Originally called Sligo after the eponymous town and county in Ireland, Somersworth was settled before 1700 as part of adjacent Dover. It was organized in 1729 as the parish of Summersworth, meaning summer town, because during that season the ministers would preach here. It was set off and incorporated in 1754 by colonial governor Benning Wentworth, and until 1849 it included the village of Salmon Falls, which is now known as Rollinsford. A clerical error during the municipal incorporation process caused the name to be recorded as "Somersworth." To complicate matters further, locals knew the area as Great Falls!

The city is situated along a stretch of the Salmon Falls River that drops about 100 feet over a mile. The falls were harnessed, and Great Falls-Somersworth became a mill town. Grist- and sawmills came first. In 1822, the brothers Isaac and Jacob Wendell of Boston purchased a gristmill with its water rights at the Great Falls. They established the Great Falls Manufacturing Company, a textile business that expanded to include three mills for spinning thread and weaving both cotton and woolen fabrics. The company specialized in "drillings, shirtings and sheetings." Throughout the 19th century, other expansive brick mill buildings, including a Bleachery and Dye Works, were erected beside the river. A gate house at the dam directed water as needed, regulating the flow either into the river or a company canal, which itself had gates sending it under the mill. Water power turned the wheels and belts that operated mill machinery. The railroad arrived in the early 1840s, before which goods had to be carted to Dover.

As with other major textile towns in New England, the first millworkers were recruited from surrounding farms. The majority were were women led, of course, by male foremen and overseers. As the need for labor grew after the Civil War and the large migration westward, immigrants arrived from Ireland, and later Québec and Greece, to take their places. Brick tenement rowhouses along Main Street, and clapboard houses along Elm Street, were rented by the company to employees' families. Many children worked in the mills beside their parents before passage of child labor laws. For relaxation, workers found entertainment at the Opera House or at Central Park, an amusement park beside Willand Pond. In the early 1870s, the Portsmouth, Great Falls & Conway Railroad began excursions to the White Mountains. The Electric Street Railway came in 1890, allowing trolley rides to York Beach, Maine.

But the New England textile industry went into decline in the 20th century. Water power was replaced with newer forms of energy, and cotton could be manufactured where it grew, saving transportation costs. Labor was also cheaper in the South, which did not have New Hampshire's inventory tax that levied commodities like coal and cotton at the plants. The Great Depression sent many regional textile firms into bankruptcy, when some local facilities were adapted for shoemaking. The Great Falls Manufacturing Company's big mill was renovated for other uses in the 1980s, although the Bleachery suffered a devastating fire in November of 2003. For some reason, its rumble is allowed to sit and blight the landscape. The General Electric Company operates a factory that until recently made electricity meters, although fabrication has been shifted to facilities in México, but shoddy workmanship "forced" the conglomerate to shift production to mainland China rather than back to Somersworth.

Somersworth's heyday was during the mill periods, which left behind some fine Victorian architecture. The city's downtown area has fallen victim, as in many New England towns, to the consumer's choice of chain stores, many of which have invaded the end of High Street nearest Dover. That area, which was once rural, now has all the charm of Massachusetts and its corner after corner of traffic lights. It is progress in only the strictest sense of the word.

Permission to use our copyrighted images can be obtained from The Crowley Collection for as little as $30US per scan. Scans of other sizes and resolutions can be ordered as required. Print media may obtain one-time use for between $70-100US per image. Unmatted prints of these images are available for as little as $50US per image (8x10 inches or A4). They make wonderful gifts.

The Crowley Collection has extensive photographic libraries of general stock photography and golf images. Additional information can be obtained, and orders placed, by using the contact link at the bottom of this page to reach our principal, Ron Crowley.

Historical Museum

Children's Festival

The Mills

Early Baseball