LB2010.9.121577

LB2010.9.121577

View of the Goodall - Sanford Inc. Mill, Springvale, Maine in 1949 Goodall, born in England, already was an entirely successful manufacturer when he arrived in Sanford in 1867 with the hopes of buying a small flannel mill that William Miller owned on Washington Street. Over the course of 14 years spent in Troy, New Hampshire, he created the first horse blanket ever designed in the United States and then proceeded to keep the Union Army supplied with them throughout the Civil War. The around-the-clock operation of making those blankets made him a fortune -- a fortune that one day he’d share quite generously with his future home town of Sanford, Maine. Miller was willing to sell Goodall that mill, but Goodall considered the asking price too steep, according to documents accompanying the museum’s new exhibit. Goodall passed on the offer and later spoke with James O. Clark, the man charged with bringing him to Wells to catch his train ride home to New Hampshire. Clark offered to sell Goodall his saw mill and dam, which were situated a short distance from Miller’s property, and his grist mill and dam, located just below the flannel mill. Goodall liked this idea and returned to Sanford a week later and purchased both mills and a boarding house for $8,500 -- that’s $134,000 in today’s dollars. And, by the way, Goodall ended up purchasing that flannel mill too, as Miller finally decided to knock down his asking price. The rest, as they say, is history. As one of the write-ups that accompanies the museum’s new exhibit puts it, “A new era in Sanford’s history was about to begin.” And thrive. In 1883, when Goodall’s production of mohair plush products began in his downtown mills, Sanford’s population was roughly 2,700 people, according to Eastman. By 1910, Sanford had a population of approximately 9,000 people, a third of whom worked in Goodall’s mills. The mills prompted people from all over the place, especially Canada, to come to Sanford to find work and start a new life. “It was all because of mohair plush,” Eastman said. “It made Sanford.” And, Eastman suggested, it’s that population boom that transformed Sanford from a small community into a bustling one that, in 2013, would officially become a city of more than 20,000 people. “Without Thomas Goodall, it’s almost certain that Sanford would not be a city today,” Eastman said. https://www.seacoastonline.com/news/20170914/new-exhibit-celebrates-goodalls-arrival-in-sanford