January 1, 2026 | By S. Richter | 10 minute read
During the years leading up to the American Revolution, Peabody’s local identity was shifting. Until 1752, Peabody and Danvers were both part of Salem. Back then, this place was called Salem Village. By 1753, these two towns broke off from Salem and called themselves Danvers. Peabody wouldn’t become its own town until 1855, when it separated from Danvers.
During the 1700s (18th century), Peabody also looked quite different. Where concrete and asphalt roads connect businesses and homes around main street, there used to be wetlands and brooks running towards the North River.
Peabody’s First Chocolate Miller:
In 1737, a man named Gideon Foster Sr., a second-generation American colonist, started a family near what is now Peabody Square. They bought a house from the Goldthwaites that year, located today at the corner of Foster Street and Main Street. Back then, the area surrounding this property would have been low wetlands, where the Goldthwaite Brook flowed into the North River.
Gideon Foster Sr. was a mason and bricklayer, and his skills would be important for the development of Peabody as we know it. Between 1737 and 1759, he bought around thirty acres of land along this waterway in Peabody to build a mill. Water mills were an important technology for producing foods and other goods, and were scattered across every inhabited region of New England. These mills were sometimes complex enough to be able to process multiple things at the same time, such as grinding beans into chocolate; pounding rags to make paper; fulling wool; or grinding tobacco!
Powered by the river system, Foster’s mill shaped metals like sharpening swords and knives and produced chocolate!
Take a look at the two molds in the case. Do you see the difference between them?
“Gideon Foster chocolate mold, No. 2 ,” Tin, ca. 1740. Belonging to the Peabody Historical Society and Museum Collections, 2011.170.2.
“Gideon Foster chocolate mold, No. 1 ,” Tin, ca. 1753. Belonging to the Peabody Historical Society and Museum Collections, 2011.170.7.
One says “Salem” and the other says “Danvers”. Foster’s mill didn’t move across town borders. The borders moved in 1753. Therefore, the molds labeled “Salem” were created before 1752 and the one labeled “Danvers” were created after 1753!
We know that Foster’s mill began before 1752 because of the engraving on the molds he used to shape the chocolate. This means that it may be one of the earliest recorded chocolate mills in the area. Probate records suggest that the only other chocolate mill that began earlier than Foster’s was Habakkuh Gardner, a merchant trader from Salem, who willed his chocolate mill to his wife upon his death in 1733.
How the Chocolate was Made:
The cacao beans were imported directly from Central and South America via the Triangle Trade with the West Indies. Colonial America
had an acquired taste for cacao since at least the 1660s. It was introduced by the Spanish after they colonized Mexico and began extracting resources from the Aztec people for trade. These trade routes and the chocolate industry are intrinsically linked to the Slave Trade and enslaved labor. Based on preliminary research, at least two of the chocolate milling families in Peabody also enslaved African-descendant people; the Jacobs and the Symonds. It is unclear whether these mills were operated by enslaved laborers. To be sure, their businesses depended on the slave economy, by which the cocoa, sugar, and spices were harvested, traded, and worked.
Why did Peabody Become a Hub of Chocolate Milling?
By the 1700s, cocoa would be considered a staple alongside coffee and tea and was consumed by every class across the colonies.
Take a look at this timeline. What happened during the 1760s and 1770s to the number of mills?
Year recorded Total number of chocolate mills in Danvers
1733 ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 1
1753 ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2
1766 ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 3
1768 ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 4
1772 ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 6
1774 ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 8
Peabody and Danvers unique waterways, essential for water-powered mills, was one reason that chocolate mills flourished. Among the other millers during this period were: Daniel Jacobs, Roger Derby, Benjamin Peters, Francis Symonds, Amos Trask, and Joseph Flint.
Another reason was that the War caused demand to increase. In 1767, England passed the Townsend Duties on American foods. This Act led to the boycott on tea, making it politically incorrect to consume tea. As a result, demand for chocolate as a substitute increased. Unlike tea, chocolate was produced within the American colonies and its beans imported directly from Central and South America. This enabled the colonies to have more control over the product during the war.
American Battlefield Trust.
Once the Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, chocolate became an essential food for soldiers. Packed with nutrients and calories, the chocolate was small and lightweight, ideal travel food. Places like Peabody took advantage of this demand and their access to waterways and expanded their chocolate industry.
Gideon Foster Sr., who died in October of 1772, willed his chocolate and scythe mills, along with a portion of his house to his son Gideon Foster, Jr. Gideon the son would not only invest in the mill industry of Peabody by building a dam on the Goldthwaite Brook and expanding the chocolate mill into a bark tannery, but he would become a successful and respected General in the military during the War.