What the Jillsons Ate:
Dining with a Willimantic Mill Owner and His Family at the Beginning of the Industrial Era
Beverly L. York, Windham Historical Society
In 1824 brothers William, Asa, and Seth Jillson came to Willimantic from Dorchester, Massachusetts to build and operate one of the earliest textile factories in Willimantic, Connecticut. A generation later, the Jillsons employed 100 hands, seventy-five women and twenty-five men. The Jillson Mill had 40,00 spindles and 100 looms, and manufactured $40,000 worth of print cloth each year. William Jillson built himself a fine, granite house near the Mill, in the federal or Georgian style of the early nineteenth century. Today, the Jillson House is a museum, owned and operated by the Windham Historical Society. Click here to watch a video presentation by the historian Beverly L. York on “What the Jillsons Ate.”