Background
Benjamin Marshall was born in 1782 in Hudders field, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, and was the youngest of six brothers who were brought up to manufacturing pursuits.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
Benjamin Marshall
Edit ProfileCareer
In 1798 he entered the cotton manufacture at Manchester. He brought an invoice of cotton goods to New York in 1803 and here became the friend of Isaac Wright, a Quaker merchant, and Francis Thompson, Wright's son-in-law, the New York representative of a West Riding firm of woollen-cloth manufacturers. He joined Thompson in the business of importing cotton goods and exporting cotton, and spent the winters in Georgia as a cotton buyer. In 1816, Benjamin Marshall, William Wright (Isaac Wright's son), and Jeremiah Thompson (Francis Thompson's nephew) acquired shares in the Pacific, and in a new ship, Amity. At this time, Benjamin Marshall and Jeremiah Thompson were doing business in the same premises at 273 Pearl St. , New York. In the spring of 1817, the five partners placed another new ship, Courier, in transatlantic trade, and in October 1817 they announced the establishment of a line of American packets, to make regular monthly sailings from New York and Liverpool. This was the Black Ball Line, the first of the famous transatlantic packet lines of New York. The first sailing on a regular schedule was made January 1, 1818. To complete the service a fourth ship, James Monroe, was purchased. The management of the line appears to have been principally entrusted to Jeremiah Thompson; there is no indication that Marshall did any special part of this work. After the enactment of the tariff of 1824, Marshall turned from importing to manufacturing and printing cotton cloths. In partnership with Benjamin S. Walcott, Jr. , who was already engaged in manufacturing at Whitestown, N. Y. , he established the New York Mills on a waterpower a couple of miles to the west of Utica. In 1827 (or thereabouts), with his brother Joseph, he established the Hudson Print Works, near Hudson (later Stockport), N. Y. , one of the earliest cotton-printing works in the United States. Benjamin seems to have left his brother in charge of the store in New York and to have withdrawn to Hudson to manage the enterprise there. In 1833 he sold his share in the packet line to his brother. It had become by this time the leading shipping service of New York, with a fleet of eight first-class ships and regular sailings twice a month. Early in 1834, Joseph Marshall in turn sold the line to Jonathan Goodhue & Company. Later in that year, the two brothers divided their interests in the various factories they owned, Joseph taking the Hudson Print Works, and Benjamin their share in the New York Mills and some other factories at Troy, N. Y. , and elsewhere. From this time onward he seems to have devoted himself principally to the development of the factories at Troy. The cottons produced by the New York Mills near Utica and the Mount Ida Mill at Troy appear to have been clearly the finest goods of their kind produced in the United States at this time. He died in Troy in December 1858.
Achievements
-
About 1840 Marshall developed the waterpower in the Poestenkill Creek at Troy by a series of tunnels and built a chain of mills down the creek. He became one of Troy's leading citizens, and was president of one of the banks of the city, of the Troy & Schenectady Railway, and of Mrs. Emma Willard's Female Seminary. In 1847 he sold his interest in the New York Mills to the Walcott family. Because of his son's mental disease in 1850 Marshall founded in Troy the Marshall Infirmary (now the Marshall Sanitarium), of which he was the first president.
Connections
In 1813, he married Niobe, daughter of Capt. John Stanton, commander of Wright & Thompson's fast-sailing transatlantic trading ship Pacific. His wife died in 1823, leaving him one son, who developed a mental disease about 1847 of which he died ten years later.
References
- Greyhounds of the Sea
- The Textile Industries of the United States, 1639-1810, Vol. 1: Including Sketches and Notices of Cotton, Woolen Silk, and Linen Manufactures in the Colonial Period (Classic Reprint)
- Annual Obituary Notices of Eminent Persons Who Have Died in the United States. for 1857-1858
- Portraits of Eminent Americans Now Living, Vol. 3: With Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Their Lives and Actions (Classic Reprint)
