Crompton Street
From Worcester Activist wiki
Also MARIEMONT
If not for a Worcester man’s 212 patents, America might still be scratching itself in settler’s homespun.
“No name will go into history so eminently connected with progress in the art of weaving as that of George Crompton,” wrote the Boston Journal. He gave the word broadloom to the English language and revolutionized an industry.
Alexander Nikolaevich, emperor of Russia, is reputed to have offered him rubles by the hogshead to take his skill to that country.
But George Crompton liked Worcester. He had made his fortune here; won world-wide fame and a gold medal at the Paris Exposition of 1867.
The Worcester inventive genius was born in Lancashire, England, March 23, 1829, and came to Taunton at 10 with is father.
William Crompton had invented a fancy loom which he wanted to introduce to New England mill operators.
George Crompton grew up in this environment; got to know the warp and woof of weaving; its technical know-how of pattern chains, harnesses, lags, cams and picks.
At 22, he began to make looms with Merrill E. Furbush on Grove, later Green street. Eight years later Furbush was bought out. George Crompton was the Crompton Loom Works. The rest is industrial history. The peak was reached in 1880, when Crompton came out with a new fancy power broad loom.
He built himself Mariemont, a 37-room Tudor mansion on 11 acres at 121 Providence street. It was demolished in 1947 to make room for expansion of St. Vincent Hospital.
While at Manchester-by-the-Sea, Crompton came down with pleurisy and was brought back to Mariemont, where he died four days after Christmas of 1886.
Crompton & Knowles Loom Works today continues to make improved looms. It is one of the largest corporations of its kind in the world. Crompton street, named in 1873, extends from Southbridge street west to Woodward street.
The core of this article comes from A History of Your City Streets.
