OLDEST COTTON MACHINERY-——LEWTON 509 
probably soon after relegated to the upper part of the old mill, 
where they lay unused and forgotten for nearly 20 years. 
In 1856, Dr. Samuel Boyd Tobey, the executor for the heirs of 
Moses Brown and of Obadiah Brown and William Almy, his son 
and son-in-law, deposited a cotton-carding machine and a spinning 
frame of 48 spindles with the Rhode Island Society for the En- 
couragement of Domestic Industry, then occupying a building in 
Providence known as Railroad Hall. The report of the society 
for the year 1856 records the fact. 
At the request of the Rhode Island Society, Doctor Tobey pre- 
pared for its records a certificate of authenticity for the Slater spin- 
ning frame and cotton card which he had deposited earlier with the 
society. The following is an exact copy of the wording of the 
certificate : 
History of the Old Card and Water Frame Presented to the Rhode 
Island Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Industry. 
Samuel Slater arrived in New York in January, 1790. On the 18th of the 
same month he went to Pawtucket and commenced building the first ma- 
chinery for the “Old Spinning Mill,” and started the same in a clothier’s 
shop by the power of the Fulling Mill wheel, December 20, 1790, viz. : 
Three carding machines. 
Drawing and roying machines. 
One water frame, 24 spindles. 
One water frame, 48 spindies. 
Where they run for about 20 months and overstocked the “Domestic Goods ” 
market, several thousand pounds of yarn haying accumulated in that time, 
notwithstanding thé most active exertions on the part of the proprietors to 
dispose of the product, both in yarns and in cloth woven by hand. 
The spinning frame of 24 spindles was the first experimental machine, and 
consequently imperfect, and taken from the Mill to give place to machines 
of more perfect construction. . 
In 1793 William Almy, Obadiah M. Brown and Samuel Slater, under the firm 
of Almy, Brown and Slater, built a small factory, the center portion of the 
“Old Spinning Mill,” into which the above-mentioned machinery was removed 
and put in operation on the 12th day of July of the same year. 
One of the carding machines and the 48-spindle water frame mentioned 
above were presented as above by the heirs of Moses Brown, William Almy 
and Obadiah M. Brown, and now stand in state in the rooms of the society. 
Moses Brown was the foster father of the whole enterprise. Almy, Brown 
and Slater were the owners and recipients of the benefits arising therefrom. 
SAMUEL Boyp TOoBEy, 
Trustee and attorney of heirs aforesaid. 
ProvipENCcE, 9TH MontTH, 11TH, 1856. 
Note: The above facts are chiefly derived from a memo. by Samuel Slater 
to the R. L. Hist. Society. 
DN sick. ae 
At the time of the Philadelphia International. Exhibition in 1876, 
better known as the Centennial, the old Slater cotton machinery, was 
exhibited in Machinery Hall by the Providence Machine Co., a 
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