Mott Mill, Yonkers New York

Date added: August 24, 2023 Categories: New York Textile Mill

1906 Building Front (East) Facade, Looking Southwest (2003)

Located on the east side of the Hudson River, north of New York City, Yonkers was designated as one of the 20 townships of Westchester County. Yonkers lies along the Hudson River and occupies approximately 17 1/2 square miles of Lower Westchester County.

Several Native American tribes lived in what is now Westchester County by the 17^th Century, primarily the Mohicans. The Rechgawawancks sold the land that encompasses Yonkers to Adrian Van der Donck in 1646. Details of Indian settlement in this neighborhood of Yonkers are not known. Early Euro-American settlements in Yonkers were largely agriculturally based and this was the site of a Dutch patroonship, or large farm. Beginning in the late eighteenth century, the Nepperhan River provided a source of power for grist, saw, flour and lumber mills. These enterprises were confined to the banks of the Nepperhan River near the Hudson River and served to define Yonkers' growing industrial downtown area. The outlying regions were chiefly rural and agricultural.

By 1813, the Nepperhan was dammed in several locations to provide water power, and the dams were consecutively numbered. The pre-1813 mill pond which would later serve the Mott Mill incorporated the fifth dam and thus was known as the "fifth water power".

The Hudson River access and close proximity to New York City fostered Yonkers' growth and development. In 1831, after the advent of the steamboat, a Hudson River wharf and docking area was constructed at Yonkers. John Copcutt's Veneer Mill, which was one of Yonkers first major industries, was constructed in 1845. After the opening of the Hudson River Railroad in 1849, Yonkers was transformed from an agricultural based community into an industrial center. Within 10 years of the coming of the railroad, glue, hats, veneer woods, carpets, rubber, elevators, silk, and beer were all made in Yonkers.

The Mott Mill Building was constructed in 1852 by William P. Mott on the east side of the Nepperhan River at Elm Street, at the "fifth water power" on land owned by John Copcutt. He was one of the first of Yonkers industrialists and by the late nineteenth century also "owned much (of Yonkers) real estate" Included in his holdings was a 12-acre strip of land along the Nepperhan between the fifth and sixth water power sites. Capitalizing on Yonkers' existing water power system, Copcutt apparently constructed factory buildings and workers housing which he then leased to various enterprises and individuals. The Mott Mill was the first building on the site but the 1845 W.C. Waring & Co. Hat Factory, later referred to as the Eagle Hat Factory, was already located on the west side of the Nepperhan at Elm Street across the river.

William Mott installed a limestone plaque on the front facade giving his name as builder and the date, 1852. Mott was a carpenter and builder from New York City. Census records indicate that in 1850, he was 41 years of age. He and his wife Sarah and had three children, all of whom were born in New York City. By 1864 the family lived in Yonkers, in a house on Elm Street and Nepperhan Avenue, near the mill building. By that time their elder son Abraham C. had become a carpenter and the younger son William R. was a bookkeeper.

Initially, the Mott Mill was used as a cotton factory. In 1855, three years after its construction, George B. Skinner opened a silk factory in the Mott Mill to manufacture dyed sewing silk and twist. John Copcutt appeared to still own the land, at least until 1883. In 1896, the Reverend Charles Allison in The History of Yonkers stated that the Skinner factory achieved great success "... contributing to the industrial reputation of Yonkers" and supplying "silk-weavers all over the country". When in full operation, about 50 operators were employed. Between 1859, and circa 1862, William MacFarlane and William Wertney utilized the basement of the Mott Mill Building for their own sewing-silk establishment.

During the 1850s and early 1860s, many new industries were established in Yonkers. Due to the influx of factory workers, the population tripled in less than a decade. Most of the industries were built along the Nepperhan River and it is likely that many made use of existing sources of water.

The George B. Skinner silk factory occupied the Mott Mill for approximately 33 years. In 1887, the Skinner silk company relocated to a nearby brick building. The Mott Mill was subsequently used by the Alexander Smith Carpet Company.

The Alexander Smith Carpet Company was established in West Farms (now part of the Bronx) in 1845. In 1849, the establishment consisted of one small timber building with nineteen hand-looms for weaving ingrain carpet. A power driven loom invented by Smith's general mechanic, Halcyon Skinner (no relation to G. B. Skinner) in 1856, contributed to the success of the business. After two disastrous fires in 1862 and in 1864, Alexander Smith decided to relocate his growing business to Yonkers.

