• Source: Thomas Barrows (mill owner)

Thomas Barrows (August 6, 1795 – May 7, 1880) was a business and civic leader from Dedham, Massachusetts.




Personal life


Barrows was born August 6, 1795 in Middleboro, Massachusetts. He rose from a humble childhood to become the wealthiest mill owner in Dedham.
With his wife, Elizabeth (née Bosworth), he had two sons and two daughters, including Thomas, Sarah, and Elizabeth. Barrows had a grand estate on High Street that was torn down in 1959 to make room for St. Mary's parking lot.
He died May 7, 1880, and is buried at the Old Village Cemetery. Barrows Street in Dedham, where he held some property, is named for him.




Career


In 1812, he left the family farm to work at a Middleboro cotton mill. Two years later he worked at a different mill in Wrentham, Massachusetts. He later returned to Middleboro to become the superintendent of a mill and remained there for five years.
He then took a position in Halifax, Massachusetts until 1825, at which point he was hired by Benjamin Bussey and George H. Kuhn to work at their mill on Mother Brook making broadcloths. He worked at several mills on Mother Brook.
Barrows retired in 1864 when the mill was sold. He soon after purchased another mill on Mother Brook. He made large additions to the mill, including a three-story ell. He also improved the machinery, including replacing the water wheels with turbines and adding a steam engine. With the additions, he transformed it into a woolen mill.
He sold the mill in 1872, during a downturn in the woolen industry.
Barrows was also the president of the Dedham Institution for Savings.




Civic life






= Brookdale Cemetery

=

Seeing a need for greater cemetery space, Dedham's Annual Town Meeting of 1876 established a committee to look into establishing a new cemetery. The committee, composed of the selectmen and Eratus Worthington, Eliphalet Stone, Royal O. Storrs, Winslow Warren, Edwin Whiting, and Alfred Hewins, was charged with determining how large the cemetery should be, locating land for it, and all other matters.
Town Meeting accepted the committee's recommendation on October 20, 1877, and appropriated $8,150 to purchase 39 acres from Barrows and Thomas Motley with additional land from Walter E. White for a total of 40 acres. Several of those involved in the creation of Brookdale Cemetery were the agents and superintendents of the mills along Mother Brook.
The Town of Dedham purchashed another portion of his estate in 1976 to develop the O'Neil Drive housing complex for senior citizens, and then another 2 acres from St. Mary's in 2009. The other half of the St. Mary's parking lot was sold and developed into private homes in 2011.




= Dedham's Bicentennial

=
During the bicentennial celebrations in Dedham in 1836, Barrows served as a vice president of the dinner held for 600 people.




Notes






References






Works cited


Davis, Stephen Robert (1973). From Plowshares to Spindles: Dedham, Massachusetts 1790-1840 (Ph.D thesis). University of Wisconsin – via ProQuest.
Dedham Historical Society (2001). Images of America: Dedham. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-0944-0. Retrieved August 11, 2019.
Haven, Samuel Foster (1837). An Historical Address Delivered Before the Citizens of the Town of Dedham, on the Twenty-first of September, 1836, Being the Second Centennial Anniversary of the Incorporation of the Town. H. Mann. Retrieved June 28, 2021. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
Smith, Frank (1936). A History of Dedham, Massachusetts. Transcript Press, Incorporated. Retrieved July 18, 2019.
Hurd, Duane Hamilton (1884). History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts: With Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men. J. W. Lewis & Company. Retrieved August 11, 2019.
Tritsch, Electa Kane (1986). Building Dedham. Dedham Historical Society.
Worthington, Erastus (1900). Historical sketch of Mother Brook, Dedham, Mass: compiled from various records and papers, showing the diversion of a portion of the Charles River into the Neponset River and the manufactures on the stream, from 1639 to 1900. Dedham, MA: C.G. Wheeler.

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