Map showing location of the Hunt Wool Mill

The Hunt Woolen Mills Daniel Hunt was born in 1743 in Holliston, Massachusetts. He was the son of Abidah Hunt and Phebe Pratt Hunt. Daniel and his wife Mary Hunt had several children, among them Pearley, Mary, Joseph, Ebenezer, Adam, Joel, and Abigail. Daniel Hunt marched to Concord, Massachusetts on the alarm of April 19, 1775. He was a Corporal in Captain Staples Chamberlin's Company of Militia from Holliston which was in Colonel Samuel Brewer's Regiment. The Hunts moved to Milford, Massachusetts in the mid-1770s. Daniel and Mary appeared in the first Federal Census, 1790, in Milford. Daniel's son, Ebenezer, would build a wool factory that stood at the point where Reservoir Road now crosses the Mill River. According to Ballou's History of Milford,"Two small manufactories of cotton and woolen goods had been started in town: one in Bungay, so called by Ebenezer Hunt as early, perhaps, as 1827 ; and the other, not long after, in the Centre, by Stephen R. and Parmenas P. Parkhurst. These had a run of several years in both places, but were doomed to extinction. Pecuniary losses, fires, etc., desolated them".

Map of Bungay area 1827

In 1842 Lyman P. Lowe's factory in Bungay was listed as burned and "still desolate". Adin Ballou's History of Milford also refers to a man named John Schofield who oversaw the factory operations: "John Schofield was born Dec. 15, 1793, listed as a woolen-factory operative and overseer. Mr. Schofield came over from England at 20 years old. He was long an operative and overseer in woolen factories but later betook himself to boot making. He dwelt at Bungay at one time when the woolen manufacture was carried on there; and one, at least, of his younger children were born there. He was an ingenious, industrious, honest, and kind-hearted man in his own somewhat peculiar way." In the book Upton Massachusetts 1735-1935 P.33 we find some more detailed information:
"Before the town was incorporated many homes spun and wove cloth. Mothers, daughters, and children engaged in these home arts which were necessities. So when Ebenezer Hunt set up his two sets of machinery and a dye house at the foot of the pond, he was changing the habits of many homes but giving steady employment to a considerable corps of workers, and bringing cash into circulation and benefiting the town. The yearly output was 31,200 yards of cloth valued at $15600 in 1837. The burning of the mill in 1843, ended the weaving industry in town."

Location of Hunt Mills today

The foundations of the Hunt mill are still evident where Reservoir Road crosses the Mill River ← The Taft Family --- Joseph Cody →