The Pre-Industrial Revolution in America: A Field for Local Research

It was the topography of a trout stream which first set my thoughts in the direction of local business history, and then led to broader fields of research. Mill ponds and crumbling masonry are more or less traditional parts of the New England landscape. I should be willing to pass them over with the customary casual notice, were it not that increasing familiarity with some of Massachusetts' “backwoods†country began to reveal what looked like a remarkable pattern of local development. There was a positively idyllic stage of research when, with fly rod in hand, I examined the dams and sluiceways on half a dozen local streams, and pondered the archeological evidences of antique industry. Many questions came to mind. Too early for a place in the Industrial Revolution, too numerous to fit neatly into the colonial-agrarian pattern — what system of economy did these ruins represent ? Might they not stand apart, a system of their own, drawing from the earlier and nourishing the later? The phase of inquiry succeeding superficial curiosity led to local libraries and county records. It seemed wise to concentrate initial research efforts in one area, and on one representative watercourse.