Tremont Nail Factory District

Beside Parker Mills Pond on Elm Street in Wareham, this group of nine buildings forms a working nail factory. The main building, a large shingled structure raised in 1848, measures 240 by 90 feet and carries a cupola with a cast iron bell dated 1851. Nearby stand an office converted from a Federal style house, pickling and storage sheds, a store house, a carpenter's shop, a former cooper's shop used as a store, and two workers' houses from the early 1900s. Nail making here traces to a cooperative of nail makers formed in Wareham in 1819, and the Tremont Nail Company has run the plant since the 1880s. Steel is pickled, cut into strips, then fed through cutting machines, several original to the factory, that cut and head each nail. The machines were once driven by a waterwheel and now run on electricity. It is recognized as the oldest cut nail factory still operating in Massachusetts.