It started out in the 1700s as a small trading post, but by
1809 it was known as the Brunswick Cotton Manufacturing Company. The mill,
powered by the Androscoggin River and the falls at Pejepscot, made yarn for
textile manufacturing.
It changed its name a few times as
it expanded—Maine Cotton and Woolen Factory, Warumbo Company, and, finally,
Cabot Manufacturing Company. In the
1930s, more than 1,000 people worked in this mill, running the machinery that
produced textiles.
In the mid-1950s, when I was a child
living in the area, it was the Verney Mill, and both textiles and shoes were
manufactured there, pulling power from the river, dumping waste back in; I
remember to this day the smell of the river, the sight of yellow-brown
riverfoam on the front lawn of our house on days the wind was right.
And I remember the rumble and thump
of the machinery and shake of the sidewalks whenever you walked by; the feeling
went through your shoes and into your feet, right up to your knees.
It was
dreadful.
I had friends whose parents worked in the mill, first- and
second-shift parents (sometimes one on each shift just to make sure one parent
could be home most of the time: I didn’t appreciate that sacrifice until I was
much older). Somebody’s mother told me once that, during WWI and WWII, there
were three shifts of workers: That mill ran all day and all night; children
were awakened in the morning by one parent, put to bed by the other parent, and
watched over by grandparents or neighbors while their parents slept.
Everything’s different now.
The river is clean (we even have fish again!) and the
building itself has been renovated; floors have been refinished, walls painted,
windows replaced. There are shops and artists’ studios and restaurants—even a
farmers’ market in the winter, a high-end antique business and a gigantic flea
market all year round!
But sometimes, when the light is just right and I find
myself in one of the lower level hallways, I can still hear the rumble, feel
the shake and rattle of that machinery.
