C. P. Talbot and Company

C. P. Talbot and Company was the firm of the brothers Charles P. Talbot and Thomas Talbot, who built up the industry of North Billerica at the falls of the Concord River from 1839. Its dyewood mill, chemical works and woolen mill made North Billerica a factory village, and the firm built the double houses for its mill workers that still line Wilson Street, Old Elm Street and Lowell Street.

Charles Potts Talbot came to Billerica in December 1839, having been in manufacturing at Williamsburg, and invited his brother Thomas, then finishing broadcloth at the Pontoosuc Mills in Pittsfield, to join him. In Hazen's account the dyewood mill was their earliest undertaking, in a building hired from the Middlesex Canal company. In 1844 they bought the saw-mill of Nathaniel Stearns on the north-east side of the stream and used it for the dyewood business until it burned in 1853. They then sold that site to Mr. Faulkner and, having bought "the prior and larger rights of the Canal Company on the other side of the stream," rebuilt the dyewood mill there. In 1849 they began their chemical works, at first in a building near the depot and later sixty rods farther east by the railroad; by 1883 these employed sixteen hands and made a daily average of five tons of oil of vitriol, a ton of blue vitriol and as much muriatic acid. In 1857 they built their woolen mill, the Talbot Mills, with eight sets of cards. Six sets were added in 1870 and as many in 1880, and in 1883 the mill employed two hundred hands with a monthly payroll of $7,000.

The firm also did business in Lowell, where Charles Talbot was living by 1883. The program for the town's celebration of May 29, 1855 offered dinner tickets at "C. P. TALBOT & Co.'s, in Lowell," and the treasurer's account in the town report for 1864-1865 records $1,500 received from C. P. Talbot & Co.

Around the open ground by the mill known as the Common the company built three houses in the early 1860s, at 2-4 Lowell Street, 8 Lowell Street and 27-29 Old Elm Street, and it went on to build double houses for its workers along Wilson Street and Old Elm Street. Thomas Talbot gave North Billerica its Baptist meeting-house, the North Billerica Baptist Church, built in 1870 and dedicated on January 19, 1871, and in 1880 the brothers built a front wing on their factory whose second story held a library and reading room for their employees, the Talbot Mills Library and Post Office. The woolen business was later carried on as the Talbot Mills, which ran until the 1960s and was one of the last companies to own large numbers of houses for its workers, renting about 150 units.

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883): the Talbots' dyewood mill, chemical works of 1849 and woolen mill of 1857 at North Billerica
2. Hazen: the Baptist Church at North Billerica, its meeting-house a gift of Thomas Talbot, built 1870, dedicated 1871
3. Hazen: the library and reading room the Messrs. Talbot built in 1880 in a front wing of their factory
4. Hazen, Genealogical Register: Talbot 2, Charles Potts Talbot, came to Billerica 1839, living in Lowell; Talbot 3, Thomas
5. Town report 1954: reprinted order of the celebration of May 29, 1855; dinner tickets at C. P. Talbot and Co.'s in Lowell
6. Town report 1865: treasurer's account, $1,500 received of C. P. Talbot and Co.