I remember when I went with my next-door neighbor who was a plumbing contractor and he needed help changing out some leaking pipes at The Ponemah Mill in Taftville. It’s a monster of a building for a boy of 12 to walk into. I’ve seen this icon of Taftville many times but had never walked into it.

I was always impressed with their black switcher train engine they used to move around the box cars they received. Big Al, the plumber, parked his Chevy pickup truck on the north side of Mill Number 1 and I helped him carry some new stream pipes into the lowest level of the plant. I noticed that the basement was cool on this hot summer day. We walked over some iron grates where water was rushing under our feet.

Al told me that this was a hydro installation that the Ponemah had built years ago to light the company homes and run the factory needs. Well, we completed repairs that day leaving me with many questions to ask some unsuspecting people.

The great industrialization by Edward P. Taft of Providence was advised by Governor Sprague of Rhode Island after Sprague founded the Baltic Mill in 1856. This was before the use of electricity. Water power was king in New England, and the large granite Baltic Cotton Mill had built a dam with a water chase-way into the mill’s water wheel to run the looms and needed machinery.

Mr. Taft bought four known farms (Ripley, Prentice, Bromley and one owned by Turner Station) with Ripley’s being the largest at about 600 acres that had land on both sides of the Shetucket River. The hydro potential had been known for many years on this section of river, and it was controlled by the Occum Company.

Taft bought the rights to the lower section of the river. A survey was made and a plan for a self-contained village and cotton mill was set up. The company, then known as the Orray Taft Manufacturing Company, began building Mill Number 1 in 1866, the largest cotton mill in the world. The hand-built dam and water wheel pit were completed in 1870.

A spur line from the Providence and Worcester Rail Road was also built to supply the factory with raw material and transport the finished cloth to other facilities for finishing (coloring and printing). In 1871, the facility was renamed The Ponemah, roughly meaning, from the Native Americans, ‘our future hope.’

A self-contained village was constructed including: mill owned homes, dairy farm, apparel store, butcher shop, doctor’s office, reservoirs, sewer plant, etc. The factory’s footprint was enlarged over the years by adding three other mill buildings and an office located in front of the smaller Mill Number 3.

Other additions to the village were a fire department, a school for the tenant’s’ children, and churches. At that time, Ponemah produced fine cotton cloth manufactured with Egyptian delta cotton.

During the Great Depression the factory faced greater competition from other areas especially the South and the plant had to cut back on their employees. World War 2 brought demand for the various clothes produced for war needs such as uniforms and parachutes. Older retired workers came back to help the war effort as younger employees joined various military services. As times changed, the Ponemah sold off their property and ended its run in the early 1970s.

Now, a new lease on life has been found for this mill complex, that being condos for the Norwich populous.

Bill Shannon is a retired Norwich Public School teacher and a lifelong resident of Norwich.