Samuel Slater, who married Wilkinson’s daughter, was an Englishman who had served his time with Arkwright and Strutt, and had become thoroughly familiar with the Arkwright machinery. In 1789 he had emigrated to America with the purpose of starting a textile industry. We have already mentioned the embargo which England placed on mechanics and on all kinds of machinery. This had compelled Slater to use the greatest caution in leaving the country. Disguised, it is said, as a rustic, he went to London and sailed from there, giving no indication of his plans until after he had gone, when he had a letter sent to his family. He went first to Philadelphia, but hearing of Moses Brown’s attempts at spinning in Providence, he wrote to Brown and made arrangements to go to Pawtucket and reproduce for him the Arkwright machinery. Slater was at that time only twenty years old. After a winter of hard work he succeeded in making several frames with a total of seventy-two spindles, and two carding machines. These were started in a small building, later known as the Old Slater Mill, with an old negro named “Primus” Jenks as motive power. During this winter Slater lived in the family of Oziel Wilkinson and married his daughter. The second mill was started in 1799 by Oziel Wilkinson and his three sons-in-law, Slater, Greene and Wilkinson.[133] [133] _Ibid._, pp. 39-51. Doctor Dwight, in his travels, in 1810,[134] writes of Pawtucket: [134] Vol. II, pp. 27-28. “There is probably no spot in New England of the same extent, in which the same quantity or variety of manufacturing business is carried on. In the year 1796, there were here three anchor forges, one tanning mill, one flouring mill, one slitting mill, three snuff mills, one oil mill, three fulling mills, a clothier’s works, one cotton factory, two machines for cutting nails, one furnace for casting hollow ware--all moved by water--one machine for cutting screws, moved by a horse, and several forges for smith’s work.” This was long before Lowell, Lawrence and Manchester had come into existence.