One of the first and most influential of these was the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company. The beginnings of the Amoskeag Company were made by a Benjamin Pritchard, of New Ipswich, N. H., who built a small textile mill at Amoskeag Village, then Goffstown, in 1809. In 1822 it was bought by Olney Robinson, from whom, that same year, Samuel Slater received a letter asking for a loan of $3000. This was accompanied by a magnificent salmon as a sample of the products of Amoskeag. Slater, with the instincts of a good sportsman and a careful business man, went there to investigate, with the result that he bought the property, which then consisted of a water power, a two-story wooden mill and two or three small tenements. Larned Pitcher soon joined him, and in 1825 four other partners were taken in, Willard Sayles, Lyman Tiffany, Oliver Dean and Ira Gay. Three of the partners were Pawtucket men--Slater, Pitcher and Gay. Slater and Gay were very influential in the early history of the company. The business grew rapidly and in 1841 they formed the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, which has had a long and successful career. Their charter was broad, and they extended their operations until they included textile mills, extensive improvements of the water powers on the Merrimac, the founding of the city of Manchester, and the operation of a large machine shop. The last, which interests us most, was started about 1840. At first it was used only for building and repairing textile machinery, but before very long it was actively engaged in the manufacture of steam boilers, locomotives, steam fire engines, turbine wheels and machine tools. It comprised two three-story shops, each nearly 400 feet long, with foundries and forge shops, and employed in all 700 men--a large plant for seventy-five years ago. William A. Burke, its first head, left in 1845 to organize the Lowell Machine Shop, which built textile and paper machinery and locomotives, and did general millwright work. One of the workmen who helped install the machinery in the Amoskeag shop was William B. Bement. He remained there for two years as foreman and contractor, and in 1845 joined Burke at Lowell. O. W. Bayley, who succeeded Burke as head of the Amoskeag shop, left in 1855 and founded the Manchester Locomotive Works. Ira Gay came to New Hampshire from Pawtucket in 1824. Besides the Nashua Manufacturing Company and the Nashua Iron & Steel Works, he and his brother, Ziba Gay, founded (about 1830) the Gay & Silver Company, later the North Chelmsford Machine & Supply Company referred to in a previous chapter. Frederick W. Howe, who did such important work with Robbins & Lawrence, the Providence Tool Company, and Brown & Sharpe, learned his trade in the Gay & Silver shop.