They had decided, they said, to set up a cotton factory at
Waltham and invited Appleton to join them in the adventure, to
which he readily consented. Lowell had not been able to obtain
either drawings or model in Great Britain, but he had
nevertheless designed a loom and had completed a model which
seemed to work.
The partners took in with them Paul Moody of Amesbury, an expert
machinist, and by the autumn of 1814 looms were built and set up
at Waltham. Carding, drawing, and roving machines were also built
and installed in the mill, these machines gaining greatly, at
Moody's expert hands, over their American rivals. This was the
first mill in the United States, and one of the first in the
world, to combine under one roof all the operations necessary to
convert raw fiber into cloth, and it proved a success. Lowell,
says his partner Appleton, "is entitled to the credit for having
introduced the new system in the cotton manufacture." Jackson and
Moody "were men of unsurpassed talent," but Lowell "was the
informing soul, which gave direction and form to the whole
proceeding."
The new enterprise was needed, for the War of 1812 had cut off
imports. The beginnings of the protective principle in the United
States tariff are now to be observed. When the peace came and
Great Britain began to dump goods in the United States, Congress,
in 1816, laid a minimum duty of six and a quarter cents a yard on
imported cottons; the rate was raised in 1824 and again in 1828.
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