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Samuel Whitmarsh opened Northampton's first silk mill in 1834. The building was known as the "old oil mill" because its grindstones had pressed linseed in the days when farmers raised flax and their wives spun it into linen. Whitmarsh's silk machinery was made by the master machinist Nathan Rixford, of Mansfield, Connecticut (the cradle of American silk manufacture.)

After a visit to Europe to inspect the silk industy there, Whitmarsh built a large brick factory, shown below, also on the Mill River, and planted 25 acres of mulberry trees nearby.

His cocoonery -- a barn-like shed on his in-town Northampton estate -- was built to house 2,000,000 silk worms.