The Ware Manufacturing Company was incorporated in 1823 to utilize a waterpower site purchased in 1821 by Holbrook and Dexter. The partners appear to have been involved in the establishment of several of the mills with whom the Ware Company did business. Among these were Three Rivers, Swift River, Boston and Canton, and New England Manufacturing Company. Several of these mills met with financial collapse at about the same time as the Ware Company did.

The Ware Manufacturing Company produced woolen and cotton cloth, textile machinery, and parts. The first mill was a small woolen mill on the south side of the Ware River. In 1824 a larger was begun at the upper falls. Eventually there were two cotton mills, one woolen mill and two machine shops, as well as company-owned hotel, farm, houses and land. In 1828 the company had 450 employees and produced 850,000 yards of cotton cloth and 300,000 yards of woolens, mostly “Negro cloth”. Negro cloth is the cloth specifically made to clothe enslaved people in the South and is also referred to “Slave cloth” or “Lowell cloth” because the mills in Lowell, Massachusetts produced so much of it.

The company failed in 1828 and was conveyed to the Phoenix Company. By early 1829 the Hampshire Company became the owners and in 1830 the works were enlarged, but the company failed again in 1837. The Otis Company, formed in 1839, acquired part of the Ware property and in 1841 Gilbert and Stevens acquired the remainder.

Individuals involved with the company include Colonel Anthony Olney, superintendent of the machine shop and was also an incorporator of Three Rivers; Thomas Dexter, founder, who left Ware for the New England Manufacturing Company at Grafton; Sampson V.S. Wilder, a Boston commercial figure and a member of Ware’s Board of Directors (when he was asked to act as agent at the mills in hopes of straightening out the company’s affairs.); and Lewis Tappan, the treasurer, and fellow Boston businessman.

Both Lewis and Wilder left Massachusetts and textile manufacturing to go to New York where they became active in the Abolitionist movement. Tappan becoming especially prominent for his involvement in the Amistad case and helping to found colleges open to both female and Black students.