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Page #2 |
Rockland Ma. Historical Commission |
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42 Church Street....
This simple frame factory is a very functional design. It has a large monitor. HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE In 1873 George B. Clapp purchases this from Alden Bass and constructed his fur lined boot factory. Clapp's factory burned in the 1890 fire which destroyed the Congregational Church on Union Street. The Clapp's seem to have rebuilt the factory on much the same foundations as the burned one. In the 1890's the factory was occupied by the Rockland Company, a shoe producer. Valana J. Clapp sold the factory to William Bates in 1896 who sold it to Amos Phelps et al in 1903. In 1900 the Hurley Shoe Company moved to Rockland and in 1903 bought this factory.The Hurley Shoe Company was founded in 1893 in Brockton by Edward F. John J., William M. and George Hunley Hurley. These brothers were born in Brockton. The early years of the twentieth century were a strong time for Rockland's shoe industry and for Hurley which had its main office in Boston. As with almost all of Rockland's large shoe factories this one was out of business by the end of the Great Depression of 1929-1938 and Hurley sold the building in 1940 to the Plymouth Rubber Company which retained it until 1960. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCE Hurley Shoe Company letterhead-- in Dryer Memorial Library-Abington. Thompson, Elroy S. History of Plymouth Norfolk and Barnstable Counties, Massachusetts, Vol. III. 266-267, 1928. Atlas of Plymouth County, 1874 Sanborn Map of Rockland, 1891, 1896, 1901, 1906. |
