Daniel Day was an American pioneer in woolen manufacturing.
Background
Daniel Day was born in Mendon, Master of Arts and was the son of Joseph Day and Deborah Taft. He was a 4th generation descendant of the original Taft family in America, Robert Taft, Senior, who had settled in the western section of Mendon in 1679.
Career
At the age of 43, Daniel Day established one of the oldest woolen mills in the United States, the Daniel Day Mill. He built a dam along the West River (Massachusetts) and near the dam he built the woolen carding mill. Today the site is generally known as "Elmdale"" and is just south of the main village of Wheelockville, and "Hecla", off of Elmdale Road, at Scott"s Lane, in the town of Uxbridge.
Pliny Earle I, had developed carding machines at Leicester, Massachusetts, near Worcester, as early as the 1780s.
Daniel Day"s wool carding mill was only the second mill established in the historic Blackstone River Valley, considered a major contributor to the Industrial Revolution in the United States.
"Elmdale" near Wheelockville, was the site of the Daniel Day Mill, the first textile mill in Uxbridge, the first woolen mill in the valley(1809), the second oldest woolen mill in Massachusetts, (after one in Watertown, Master of Arts), the third textile mill in the state, and third oldest woolen mill in United States. (after a worsted mill in Hartford). This system of mills, dams and villages was developed by John and Samuel Slater, and became known as the Rhode Island System.
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. Quickly a loom was added to the carding machine works by 1811, and they later greatly enlarged the mill by 1825.
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 continues in business in the 21st Century, as Berroco, Incorporated, now headquartered in nearby North Smithfield, Rhode Island. The death of Daniel Day is recorded in the Uxbridge Vital Records. This is from page 369 of Uxbridge Vital Records thru 1850.