The mills in the days of their greatest prosperity were all woolen mills: now a part of them are cotton mills. They are all running, and, although not with the remarkable success of a score of years ago, have a future before them.
The making of felt hats, now so important a business, was started here a number of years ago by a gentleman who built a hat factory near his house at the Ferry. He was a gentleman in that true sense in which, added to his nerve and will (and he had abundance of both) were those knightly qualities of generosity and kindliness that have made his memory dear, while the Bayley Hat Company, called after him as its founder, bears witness to his business ability.
The great, oblong, many-windowed carriage manufactories meet one at every turn, and often the smithy stands near with its clangor. This business used to be confined to West Amesbury, now Merrimac. At the beginning of the century it was started on an humble scale by two young men, one a wood-worker, the other a plater, while another young man was trimmer for them. One of the firm lived in West Amesbury, the other in South Amesbury, now Merrimac Port, and after each had built his share of the carriage, it was found a little difficult to bring the different parts together. This was the beginning, and now Amesbury ships its carriages over the world. One of the first to bring this business from what was then West Amesbury to the Mills was a young man who in the beginning of the war had been unfortunate in business. He gave his creditors all he had, and went to the front. After serving his time there he came home, went into the carriage business, made money this time instead of losing it, and paid up his old creditors one hundred cents on the dollar. He deserves a big factory and success. And he has both. And he is not the only one of whom good things could be said.
They have a Wallace G.A.R. Post in Amesbury, not in commemoration of the Wallace of old Scottish fame, but of a man no less patriotic and brave who lived among themselves, an Englishman, a shoemaker. He was lame, but so anxious during the Rebellion to have his share in the struggle for the Union that he tried to get a place on board a gunboat, saying that he could "sit and shoot." As this was impossible, the town sent him to Boston as its representative, and he was in the Legislature when the members voted themselves an increase of pay. Mr. Wallace believed the thing illegal. He took the money in trust. One day after his return to Amesbury he limped up to his physician (the same one who had brought about the better construction of the new corporation houses) and handed him fifty dollars of this over pay, to be used at his discretion among the poor, explaining as he did so where the money came from, that he felt that it belonged to Amesbury, and that he returned a part through this channel.