The brothers, Erastus and Horatio Bigelow, whose carpet company built the mills in Clinton discussed in my last two posts, were also founders of the Lancaster Mills Company, which produced checked gingham textiles. In the early 1840s, Erastus Bigelow had developed a power loom to mechanize the production of cotton checked cloth. In 1844, the Lancaster Mills Company was established and it soon built a complex of mill buildings at the head of the Wachusett Reservoir on a site bounded to the south and west by the Nashua River. The complex is dominated by the massive Mill No. 1 (Weaving … Continue reading Lancaster Mills Company, Mill No.1 (1844)