SAMUEL HART EDES. 343
from the river, when fires have occurred, while abundant resources in the way of a water supply — and so regarded all that time — remained useless, await- ing the necessary energy and ability to utilize them. The earlier proprietors of this property — J. D. Walcott and Samuel F. Chellis — could never be in- duced either to dispose of it, or render it useful to the villagers, and it continued all these years idle, or good for nothing but as a resort for village picnics.
In 1856 Mr. Edes commenced laying logs by which this water was intro- duced to that part of Main street north of the river. In this enterprise he expended about $600, which resulted in a loss of some ^300, as in three or foiir years the logs became decayed and useless. The excellence of the Cold Spring water made it especially desiral)le for domestic and other purposes, and Mr. Edes vvas urged by many residents to reconstruct and continue his under- taking. Thus encouraged he went tf) work and laid patent cement and iron pipes throughout, and up to this time has expended some $10,000 on his main line and branches. To render ths water supply still further available, the town has built a reservoir on the public square, in front of the post-office, with a capacity of at least one hundred hogsheads. In December last, when the barns and stables of the Newport House were in flames, and the fire was speedily making its way along the ell jvart to the main building of the hotel, and the Methodist church edifice, and a large amount of private property was in imminent danger, recourse vvas had to this reservoir of water, without which the ravages of the fire must have been indefinitely extended and disastrous in the extreme.
Mr. Edes is a stalwart friend of education, and a supporter of the schools in Newport, and when in 1877 a law was enacted securing the independent action of Union District, and the appointment of a board of education, he was elected a member of that board, and became its financial agent, and the earlier estab- lishment and later success of the graded school system, in Union District, is gready on account of his enterprise and good management.
As a man of affairs, Mr. Edes has the foresight and sagacity to see cheaper rates for insurance, mire protection to property from lawlessness, less pauper- ism, and a more orderly and respectable community around him, with a lower percentage of taxation, not only on account of a good water supply, but where schools are well supported, and general intelligence prevails. He consequently is not a man to become disgruntled over a school tax.
About the year 1866 Mr. Edes acq lired possession of the "Eagle Mills" property, so called, which came to him with a long pedigree of unsuccesses — in i822,asanoil mill; in 1S35, as the Newport Mechanics' Manufacturing Company ; from 1835 to 1854, in the hands of Parks & Twitchell as a manu- factory of cassimeres, satinets, &c. It was thought at the time that he had purchased this prooerty under somevvhat adverse circumstances, as the war was past and the great harvest for manufacturers had ended. But to Mr. Edes there was a future in prospect, and he commenced to renovate the old mill, and push matters generally, replacing the old with new and more desirable machinery, and at this time he runs an active mill with two sets of cards ; em- ploys twenty hands, and turns out seven hundred yards per day, the year round, of blue mixed and twilled flannel, which finds ready sale in the markets of the country, and the establishment may be considered an undoubted success.
In 1880 the old " Newport Mills," where nearly seventy years ago Col. J. D. Walcott established a manufactory of cotton yarn, after passing through a variety of hands, and several fires, and the immediate ownership of W. L. Dow & Co., as a sash and blind factory, came into possession of Mr. Edes with a record similar to that of the Eagle Mills, before mentioned. Here, also,
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