Old Colony Iron Works
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Old Colony Iron Works-Nemasket Mills Complex
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Former Nemasket Mill
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| Location | Taunton, Massachusetts |
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| Coordinates | 41°53′9″N 71°1′38″W / 41.88583°N 71.02722°WCoordinates: 41°53′9″N 71°1′38″W / 41.88583°N 71.02722°W |
| Built | 1834 |
| Architectural style | Colonial Revival |
| MPS | Taunton MRA |
| NRHP Reference # | |
| Added to NRHP | July 5, 1984 |
The Old Colony Iron Works-Nemasket Mills Complex is a historic industrial site located on Old Colony Avenue in the East Taunton section of Taunton, Massachusetts, adjacent to the Taunton River at the Raynham town line. The site was first occupied by the Old Colony Iron Company, which had originally been established in the 1820s as Horatio Leonard & Company. The western part of the complex was sold to Nemasket Mills in 1889. The eastern part was acquired by the Standard Oil Cloth Company. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
In 1813, Stephen King built a dam across the Taunton River, a short distance above the site of what would become the Old Colony Iron Company. His rights were later acquired by Horatio Leonard & Company in 1823, when a new dam was built ten rods downstream. The new firm operated an iron works here, producing nails, tacks and rolled iron until 1842. The Taunton Tow Path Company operated barges from 1836 to 1854 along canals that were built on both sides of the river to bypass the dam. In 1843, a group of investors that included prominent Taunton businessman Samuel L. Crocker, George A. Crocker, and brothers Charles and Enoch Robinson bought the idle iron works property. The Robinson brothers, originally of Bridgewater, had been working for Horatio Leonard since about 1827.
In 1844, the new company was incorporated as the Old Colony Iron Company. The facilities were quickly expanded. By 1871, the manufacturing facilities consisted of a rolling mill and a nail mill on the west side of Old Colony Avenue and a shovel mill on the east side of Old Colony Avenue.
By the mid-1870s, the Old Colony Iron Company manufactured more nails than any other company in New England - as much as 130,000 kegs per year. By 1876, the equipment of the company included: 5 double and 6 single puddling furnaces, 9 heating furnaces, 96 nail machines, 5 trains of rolls and 5 hammers, operating on both water and steam power.
The company was hit with a substantial loss in August, 1881, when fire destroyed the nail factory and steam tack plate mill. However, the shovel mill survived destruction. Rather than rebuilding the nail mill, the company purchased the Somerset Iron Company's works in nearby Somerset, Massachusetts. The tack plate mill was rebuilt at East Taunton.
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