Sayles Bleacheries

The Sayles Bleacheries were the foundation for all the subsequent manufacturing activities of the Sayles family. The profits from this highly successful operation fueled the acquisition of the scores of companies whose records now make up the Sayles Collection. Thus the Sayles Bleacheries were in every sense the “parent” organization of the Sayles empire.

The Sayles Bleacheries originated when William F. Sayles, in December 1847, bought at auction the plant of the Pimbly Print Works, lying along the Moshassuck River in the town of Lincoln, Rhode Island. Twenty-three years old at the time, Sayles was the son of Clark Sayles, a “prominent Pawcatuck merchant,” and had worked for several years in a commercial house before making this purchase. With “little capital” Sayles began operations in the handful of wooden buildings that Joseph Pimbly had erected on the site. In the spring of 1848, Sayles converted the plant from a print works to a bleachery. Under the various styles of “Moshassuck Bleachery,” “W. F. Sayles,” and “Sayles’ Bleachery,” Sayles slowly expanded the output of the facility - from one ton of cloth per day in 1848 to four tons daily by 1854. Throughout this early period, Sayles limited his operation to bleaching cotton sheetings and shirtings of not more than 45 inches in width. In June 1854, a fire destroyed all the original wooden buildings of the bleachery (re: fire, see Thomas Allen Jenckes' legal file titled: W. F. Sayles / Moshassuck Bleachery, Metropolitan Insurance Co.). Within ninety days, Sayles had replaced them with a substantial brick structure with a capacity of bleaching six tons of cloth per day. Increasing demand for his product led Sayles, as early as 1855, to put up the first of numerous additions to this building, in a process that has resulted in the present sprawling complex in Saylesville.

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