Samuel Holt (weaver)

Samuel Holt (7 February 1811 – 16 September 1887) born in Taunton, Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, was a weaver, inventor and industrialist. He came from a humble background starting work aged 7 in the cotton mills and went on to invent a loom to produce Turkish towels (Terry towels), move to the US and set up his own company.
 
==Life==
Aged seven he started work at Otho Hulme & Sons, print works in Droylsden. Two years later, his father John Holt apprenticed him to work with him in the cotton and silk weaving side of Otho Hulme & Sons business, where he worked until he was twenty-five.
In 1864, Holt was persuaded by a Charles A. Buckley to immigrate to the USA. Samuel Holt left his employer of thirty years and immigrated to America, and helped build and set up the American Velvet Company. Holt brought with him 20 – 30 experienced hands (some family members) from Ashton Under Lyne. 
He first worked at a Mill on Bank Street, Newark New Jersey until The American Velvet Company Mill was built on Essex and Madison, Paterson New Jersey and which still stands today. By 1866-67, the firm took some of Holt's other patents and sold them for $250,000 but soon ran into lawsuits and the partnership failed. Holt is reputed to have taken heavy loss in the legal battle, but in an article written by his son William Holt in Textile World Journal, he stated that “my father never lost a fortune or any part of one in business” 
He continued as Samuel Holt & Co. The company prospered and he soon employed 30 operatives making Turkish towels, silks, velvet and plushes. His next mill was the Franklin Mill built (1871) in Paterson New Jersey, and when that burnt down he built a mill (1872) for himself in the rear of his residence at 108 Straight Street, Paterson New Jersey. The mill was, thirty-two by fifty-two feet, three stories high. From 1870 to 1879 his half-brother, Robert Holt, was in partnership with him. The firm changed to Samuel Holt & Sons, - Samuel Holt, Jr., and William Holt being the younger members
In 1914, his grandson, Samuel Holt Jr., carried on the business.
==Personal life==
Holt first married in 1833, Elisabeth Hibbert, of Taunton, Ashton-under-Lyne, who died in 1841, leaving two sons, John, b. 1834 and James, b. 1836, both of whom stayed in England. His second wife was Ann Aspinall, whom he married in 1847, and who died in Paterson, December 3, 1881, leaving three children, — Samuel, b. 1848, William, b. 1855, and Mary Ann (Annie) b. 1857. 
The Holt family were a christian family following the Swedenborgian faith. 
Samuel Holt's father, John, resided at Woodhouses, near Ashton-under-Lyne, and was a silk and cotton-weaver by occupation. He spent the latter part of his life as general manager and book-keeper of a cotton-mill, and died in 1865, aged seventy-eight years. Samuel's mother, Hanna Kirk, died in 1816, aged twenty-seven years, leaving three children,—Samuel, James, and Elizabeth. By other marriages, John Holt had several children, some of whom moved to America. 
James was a silk hat-plush finisher, died in 1868, Paterson, New Jersey.
Thomas was a Silk weaver, died in 1886, Bergen, New Jersey.
Robert was a Towel Manufacturer, died in 1915, Frankford, Pennsylvania.
===Patents attributed to Samuel Holt===
24 March 1851 – improvement in the manufacture of textile fabrics UK Patent No. 13572 
24 September 1851 – Certain improvements in the manufacture of textile fabrics. Irish Patent 
15 November 1852 – improvement in weaving cut piled fabrics. Patent No. 761 
11 April 1855 – improvement in weaving plush or piled fabrics. Patent No. 801 
13 January 1859 – a new or improved manufacture of woven silk fabrics. Patent No. 122 
7 March 1865 – weaving pile fabric US Patent 46754. 
Category:1811 births
Category:People from Taunton
Category:Weavers
Category:Inventors
Category:Industrialists	
Category:1887 deaths