East Bethel Mill (East Bethel, Vt.).

The three main members of the Faulkner family represented in this collection are Dwight Foster Faulkner (1803-1885), referred to as D. F. Faulkner or D. F.; Dwight Faulkner (1829-1894), son of D. F. Faulkner; and Francis Thomas Faulkner (1834-1905), son of D. F. and brother to Dwight; he is referred to as F. T. Faulkner or F. T. D. F. Faulkner was born in Watertown, Mass., in 1803, son of Francis Faulkner, a successful Massachusetts woolen manufacturer. D. F. was a dry goods merchant in the firm of Goodnow & Faulkner in Boston. He owned three woolen (flannel) mills, one in East Bethel, Vt., one in Plymouth, Mass., and one in Turner, Me. He turned operations of these mills over to two of his sons (Dwight and Francis T.) but retained control and management from Boston, with frequent visits to the mills. There is little background information on the East Bethel Mill; it was established in the 1840s and was destroyed by fire in the last week in February or the early part of March 1862. The Plymouth Woolen Mills were established in 1863 and operated by Dwight Faulkner through the 1860s. By the late 1870s, Dwight became a wool agent in Boston and left the manufacturing part of the business. The Turner Mill was erected in 1862 and remained in operation, with the exception of approximately 18 months during 1877-1879, until it was destroyed by fire in 1905. Francis Thomas Faulkner oversaw operations in East Bethel from 1854 until the 1862 fire. He then became superintendent at this father's mill in Turner, Me. Eventually D. F. and F. T. would become partners under the name Turner Mills, D. F. Faulkner & Son, which in time became Turner Woolen Mill, F. T. Faulkner, Prop. F. T. was prominent in fraternal work, joining a number of fraternal organizations and becoming a thirty-second degree Mason. F. T. died in 1905 while trying to extinguish a fire in his mill, which was destroyed. The business was not re-established.