Industry type: Flour mill, Metal works
Location: Hagley
Active dates: 1783-1810
Summary: Rumford Dawes purchased the Gregg and Gilpin mill site on May 2, 1783 and partnered with brother Abijah in a metalworking business. They sold nails and other metal goods at an iron store on Water St. in Wilmington, and a July 1800 ad from the Philadelphia Gazette also mentions copper "rolled at their works on the Brandywine.” A slitting mill was built by 1783, and a grist mill and an eight-room house with a detached kitchen were built on the site in 1784. The site was known as "Hagley" by 1797. Although the exact date that the Dawes brothers closed their business is not known, the property had been transferred to Thomas Massey by 1810.
Citations: Boatman, Roy. The Brandywine Cotton Industry, 1795-1865. Hagley Research Report, 1957.
Porter, Glenn. A Place Called Hagley. Hagley Museum and Library.
Online primary sources / images: Advertisement for Rumford and Abijah Dawes. Philadelphia Gazette, July 7, 1800.
"Hagley on the Waters of the Brandywine," map, 1797. Hagley Library