In 1864, Smith purchased a portion of the Waring Hat Factory in which he relocated his carpet works. This 1845 timber frame building was situated across the river from the Mott Mill. Successive improvements in the technology of carpet manufacture by Halcyon Skinner led to ten loom patents and vastly improved productivity. In 1896, Reverend Charles Allison enthused: "one operator attending two looms [could] weave from twenty-five to thirty times as much in a given time as could be woven by one working by the best methods known previous to the invention." This greater productivity allowed a reduction in the price of the finished product from "three or three and a half dollars per yard to considerably less than one dollar bringing it within the reach of all who care to have a carpet of any kind."

By the 1870s Smith and his colleagues gradually began purchasing property along the banks of the Nepperhan. Several large mill complexes were constructed to the north of Smith's first Yonkers site (and to the north of the Mott Mill). The main office and counting-room buildings were built immediately north of and adjacent to the old Waring Hat Factory and the hat factory was utilized as the tapestry weaving mill. The worsted mill, which was located on the east side of the Nepperhan on the Saw Mill River Road, consisted of a large three-story brick building which measured 500 x 53 feet, a two-story picker room building, and two separate buildings for wool washing and drying. The print mill was located opposite the worsted mill on the western bank of the Nepperhan in a two-story brick building that measured 516 x 110 feet. Parts of this complex survive about a mile from the Mott Mill.

Alexander Smith died on November 5, 1878, at the age of 60. After his death, the firm was headed by Smith's son and his son-in-law and was expanded. The Mott Mill was incorporated into the Alexander Smith tapestry mills by 1889. By 1896, the vast plant known as the Moquette Mill, located upstream, was constructed. This plant consisted of a 584 x 53-foot four-story brick building, spinning department buildings, store, and dye houses. By 1889, 3,500 were employed.

There was activity at the Mott Mill site as well. There were other buildings on site and additions to the building throughout the nineteenth century. By 1883, several additions, no longer extant, were constructed to the north and to the west (river side) of the original stone building. The north rear addition was wood and aligned with the mill dam. The west side addition was brick. The 1883 Deed map indicates that water was delivered to both additions; therefore, both additions likely housed power-generating devices such as a water turbine. The turbine came into popularity as an attractive alternative to water wheels by the mid-1840s. By 1887, a second rear addition was constructed on the river side, now demolished.

During the late nineteenth century, as factories shifted to the use of coal-fired steam power, and with the threat of cholera and other diseases associated with stagnant water, the Yonkers system of dams was demolished and the ponds were drained. The fifth and sixth water power dams were demolished in 1892.

In 1906, a large building was constructed abutting the rear of the Mott Mill to further expand mill production. Prior to this date, most of the buildings built by the Alexander Smith Carpet Co. had a brick-bearing wall exterior with a wood-framed interior. The new addition to the Mott Mill was 100 percent reinforced concrete, a fireproof construction which would have been an important consideration for a high-fire-risk textile company. The ample natural light from the large windows, nearly three times the size of the old stone mill's windows, would have been another major benefit.

During the early twentieth century, the two structures were used as tapestry mills. In the 1852 building, the first floor was used for weaving, the second floor for shipping, and the third floor for finishing. The 1906 structure was used as follows: first, second, fourth and fifth floors - weaving; second floor - hemming and seaming, sixth floor - setting and winding. This building had an automatic sprinkler, steam central heating system fueled with coal, and had both electric and gas lights. There was a bridge (no longer extant) across the Nepperhan River connecting the first, second and third floors to one of Smith's factory buildings situated on the other side of the river.

The Smith Carpet Co. prospered in Yonkers during World War II by converting its operations to the manufacture of military supplies. After the war, the company continued to diversify and purchased plants in South Carolina, Massachusetts, and in Mississippi. On June 24, 1954, the management of the Alexander Smith and Sons Carpet Company announced the permanent closing of the carpet mills in Yonkers.

