Wamsutta Mills

Wamsutta Mills, was a textile manufacturing company located in New Bedford, Massachusetts, a port known for its whaling ships. The company was named for Wamsutta, the son of an Native American chief who negotiated an early alliance with the English settlers of the Plymouth Colony in the 17th century. Wamsutta Company's textile mill was founded by Thomas Bennett, Jr. on the banks of the Acushnet River in 1846 and opened in 1848. It was the first of many textile mills that gradually came to supplant whaling as the principal employer in New Bedford. Other mills in the area soon sprang up. By the 1870s, cotton textile manufacture was more important to the local economy than whaling. Wamsutta Mills became well known for producing fine quality shirtings, sheetings and other fine cotton products. The Wamsutta brand continues to this day.