 The Shop was the center of life in the village of Whitinsville, Massachusetts for over 135 years, until 1976.In 1809, Paul Whitin and his father-in-law James Fletcher and others from Northbridge and Leicester, established the Northbridge Cotton Manufacturing Company.This wood-framed spinning mill, two and one-half stories high had 200 spindles and was only the third cotton mill in the Blackstone Valley at the time.