Charles Tillinghast James - Mechanical Engineering Career

Mechanical Engineering Career

James, an avid coffee drinker, did a good business designing and promoting steam mills to small seaport towns which did not have any experience with mills and needed his expertise to advise on which equipment to buy and how to design the entire factory. James knew all the best equipment and their manufacturers and selected the pickers, breaker cards, drawing heads, Providence Machine fly frames, Mason finished cards, spinning equipment looms and steam engines from Providence's India Point Works run by Fairbanks, Bancroft and Company and later by Corliss, Nightengale and Company.

James promoted steam mills in seaports that has seen a great reduction in business because of the centralization of trade in bigger ports such as Boston due to the centralizing technology of the Middlesex Canal, the railroads, and bigger ships. These "decayed" smaller seaports such as Newburyport, Salem, and would be able to get coal and cotton supplies directly from the ships and export their steam mill products directly by ship again.

Between 1839-1846 Charle T. James owned the southern half of the Brewster-Coffin House (High St.) in Newburyport, Massachusetts. During this time he worked on several steam mill projects in the area These included the Bartlett, James, and Globe(later called Peabody) Mills in Newburyport.

Steam Mills promoted by Charles T. James include the Barlett Mill, and later the James Steam Mill (built in 1843 with 17,000 spindles) and the Globe steam Mill (built in 1846 with 12,200 spindles) in Newburyport, Massachusetts; mills in Portsmouth NH 1845-6. Naumkeag Steam Cotton Mill built in 1845-46 in Salem, Massachusetts. Also the Essex steam mill; the Conestoga Steam Mill in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1844-45. Later he was closely involved with the Graniteville Mill in South Carolina with William Gregg.