Short answers, pulled from the story.
Beverly Cotton Manufactory was the first cotton mill built in America and the largest cotton mill constructed during its era. It has been called the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution because it served as the testing ground for the first commercial cotton spinning methods used in the United States.
The original business concept was developed by Thomas Somers and James Leonard, who were investors recruited from England by George Cabot. In 1787, the mill was formally established by a Massachusetts company called The Proprietors of the Beverly Cotton Manufactory, which included Capt. John Cabot, George Cabot, Andrew Cabot, Deborah Higginson Cabot, Henry Higginson, Dr. Joshua Fisher, Moses Brown, Israel Thorndike, and Isaac Chapman.
The plant officially opened on the 1st of November 1787, though port records show cotton was being imported as early as March 1785 and the machinery may have been in use before the building was completed. The mill likely ceased operation during the Embargo of 1807, and the brick building was burned on the 13th of October 1828.
Yes. George Washington visited Beverly in the fall of 1789 during his New England tour. He recorded in his diary that "the whole seemed perfect, and the cotton stuffs which they turn out, excellent of their kind."
The mill had no access to government subsidies and the construction costs fell mainly on the Cabot family investors. The proprietors petitioned the Massachusetts Legislature in January 1789, reporting total losses of £687 12s. 2d. The mill also faced stiff competition from water-driven mills, which were more efficient than Beverly's horsepower-based machinery.
On the 11th of January 1798, John Cabot and Joshua Fisher sold the five and three-fourths acres to Samuel Blanchard of Wenham for $2,630.29. Blanchard later sold portions of the property, and by 1813 the machinery had already been described in deeds as formerly used for cotton manufacture. Today a memorial stone marks the site at the corner of Cabot and Dodge streets in Beverly, Massachusetts.