Mason Machine Works

The Mason Machine Works was a machinery manufacturing company located in Taunton, Massachusetts between 1845 and 1944. The company became famous for an early invention by its creator, William Mason, the self-acting mule, first patented in 1840. The company also later produced locomotives, rifles during the American Civil War, and later printing presses. However, the production of textile machinery would remain the company's core business during the late 19th century, until its decline in the 1920s.

The son of a blacksmith born in 1808 at Mystic, Connecticut, William Mason became a skilled master mechanic while still in his teens, working for various companies in the Killingly, Connecticut area that were involved with machinery for the growing textile industry.

In 1835, Mason moved to Taunton, Massachusetts to work for Crocker and Richmond, a company that made ring spinning frames for the cotton textile industry. While the firm failed in the financial crisis of 1837, it was soon taken over by Leach and Keith. Mason was made foreman.

By the time William Mason began his career, there had been a growing industry of machine building in the United States. It was a specialized art requiring tools, materials, skills and designs that had been gradually increasing through the early part of the 19th century. The ideas of early pioneers in the textile machine industry such as David Wilkinson at Pawtucket, Rhode Island and Paul Moody at Waltham, Massachusetts were constantly being tinkered with and improved upon during this time.

On October 8, 1840, Mason's greatest invention, the "self-acting mule" was patented. Competition required improvements and on October 3, 1846, he received a patent for "Mason's Self-acting Mule." The self-acting mule was a triumph of automation.

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