Merrimac Hat Company

The Merrimac Hat Company was a prominent manufacturer of hats from the 1860s until the 1950s, employing up to 500 people in its manufacturing facilities in Amesbury, Massachusetts and another 1,500 in facilities from Alabama to Nova Scotia.[1] Vintage hats of the Merrimac Hat Company are displayed at the Salisbury Point Railroad & Hat Museum in Amesbury.

History

In 1838 Issac Martin began the manufacture of hats in a small facility on his farm in Amesbury, Massachusetts. In 1860 he entered into a partnership with Abner L. Bailey and a small mill was constructed near Bailey's Pond in Amesbury, which was dammed to allow water for its boilers and wet finishing process. From 1860 to 1866 the company was known as Amesbury Hat and Horton Hat, but from 1866 the name Merrimac Hat Company became permanent.[2] At the height of its success in the 1940s, the company was the largest manufacturer of trimmed hats and hat bodies in the country.[3]

Decline

Although "this company was easily the most prosperous of all of Amesbury's industries",[4] the change in men's fashion after World War II dramatically reduced the demand for formal hats. The company struggled for a few decades before closing for good in 1970. Its facilities near the intersection of Beacon and Merrimack Street remained shuttered until The late 1980s when they began to be converted into luxury condominiums, a process that is still ongoing in 2018.

References
  1. Making the Headlines: How hats are designed, manufactured, trimmed and sold by the Merrimac Hat Corporation, together with some pertinent facts about the history and organization of the company by Merrimac Hat Corporation (1944)
  2. Entry for 'Merrimac Hat Company' in "The Lower Merrimack River Valley: An Inventory of Historic Engineering and Industrial Sites", by Peter M. Malloy (published by the Merrimack Valley Textile Museum and the Historic American Engineering Record of the National Park Service). See also The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, byJ.T. White, 1893
  3. James Sullivan, Hats off to a bygone era - Amesbury collector preserving history, Boston Globe, October 13, 2005 (http://archive.boston.com/yourlife/fashion/articles/2005/10/13/hats_off_to_a_bygone_era/)
  4. Entry for 'Merrimac Hat Company' in "The Lower Merrimack River Valley: An Inventory of Historic Engineering and Industrial Sites", by Peter M. Malloy (published by the Merrimack Valley Textile Museum and the Historic American Engineering Record of the National Park Service)
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