Hawley Silk MIll History | hawleysilkmill.com | Retail & Office Space For Lease

Main Menu

Login Form

Project Links

Downtown Hawley Partnership

EcoLedge

Lackawanna College

Bohlin Cynwinski Jackson

Hawley SIlk Mill Fire 1894

Silk Mill Fire August 17th, 1894 - “The immense stone silk mill, the chief industry of Hawley, is heap of twisted machinery and blackened ruins. Before 10’ clock, Friday night, fire was discovered on the upper floor just over the main entrance, by the watchman, Frank Foster, who immediately sounded the alarm.” Thus starts the newsbreak in a local newspaper on August 22, 1894. The interior of the Bellemonte had burned out, leaving the stone walls intact until shortly after midnight when the back wall toppled into the Paupack Falls.

The fire, which began in the elevator, left hundreds of people out of work and $80,000 in losses. A special train was sent to Honesdale to ask the fire department there for help, as Hawley had none of it’s own in 1894. The Hawley Bucket Brigade, however, succeeded in saving the nearby J.S. O’Conner glass-cutting factory and the Taft, Pierson and Co’s flour and feed mills.

Hawley Silk Mill History

This massive native blue stone structure located on Welwood Avenue, Hawley was built by Dexter, Lambert & Co. in 1880-81 and was known as the Belmont Silk Mill. The building has been popularly referred to as “the largest bluestone factory in the world.” Build for 130,000 dollars, it is estimated that it would cost 14 million dollars to build a similar building today.

The mill has nearly 60,000 square feet of space on 3 full floors and 2 partial lower floors. There is a small blue stone building in the front of the mill that was added later and used in the process of making silk and was known as “the cocoon”. The owner of Dexter, Lambert & Co. was Catholina Lambert, a British immigrant who owned silk mills in Paterson, NJ and who appeared to have had a fascination with castle like structures. In 1893 he built a large castle in Paterson that still functions to this day as a museum and meeting place and is on the National Register of Historic Places.