Jeremiah Colegrove was born to William Colegrove in Scituate, Rhode Island

Rhode Island

The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...

. A man of giant stature, both physically and in the community, he was a prominent farmer

Farmer

A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...

 and manufacturer in New England

New England

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

. Jeremiah served in the American Revolution

American Revolution

The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...

 and helped to found the city of North Adams, Massachusetts

North Adams, Massachusetts

North Adams is a city in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 13,708 as of the 2010 census, making it the least populous city in the state...

.

Family

Jeremiah Colegrove, who became a captain during the American Revolution, was the grandson of Stephen Colegrove, Esq., an early leader in the town of Foster, Rhode Island. Jeremiah married Lydia Waterman and had at least one recorded son, Jeremiah Colegrove, Jr., also of North Adams, Massachusetts, who would follow his father into the armed forces

Armed forces

The armed forces of a country are its government-sponsored defense, fighting forces, and organizations. They exist to further the foreign and domestic policies of their governing body, and to defend that body and the nation it represents from external aggressors. In some countries paramilitary...

 and become a General

General

A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....

. General Jeremiah, Jr. lived and died in a mansion on Main Street.

North Adams

Jeremiah Colegrove moved to what became the manufacturing

Manufacturing

Manufacturing is the use of machines, tools and labor to produce goods for use or sale. The term may refer to a range of human activity, from handicraft to high tech, but is most commonly applied to industrial production, in which raw materials are transformed into finished goods on a large scale...

 town of North Adams, Massachusetts

North Adams, Massachusetts

North Adams is a city in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 13,708 as of the 2010 census, making it the least populous city in the state...

 in 1780. The Daily News of Troy, NY said of North Adams in 1890:

“The real prosperity of the Town had its birth in the introduction of the first machinery for carding wool

Wool

Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....

, in 1801, when one carding-machine was put into Jeremiah Colegrove’s Grist-mill… Captain Colegrove erected a two-story mill on the east bank of the south branch, where the Phoenix mill now stands, for wool carding, cloth fulling, and cloth dressing; and he successfully carried on the business for fifteen years, despite the energetic competition of David Estes, who succeeded Roger Wing in the River Street mill…"

Captain Jeremiah Colegrove, along with others including Benjamin Sibley, formed "The Adams North Village Cotton & Woollen Manufacturing Company".