Joseph Wattles¹

Born on December 16, 1824 in Chaplin, CT, Joseph Warren Wattles worked as a bobbin boy in Norwich, CT before coming to Canton at the age of twenty one.  He was employed at the Neponset Cotton Mills until 1877, eventually as overseer or owner.  Along with O.S. Chapman and Charles H. French, he later formed the Neponset Mills James E Grimes corporation as well as the Canton Elastic Fabric Company with businessmen Charles Draper, Horace H. Mansfield, and Daniel T.V. Huntoon.  Later the Narraganset Suspender and Web Company name was assumed and elastic goods were produced until the mill was destroyed by fire in 1884.

Wattles died on February 13, 1902 at 77 years of age after suffering from a severe cold that turned into acute pneumonia.  A staunch Republican, he had served three separate terms as Town Selectman, was on the Board of Trustees of the Canton Public Library for a number of years, and was on the Cemetery Committee.  Wattles was among the last of the prominent local manufacturers that contributed to Canton’s reputation as a principal manufacturing town.  He was predeceased by his wife Fannie D. Marden, whom he had married in 1851.  Their children included two sons--Arthur S. Wattles and Joseph W. Wattles, Jr. and a daughter Marjorie Wattles, wife of Dr. C. I. Porter.  

Resources¹ 

 History of the Town of Canton, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, by Daniel T. V. Huntoon.  p. 546.

Canton Journal, 2/14/1902.