Harmony Mills in Cohoes, New York
Modern Day Photograph

In the late nineteenth century, Harmony Mills Company owned every mill in Cohoes, a town on the Mohawk River northeast of Albany. An 86-foot waterfall, the second most powerful waterfall east of the Mississippi River, made Cohoes an attractive area for manufacturing.

After receiving an honorable discharge from the service in June of 1865, Alonzo returned to Victory Mills. Around 1870, Alonzo moved with his wife, and daughter to Cohoes, New York, possibly for greater employment opportunities. Until his death in 1905, Alonzo supported his family by working as a textile weaver at Harmony Mills.

Mary lived the remaining six years of her life with Mattie and her son-in-law, Charles Wells. Charles had professional ambition, advancing from thread twister to knitter to supervisor at Cascade Mills, a Cohoes textile plant, over a twenty year period beginning in the first year of his marriage, 1878. Charles' diligence enabled Mattie to stay at home as a housewife, the desired role for a woman in the late nineteenth century. Mattie died childless in 1928; Charles outlived her by eleven years.

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