508 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1926 
The “ Old Slater Mill” at Pawtucket, was up to this time the largest 
in the country, and contained 5,170 spindles. President Monroe 
visited, Providence in 1817, and was escorted by a committee to see 
the old mill in Pawtucket. Here he was received by Mr. Slater and 
shown the first spinning frames which had been running 27 years. 
The Slater machinery was also viewed by President Jackson, who 
visited Pawtucket during his first term of office. Slater was at that 
time laid up with rheumatism, the result of exposure in starting 
the water-wheel of his first machinery during the severe New Eng- 
land winters. After watching the machinery, President Jackson 
called at Slater’s home to show his respect to the man whom he called 
“The father of American manufactures.” The following conversa- 
tion is said to have occurred between the two: “I understand,” said 
the President, “you taught us how to spin so as to rival Great 
Britain in her manufactures; you set all these thousands of spindles 
to work, which I have been delighted in viewing, and you have made 
so many happy by a lucrative employment.” “ Yes, sir,” said Slater, 
“T suppose that I gave out the psalm, and they have been singing 
the tune ever since.” 
In 1827, Slater and his sons started a mill in Providence, R. L, 
containing 7,000 or 8,000 spindles, and operated it with a steam 
engine. This was the first mill of its kind in the State and one of 
the first in the country, and it was very commonly known as the 
“steam mill” until recently. 
During the great business depression of 1829, Samuel Slater sold 
to William Almy his one-third interest in the “ Old Mill,” owned by 
Obadiah Brown, Almy, and Slater, and gave his attention to the 
“Steam Mill,” which was known as the Providence Steam Cotton 
Manufacturing Co. This mill proved to be very successful, and 
after 1880 experienced judges said that it produced the finest goods 
in the country. 
During his later years, Samuel Slater spent the greater part of 
his time at Webster, Mass., where his fourth mill was started, and 
where he died on April 21, 1835, in his 67th year. Through his in- 
fluence three villages that had grown up from his enterprise, together 
with some territory from the towns of Dudley and Oxford, were in 
1832 incorporated as the town of Webster, and named after Daniel 
Webster. Webster still interests the Slater family, as H. N. Slater, - 
a grandson of Samuel, is president of the corporation now operating 
over 82,000 cotton spindles in the place. 
Just how long the carding and spinning machinery built in 1790 
and left in the “Old Mill” were kept running seems not to have 
been recorded, but George White, a friend of Slater’s, wrote just 
after the death of his friend in 1835, that the machines were still in 
the old mill and were shown to visitors as curiosities. They were 
