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The bell which summoned the operatives of the first cotton mill to their work really sounded the death knell of the shipping industry. The man whose maritime ventures had been most profitable was quick to recognize the fact. James De Wolf was the first of Bristolians to transfer his capital from ships to factories. With the building of mills agriculture began to decline though for more than half a century onions and other vegetables continued to be exported to the West India Islands. The erection of the great buildings of the National Rubber Company completed the transformation of the town.

Very different is the place from the old Puritan town of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; very different indeed from the Bristol of sixty years ago. Sixty years ago the Puritan traditions still dominated. This fact was especially evident on Sunday. That day was observed with the strictness of the old Puritan Sabbath. Worldly amusements were frowned upon. Every one was expected to go to church in the morning, and a very large proportion of the population attended a second religious service in the afternoon or evening. If golf had been known no one would have ventured to play it. Social ostracism would have followed any attempt at a match game of ball. The only foreign element was the Irish. Very nearly all the Irish had been born on “the old sod.” Today the Irish element is almost the dominant one and the descendants of the first immigrants are as thoroughly American in their ideals and sentiments as are those who trace their ancestry to the Founders of 1680. Sixty years ago there were perhaps a dozen names upon the tax lists that were not derived from the British Isles. No foreign tongue except the Spanish of the frequent Cuban visitors was heard upon the streets. Today the Italian language is everywhere heard and Italian names fill the pages of the directory. With the Italians have come also Canadian French and Portuguese. Walking over the “Common” one day not long ago I passed three groups of men and boys and heard from them not one word of English. One group was Italian, another French, the third Portuguese.