Oliver Chace

Oliver Chace (August 24, 1769 – May 21, 1852) was an American 18th and 19th-century businessman. He was the founder of several New England textile manufacturing companies in the early 19th century, including the Valley Falls Company, the original antecedent of Berkshire Hathaway, which as of 2019 is one of the largest and most valuable companies in the world. Early life Chace was born on August 24, 1769, in Swansea, Massachusetts, to Jonathan Chace and Mary Earle, members of well known Yankee families in New England who had come from England in 1630 in the Puritan fleet with Governor John Winthrop. Chace and his family were Quakers (Society of Friends). Manufacturing career and legacy As a young man, Chace worked as a carpenter for Samuel Slater, who established one of the first successful textile mills in the Americas at Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 1793. In 1806, Chace eventually started his own textile mill in Swansea, Massachusetts, and then the Troy Cotton & Woolen Manufactory in 1813 in Fall River, Massachusetts, and the Pocasset Manufacturing Company in 1821, also at Fall River. He later acquired and reorganized the Valley Falls Company in Valley Falls, Rhode Island, in 1839. The Valley Falls Company would eventually acquire the Albion Mills, Tar-Kiln Factory in Burrillville, Manville Mills in Rhode Island, and Moodus Cotton Factory in Connecticut.