From New York he wrote to Moses Brown of Pawtucket, offering his services, and that old Quaker, though not giving him much encouragement, invited him to Pawtucket to see whether he could run the spindles which Brown had bought from the men of Providence.

"If thou canst do what thou sayest," wrote Brown, "I invite thee to come to Rhode Island." Arriving in Pawtucket in January, 1790, Slater pronounced the machines worthless, but convinced Almy and Brown that he knew his business, and they took him into partnership.

He had no drawings or models of the English machinery, except such as were in his head, but he proceeded to build machines, doing much of the work himself.

On December 20, 1790, he had ready carding, drawing, and roving machines and seventy-two spindles in two frames.

The water-wheel of an old fulling mill furnished the power--and the machinery ran.
Here then was the birth of the spinning industry in the United States.
The "Old Factory," as it was to be called for nearly a hundred years, was built at Pawtucket in 1793.