At a stock holder's meeting, one of the mill men gave a terse report of mill operations and results for the previous year. A questioner from the audience requested more details on how the dividend was calculated. There was a long silence. The question was repeated. Another long silence ensued. Finally, the chairman announced, "If there are no further questions, I declare the meeting adjourned." This true anecdote illustrates the secrecy with which financial data was held. The data below is scattered and fragmentary as a consequence of this tight lipped policy.

Excepts from Sylvia Chace Lintner A Social History of Fall River, 1859 - 1879 Doctoral Thesis, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Mass. 1945

"The 1870-1872 boom may very well have been the result of the success of the first set of new mills, but that is not susceptible of thorough proof, for dividend were not published, because, as one historian suggest, the affluent were "fearful, perhaps, that exposure would excite the cupidity of strangers ...." There is evidence, though, of extremely large profits; "... in the case of the Metacomet they are said to have paid the cost of the mill in a single year ...: The Iron Works, incorporated, incorporated in with a capital of $200,000, had increased in 1845 to $960,000 by absorbing its profits. "No dividends were paid until 1850, but between that time and 1880 the stockholders received $3,073,000 besides stock in the Fall River Manufactory, the Troy Cotton and Woolen Company, the American Print Works and the Bay state Company."

"An extant collection of returns filed with the tax assessor gives official profits at some of the mills for 1868-1871. In 1868 the American Linen and the Durfee paid no dividends. The eight corporations which filed dividend returns ranged all the way from $1 a share at the Iron Works to $1,000 a share at the Tecumsah, with $250 at the Granite, $200 at the Union, and $150 at the Troy. In 1869, when four mills recorded no divided, the Robeson paid 7 per cent, the Tecumsah 13, and the Union 20. 1871 yielded high returns, with $1,000 per share at the Union and $1,750 at the Pocasset. There were equally low returns, too -- $1.40 per share at the Iron Works and 3 1/2 percent at the Fall River Print. It is difficult to tell in all cases whether such dividends represented annual earnings; at the Pocasset, for instance, no records exist for 1869 and 1870. The Tecumsah, the Troy, and the Union, through, paid each year except 1870."

"The matter of undivided profits is also hard to determine. Frequently there were such entries as "charged off to depreciation," "used to rebuild burned cotton house," and "put into new building, " with no record of how much was used. The mills which did give figures, however, recorded fairly large surpluses in 1871 -- $36,989.48 at the Davol, $79,608.96 at the Fall River Manufactory, $38,536.20 at the Troy, and $76,339.70 at the Union, at the total of $341,426.84 in undivided profits for one year at six mills."

"Another index of success is the fact that in 1859 eight individuals or estates, the Borden-Durfee family, paid taxes on real and personal property of more than $100, 000 valuation; but by 1869 there seventeen who paid taxes on incomes of $10,000 or more (for comparison, the average annual wage was $250, JP). and one Borden and one Durfee paid on $50,000 or over. The Valentine estate had been increased from $183,000 in 1839 to $1,500,000 by 1868."