The Mills of Daniel Cooper

Dayton's industrial start was small, via a collection of water mills were 5th/3rd Field is today.

The mills were mostly built during the 1st decade of the 19th century (1809), though there was a small tub mill here in the 1790s.

This map shows the mills in the 1820s. The gristmill here was new, replacing one that burned in 1820. By this time a nail mill was added, run by water power.


There was a saw mill, too. Originally on the "Coopers Race" this was turned into a "chopping mill" also called "turning laths", after a new sawmill was opened at what's now the intersection of 5th and Wyandotte.

The millrace was built by troops stationed here during the War of 1812. The tailrace roughly follows the route of the later canal. This was a natural slough or floodway between the Mad River and the Great Miami.
The "Washington Cotton Mill" (replacing the nail mill) & machine shop was on the race in 1824 and a foundry in 1828.

A description of the mills before the canal came (from a court case):

"...a merchant mill with three runs of stones, a waste wheel to drive two to four grindstones, a fulling mill with two water wheels driving two sets of fulling hammers, a carding machine , with one water wheel, driving two carding machines and one wool picker. A cotton factory, number of spindles not known, and a saw mill with two saws”.

The canal came in 1829, and a hydraulic was built in 1837 or so, so these old Cooper Race mills were becoming obsolete.

In 1830 a second cotton mill located on side race to the basin. In 1833 the Washington Mill relocated to canal at 5th.

Here is the situation in 1838-39. I think this map might omit some things, like a foundry. Supposedly a foundry was built here (between Foundry and Sears steets) in 1828, the first in Dayton.
What's interesting is one starts to see the extension of the city beyond the original town plat. This land was platted by the Cooper estate, and includes a market square (rectangle) between Sears and Webster Street.

But what did it all look like?

Fortunatly we have the Wharton view from the 1830s, which is close enough to the Van Cleve map of 1838-39 to permit correlation:
The workshops shown here might include the first foundry.
This image shows a building that might also be a foundry (based on a later image in the city directory). What makes this view usefull is one can see one of the old Cooper mills in the background, perhaps the gristmill of 1820 or the fulling mill.
The Miami Cotton Mill was one of the first true factories, producing goods for export, and also having a associated machine shop. This mill had around 1,000 spindles, employed 20 hands, expanding to 60 later in the 1830. Production started started at 60,000 lbs/year of yarn but expanded to 175,000 lbs /year. About half was exported to Cincinnati during the first year.

The machine shop aslo apparently produced goods for export (one year it exported $8,000 worth of parts to S America)($150K in today’s money). The shop employed 30-45 hands, and had an annual sales of $40K to $50K (in 1830's dollars).

The cotton mill part was out of business in 1839 due to the hard times of the later Jacksonian era

In the early days of textile manufacturing machine shops were attached to the plants to make mill machines and spare parts. In Dayton's case these shops started to do contract and job work , including some of the early ag implements trade.

Platting Webster Station.

After the Cooper Hydraulic and Oregon Race were built in the late 1830s there wasn't need for the old Cooper Race, so in the 1840s the race and mill pond were filled in, the Mad River relocated, the Basin Extension Canal built, and the land sudvided...usng in some cases the same lot module in the 1830s Cooper plat.


On can see the old saw mill race traced out by lot lines and plats.

Today nothing is left but lot lines and street names (Pond Street after the old mill pond, Race Street after the old head race to the Miami Cotton Mill).
...to think there is this ghost landscape of head races and mill ponds under Webster Station, and that early foundries and factories and mills are at the site of 5th/3rd Field. A foundry at the pitchers mound?

Only for history buffs: A much more detailed look at the "Head of the Basin", considering the canal trade and taking this area throught the 19th Century to modern times (including Delco) can be found at this link