Daniel Day

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Daniel Day (born 1767 in Massachusetts; died 1848 at Uxbridge, Worcester County, Massachusetts at age 81) was an American pioneer in woolen manufacturing.

Daniel Day may have been born in nearby Mendon, MA. He married Sylvia Day, and they had at least one son and one daughter.

[edit] Career and history

At the age of 43, he established one of the oldest woolen mills in the United States, the Daniel Day Mill. It was the second mill established in the historic Blackstone River Valley, considered the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution in the U.S. Elmdale: is the site of the Daniel Day Mill, the first textile mill in Uxbridge, and the second textile mill in the valley after Slater's mill', (1810), the second oldest woolen mill in Massachusetts, (after one in Watertown, MA), the third textile mill in the state, and third oldest woolen mill in U.S. (after a worsted mill in Hartford).[1][2] There was only one other mill, a cotton mill, that was established in Uxbridge that year, which was the Clapp Mill on the Mumford River. We know that one of Daniel Day's children, his daughter, married Luke Taft, who started another famous Mill in Uxbridge, The Luke Taft Mill, later known as the Waucantuck Mill. Luke Taft was a descendant of the famous American Taft family which had its roots in Mendon and Uxbridge. Daniel Day was also an ancestor of a branch of the Wheelock family which established an early factory in this same community which continues in business in the 21st Century, as Berroco, Inc.

[edit] Death and afterwards

We don't know where Daniel Day was born, perhaps in Mendon. But we see the death of Daniel Day recorded in the Uxbridge Vital Records.[3] It also contains clues about one of his children, and he is listed as a widower, who died on October 26, 1848, of Consumption or Tuberculosis, at the age of 81.[3] This is from page 369 of Uxbridge Vital Records thru 1850.[3] His wife Sylvia Day died in 1842 at the age of 77.[3] His son Peter died in 1815, at age 23.[3]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Marvin, AP (1879). History of Worcester County, Massachusetts, Embracing a Comprehensive History of the County from its earliest beginnings to the present time; Vol. lI. Boston, MA: CF Jewitt and Company, 146. 
  2. ^ Chapin, Judge Henry (1881). Address Delivered at the Unitarian Church in Uxbridge; 1864. Worcester, Mass.: Charles Hamilton Press (Harvard Library; from Google Books). 
  3. ^ a b c d e Baldwin, Thomas Williams (1916). "Vital Records of Uxbridge, Massachusetts to the Year 1850. Boston: Wright and Potter Printing, p. 369. Retrieved on 2007-11-02.