Although nature and circumstances would seem to have destined Attleboro for an agricultural town, its reputation rests chiefly on its mechanical industries, and during the eighteenth century there were several small cotton mills running in the place. As early as 1825, a traveller following the Ten-Mile River from the Wrentham line to where the stream slips into Seekonk on the other side of the town, would have found two cotton mills near where Whiting's jewelry factory now stands, a third near the site of the "Company's" shop, and still a fourth at Falls Village. Farther on he would have come upon the rude beginnings of the button factory which has flourished so long at Robinsonville; a nail factory at Deantown and another at the Farmers, as well as a cotton mill on the spot where the stove foundry now stands in the same village. Robert Saunderson's forge would have been blazing at Mechanics beside John Cooper's corn mill, and Balcom's machine shop in active operation where R. Wolfenden's sons now ply the trade of dyers. Hebronville also would then, as now, have greeted the visitor with the music of swift shuttles and whirling spindles, as he passed on to the end of his tour of inspection at Kent's grist mill, the oldest, probably, in the country. These rude mills were the original sources of a progressive, ever-widening, material prosperity for which Attleboro is justly noted. Its people display great business thrift; its many commodious factories are crowded with skilled mechanics and trained artisans; and its abundant products are sold by men of enterprise in all the markets of the world. The farm and garden products of the town make a very respectable display at the annual local and county fairs; the textile and other manufactures would make no mean showing; but all these industries are eclipsed by the one business that absorbs the majority of labor and capital, namely, the making of jewelry.