Closing of the Talbot Mills

The Talbot Mills, one of the two woolen mills at the North Billerica dam (see Rise of the North Billerica Woolen Mills), sold its company houses between 1936 and 1939 and turned its sewer and parks over to the town, was sold out of the family in 1956 and shut down in 1964. Its neighbor, the Faulkner mill, ran on until 1987 (see Closing of the Faulkner Mills). The mill building stands, filled with other businesses, in the Billerica Mills Historic District.

The Talbot mill was at its height in the 1920s, with 20 sets of cards, 228 looms and 450 workers, and in 1926 the assessors hired appraisal engineers to value the plant in the case of "Talbot Mills, Inc. vs. Town," a dispute over its valuation. When unemployment came in 1930, the company's secretary, Joseph F. Talbot, sat on the town's Committee on Unemployment (see Great Depression). In 1936 the company gave up the role of village landlord it had held since the 1860s. It had J. C. and W. T. Monahan survey the village into lots ("Plan of a Portion of Property Belonging to the Talbot Mills, North Billerica, Mass. showing division into lots, surveyed 1926-27-36," Plan Book 60, Plan 25), and on September 30, 1936 its treasurer, Thomas T. Clark, signed the first deeds. Most of the double houses on Wilson Street, Lowell Street and Old Elm Street went for $1,000 to $1,500 apiece, many to the families who rented them, the company keeping the right to the common sewer under the lots (see Talbot Mills Housing). The last houses and leftover parcels were sold in October and November 1939.

The town took over what the company had provided. The warrants of 1937 and 1938 asked whether the town would buy from the Talbot Mills "its system of sewage and sewage disposal together with a parcel of land adjacent thereto, located in North Billerica, for the purchase price of one dollar," and in 1939 the meeting told the selectmen to negotiate the purchase for $1.00, to take effect in 1940. In 1940 the town bought, for a dollar each, the Talbot Mills Oval on Talbot Avenue and the "Cannon" triangle at Elm Street and Talbot Avenue, the Oval to be kept up with labor "supplied by welfare recipients." The Talbot Mills Library, which the company had run for its workers since 1880, closed, and its books went to the Bennett Public Library for a North Billerica branch. Thomas Talbot Clark told the town meeting of 1934 that the Talbot heirs wished the Thomas Talbot Memorial Hall to go to the American Legion.

The mill itself ran on through the Second World War, in which the breaking of the belt on its great water-power flywheel in 1944 sent debris through four floors of the mill and into the pond. Its spinners, carpenters, cloth inspectors and finishers still appear in the town's lists of 1955 as employees of "Talbot Mills Inc. No. Billerica." In September 1956 the company was sold to the Massachusetts Mohair Plush Company of Lowell, effective September 29; the Lowell Sun reported that the four hundred employees were promised that the mill would run as before and be enlarged. The new owners, the Horvath brothers, put the real estate, dam and water rights into a Textile Subsidiary Corporation. In 1959 the North Billerica Company, the Talbot Mills and the Wamesit Power Company sued the town for damages, and the town voted $2,500 for engineers, appraisers and counsel. By 1963 the Talbot Mills was mortgaged beyond its value, and it was shut down in 1964. On November 1, 1965 its buildings, water rights and dam were conveyed to Fabricon, Inc., and in April 1968 the west-bank property passed to a group of partners whose Cambridge Tool and Manufacturing Company, makers of machine tools and aluminum die castings, moved into the mill; Fabricon's land on the east bank went to the North Billerica Company. The old mill has since housed Cambridge Tool's successors, Leggett and Platt and Pace Industries. The town report of 1972 recorded that the Faulkner Mills "are still in operation," while the larger Talbot Mills "are not."

People

• Thomas T. Clark: Treasurer of The Talbot Mills who signed the sales of the mill houses from September 30, 1936 to 1939, and in 1934 announced the heirs' wish to give Thomas Talbot Hall to the American Legion.
• Joseph F. Talbot: Secretary of the Talbot Mills corporation, member of the town's Committee on Unemployment in 1930 and 1931.

References

1. Billerica Annual Reports 1925-1929: Assessors' report for 1926 on the case of Talbot Mills, Inc. vs. Town over the plant's valuation and the hiring of appraisal engineers.
2. Billerica Annual Reports 1935-1939: warrants of 1937-1938 to buy the Talbot Mills sewage system for one dollar; 1939 vote to negotiate the purchase for $1.00 effective 1940.
3. Billerica Annual Reports 1940-1944: 1940 votes to buy Talbot Mills Oval and the 'Cannon' triangle for $1.00 each, Oval upkeep by welfare labor.
4. Billerica Annual Report 1945: Library trustees on a North Billerica branch; the Talbot Mills Library's books and equipment given to the Bennett Public Library when it closed.
5. Billerica Annual Reports 1955-1959: 1955 register of residents listing employees of Talbot Mills Inc.; 1959 Article 31 on the damage suit of the North Billerica Company, Talbot Mills and Wamesit Power Co.
6. Billerica Annual Reports from 1969: 1970 Ilford pumping station joins the North Billerica sewer built by Talbot Mills in 1902; 1972 historical note: Faulkner Mills still running, Talbot Mills not.
7. Buildings of New England, 'Talbot Mills // 1857': 450 workers at the 1920s peak; operations suspended in the 1960s; the building since tenanted, now occupied by Pace Industries.