By 1956, the 1906 building was owned by the Manufacturers Center of Yonkers and was used by various manufacturers. Cleanart Laundry Co. occupied the 1852 building. Most recently, the property was the warehouse of White Swan Manufactures, a textile company, who vacated the property in the 1980s. In 1993, there were only three tenants occupying the premises: two were located on the first floor and half of the second floor was leased to the Board of Elections. These tenants moved out in 1994 due to the fact that the building had fallen into extreme disrepair. The owner stated that he could no longer afford to maintain the property and, shortly after, signed the deed over to the bank holding the mortgage. In the late 1990s, there were two fires, the last one was very serious. The building was bought by the current owners in 1999 and has been converted into senior citizens affordable housing.

The 1852 stone mill building is one of the few stone mill structures in Westchester County. The mill structure was the workhorse building of the 18^th and 19^th centuries and was a significant aspect of the economy as well as of the mid-nineteenth century landscape. It was particularly important in Westchester, where there were a large number of water sources and robust trade and industry.

The Mott Mill is a more formal structure than the usual mill building, with its carefully dressed stone walls and arched stone window openings on the front facade. The marble plaque at the second floor window sill announcing the name of the builder and the date of construction is possibly unique in the county. The side facades have arched brick lintels, exhibiting their secondary nature and emphasizing the formality of the front facade.

The structure, sited on the banks of the river and deeply set back from the street, has retained its historic feeling as a mill building once powered by water. It has retained an industrial use for well over one hundred years.

The exterior of the structure is almost entirely intact. The only significant alteration is the enlarged middle window on the east side facade. The small, very simple wooden cornice is probably original or similar to the original and is in keeping with the industrial esthetic of the architecture. The interior has been altered, with later floor joists and columns but possibly an original roof structure. There are no partitions and no equipment, but it is unlikely that there were any significant architectural details inside to be lost.

The 1906 building is an intact and early example of a reinforced concrete industrial structure. It was designed and built by a firm in Baltimore, Maryland who appeared to have specialized in this type of structure, the Ferro Concrete Company. Ernest Ransome, a California builder who, in the 1880s and 1890s, experimented with the use of reinforced concrete in both bridge and factory construction, is credited with being the first to demonstrate its potential for factory construction. Ransome's Pacific Coast Borax Plant (Bayonne, New Jersey, 1897-98, 1903) is possibly the earliest east coast factory built with a complete structural system of reinforced concrete. After a large fire in 1902 which destroyed all of the equipment housed in the factory but left the reinforced concrete outer walls, columns and floors intact, Ransome and other proponents of reinforced concrete boasted its use with pride. This building type was called a "true daylight factory - in which large windows spanned wide bays between external concrete columns.

The 1906 Alexander Smith Carpet Company building consists of a grid of reinforced concrete columns and beams. The perimeter curtain walls, which are 6" thick and support only themselves, stand in complete contrast to the original bearing-wall stone mill building. The horizontally oriented structure is characteristic of the early twentieth century industrial reinforced concrete building type, with its slightly sloping, almost flat roof, seamless concrete curtain walls, and very large window openings dominating the facade. The window bays are articulated by slightly projecting concrete piers on the long east and west facades, while the shorter north and south facades have horizontal projecting bands of concrete expressing most the floors. The simple projecting cornice, a throwback to the more ornamental nineteenth century industrial building style, demonstrates the building s early date.

On the inside, the reinforced concrete structure, with its unusual vertical reinforcing bars wrapped with strands of metal wire, is intact. There are no partitions, walls, or machinery. There is no window trim and no doors or doorways and it is likely (judging from style and an original drawing) that there were none originally.

This mill building is also located on the banks of the Nepperhan River and retains the feeling of an industrial building. The large parking lot to the north, once part of the site of the mill pond, has been part of the landscape as a parking lot at least since the 1950s and probably since about the 1920s.

Building Description

The Mott Mill property consists of an 1852 stone mill building with a 1906 reinforced concrete building abutting its north facade. The four-story, three-bay, mid-19^th Century utilitarian stone structure has coursed gray fieldstone walls and segmental arched windows with stone lintels on the front facade. The four-to-six story, twenty-one-bay, early-20^th Century reinforced concrete structure interconnects with the stone building. The simple structure has large inset windows with perimeter columns acting as pilasters. The complex is in downtown Yonkers in a mixed residential, commercial and industrial neighborhood. The 1852 mill building faces Elm Street and is set back nearly 100 feet from the road. The early-20^th Century section is north of the 1852 mill along St. Casimir Avenue. The property is adjacent to the Nepperhan River, which provided waterpower for the mill. The two buildings are largely intact and the property has recently been converted into housing for the elderly.

