680 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1959 
Chalkley’s prophetic admonition, Friendly ways led members of the 
local meeting to wealth, prestige, and influence, giving the town, if 
slowly, a thriving manufacturing and mercantile interest (12). 
In 1744, 2 years after Oliver Canby had begun his milling business, 
Dr. Alexander Hamilton described Wilmington as having nearly “the 
largeness of Annapolis” but built more compactly with most of the 
houses of brick (13). Six years later the town exhibited some evi- 
dence of commercial life, although James Birket found local mer- 
chants in “such low Circumstances” that they could not “make any 
great figure” from mercantile pursuits (14). By 1754, the year 
Canby died, Lewis Evans described Wilmington as “a town of no 
small Trade” (15), but Governor Thomas Pownall thought it still 
lacked sufficient population or “trade enough . . . to compleat it to 
its plan” (16). The place impressed Andrew Burnaby in 1760 merely 
“as a pretty village” (17). In fact, not until the 1770’s did Wilming- 
ton begin to have “all the appearance of one of the English country 
towns” (18), nor until this decade, according to Silas Deane, did the 
Brandywine Mills produce the quantity of flour necessary to “render it 
a large place” (19). 
It was in the 1770’s that mills similar to those promoted by Shipley 
were built on the north side of the stream directly opposite the 
older ones. These improvements were accomplished by the resource- 
fulness of Joseph Tatnall, Delaware’s first great industrialist who, 
incidentally, was related to both the Shipleys and the Canbys. With 
the completion of the new mills a milling center was born and the 
future was bright. The next 20 years marked the consolidation of 
the early industrial and commercial development of Wilmington, 
and by the 1790’s the Brandywine Mills were supplying a considerable 
amount of flour for the export trade. An “Infant place” had become 
the heart of one of the busiest centers of manufactures in the United 
States. In addition, a milling oligarchy had been firmly established, 
one that persisted until the 1920’s (20). 
The Brandywine Mills, tightly clustered about the tidal basin of 
the stream, increased in number from 8 to 14 between 1770 and 1820. 
During this period Oliver Evans introduced the idea of automation 
to flour-mill machinery; and subsequently the mills at Brandywine 
were mechanized, although work was still provided for scores of indi- 
viduals including millers, millwrights, coopers, blacksmiths, and 
shallopmen (21). 
The mills brought their owners a handsome profit. By 1800, 300,000 
to 500,000 bushels of wheat were ground annually. The Quaker 
millers, in good years, reaped a return of a half-million dollars from 
their business, and local merchants shipped Brandywine flour world- 
wide. As a result of the flour trade, these merchants lined their 
shelves with the goods of foreign lands, and local residents enjoyed the 
