Stevens Linen Works Historic District

Stevens Linen Works Historic District occupies the east side of Dudley, Massachusetts, along the French River at the Webster line. Its centerpiece is a large granite mill built in the 1860s by Henry Hale Stevens, a pioneer American linen manufacturer. Two tall towers with Romanesque Revival details give the building the look of a medieval fortress. The walls use squared stone in varied colors, and the sills, jambs and cornices carry grooved tooling that the form says is not known elsewhere in New England. Around the mill are a dye house and bleachery, storehouses, a raceway, two dams, a stone bridge and Low Pond, which together supplied waterpower. The district is described as the site of the first, and last, factory in the country to spin flax and weave linen cloth by machine. The mill operated as Stevens Linen Works from about 1865 to 1939. Alterations have been modest, and the rural setting still conveys the period of significance.