The 1852 Mott Mill faces Elm Street and is set back nearly 100 feet from the road, but Elm Street was not cut through when the mill was built. There was a small brook in front of the building that flowed into the adjacent Nepperhan River - this would account for the deep setback. This area is now paved and used as a parking lot. Elm Street is higher in elevation that the mill property and the stone rubble retaining wall probably dates from the later 19th-century. The present St. Casimir Avenue, formerly known as Columbus Avenue and dating from c1907, partially follows the path of a narrower 1883 road that led to the mill. The rusticated gray stone retaining wall on the east side of the property dates from the same period. The wall has decorative grape-vine joints and a pointed-rock top. The neighborhood is residential, commercial and institutional. St. Casimir School is across the street and the c1854 stone John Copcutt Mansion is visible a block away.

The 1852 Mott Mill is rectangular in plan with an interior that was originally open and now contains apartments. It is three stories plus basement on the front (south) and north sides, four stories high at the west (river) side and two and three stories high on the east facade. The building is three bays wide in front and rear and eight bays long on the side facades. The walls are dressed and coursed fieldstone. The low sloping roof, concealed by a stone parapet which is stepped in front, is covered in asphalt. The roof is framed in 3"x12" sawn wooden rafters supported at mid-span with a wooden girder. The masonry bearing walls are 2 to 2-1/2 feet thick and made up of dressed stone backed by stone rubble, with rubble infill. The floors are constructed of later 20^th Century sawn wooden joists. The beams date from the early 20^th Century to the early 21^st century, with steel I-columns in the basement, lally columns on the first floor, and wooden columns on the upper floors.

The segmental arched windows have splayed stone arches on the front facade and brick arches on the side elevations. The double-hung, 8/8 wood sash were installed in 2002. The original wood sash were 8/8 single-hung, except on the west facade, where the panes were 18/18. Most of the original sash were removed by the 1980s. There is a replacement paneled wood door at the front entrance. There is a marble plaque over the entrance on the second story with the words "MOTT MILL 1852" inscribed.

The interior consists of modern apartments, with wooden and linoleum floors, gypsum board walls, metal doors, and simple wooden trim.

There were alterations to the building throughout the 19^th and 21^st centuries. A loading door was enlarged on the east side facade in the later 19^th or early 20^th Century. In 1931, 1934 and in the 1940's, a concrete basement floor, new plumbing, bathrooms, stairs and vestibule were added. The exterior was probably repointed at this time. The beams and joists were probably replaced in this period. The windows were removed in the 1970's or 80's, and replaced in 2002. The originally spare factory interior was renovated into apartments in 2001-02. The stairs and elevator were altered at this time.

The 1906 mill addition abuts the 1852 building at the north end and the buildings are connected on the interior. The building is rectangular in plan, 237 feet wide by 73 feet deep. It is four stories high on the east (front) facade and six stories high on the west (river) facade. The long front facade is 21 bays wide. The walls are a smooth concrete, painted off-white in 2002. The low sloped roof is covered in modern asphalt. The structure consists of a grid of reinforced concrete columns and beams with reinforced concrete curtain walls.

The window bays are slightly inset, with perimeter piers reading as pilasters on the exterior reinforced concrete curtain walls. The large, approximately 6 foot wide by 10 foot high windows contain two, 12/9 paned single-hung aluminum sash dating from 2002. Except for remnants of sash in the hoistway shafts, there were no windows or frames in the building. By the 1950s the window openings were partially blocked and smaller windows were installed. Original drawings refer to 35-paned windows. Judging from this, the sash remnant and a 1950s photo, the original windows contained 15/20 paned wood single-hung sash. The glass entrance door dates to 2002. There is a five-story elevator tower on the north end of the building that was added in 1907.

The originally open interior now has apartments for the elderly, with wood and linoleum floors, gypsum board walls, metal doors, and simple wooden trim. The concrete ceilings are exposed.