-cloth monthly. The increased 
production was made possible by the addition of two steam engines, 
which augmented the power provided by a single waterwheel 
(presumably a turbine). In addition to the complex of factory 
buildings, the Company's holdings included a number of tenement 
houses along the new Worcester-Millbury Road.

FOOTNOTE:
WCRD Book 700, pp. 556-557. The Greenwood Mills represented the 
property in question. This was shown through a document recorded in 
the Worcester County Registry of Deeds by Mr. Dadmun, attorney for 
Michael Coogan, in Book 688, p. 414. The document referred to "the 
estate known as the Coogan Mills or Greenwood Mills."

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http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pnp/habshaer/ma/ma1600/ma1609/data/ma1609data.pdf

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