East End's Oldest Sail Maker Sails Toward 150 Years

The concept that stormy seas make good sailors is hardly new, but it certainly applies to running a business. In the case of William J. Mills & Co., based in Greenport since 1880, it’s probably particularly true.

The company has survived numerous wars, stock market crashes, economic changes and challenges and even the COVID pandemic. And through it all, it has helped provide smooth sailing and more to clients across Long Island and around the nation.

The sail maker, that expanded to other products, during COVID even teamed with Greenport Harbor Brewery and other companies to make face shields which it donated to local hospitals and firefighters.

“We did the cutting,” said Bob Mills, vice president and sixth-generation family member. “And they assembled them in the brewery at Peconic.”

Founded nearly 150 years ago (turning that number in 2030), William J. Mills & Co. is likely one of the oldest businesses based on Long Island. They have survived and thrived, expanding and quietly serving thousands of customers for well over a century, without celebrating most anniversaries.

“We really don’t. We’re very modest,” Mills said. “We’re not very good at blowing our own horn.”

Still, sailing on for this long is an exemplary feat for any business, often with a hand in history. The company in 1933 built a sail for the U.S.S. Constitution, AKA Old Ironsides, a frigate commissioned as a United States sailing vessel in the Boston area with work by various sail makers.

“They did a major refit in 1933, and went out to sailmakers around the country. Each sailmaker made a different sail. We made one of the sails for her,” Mills said. “We’re the only sail maker on that list still in business.”

They also did some work for the Steamship (S.S.) United States, recently scuttled after being moored in Philadelphia for many years and crossing the transatlantic in record time from England to New York.

“When she got close to New York, our company was hired. We made a big, 30-foot-long, blue pennant to be flown off the mast as she came into New York,” Mills continued. “She broke the record that still stands today.”

The pennant is now at the Newport News Maritime Museum and the company has many other things on display at the Greenport Maritime Museum. If they have made history, though, they have survived history, staying in business.

“Some people love sailing. Some people love motor boats,” Mills added. “The average boat size has gotten bigger, faster, more expensive.”

If their fame comes from sails, their bigger sales these days actually come from awnings during their peak season from March through the summer.

“During COVID, we were very busy. Our whole industry was extremely busy. The awning, canvas industry,” Mills said. “It’s slowed back to a normal pace. They’re not doing improvements like they did during COVID, when they couldn’t leave their homes.”

William J. Mills, Bob Mills’ older brother, is the president and together the two have run the company since about 1985.

“You do what you have to do when you have a small business” Bob Mills said, noting they have ranged between 15 and 30 employees and are in the middle now. “Our employees are the most important part of our ability to stay in business. They’re our team. Without them, there is no business.”

While good employees are key, so was expansion, adding custom awnings and marine canvas covers for boats. They have been the sole manufacturer of Bosting Whaler canvas for more than 30 years.

“We diversified. That’s what it comes down to it,” Bob Mills said. “We do home awnings as well as boat canvas. Sails have become a minor part of our business.”

They cut custom made sails, covers and awnings (which they began making in the 1920s) on a computerized cutting table that, at 40 feet long and 70 inches wide, they believe to be among the largest computerized cutting tables in the region.

“It’s all craft. The technology is good, creating the patterns, but it’s all craft,” he said. “The computer is a robot. Everything is sewn by hand, not a computer. The only thing automated is the cutting.”

They company first launched in 1880 as a sail maker after the family emigrated from Scotland to New York City. The original sail maker was Robert F. Mills, who spawned 10 children and operated sail lofts on Long island.

The family by the 1930s were in the oyster business when “Greenport was known as the oyster capital of the world,” Mills said.

“They never left sails,” he added. “They still made sails. They just expanded into the oyster business.”

They sold their oyster company around 1939 at the beginning of the decline of the oyster industry and today remain in the sail, boat cover and awning business.

Bob Mills’ father, William J. Mills II, a Yale graduate, took over the business around 1950 and “chose to work where he lived,” but Bob went another direction.

“Once I finished college, during my college years, I was a commercial fisherman,” he said. “It’s way different from what I do now. If I could have made a living at it, I probably would have stayed a commercial fisher.”

His son, Rob Mills, has been in the business for more than six years and now manages the awning department. But for Bob Mills, the water along with the work is the heart of what they do.

“I’ve been on the water a long time. I sailed for many years. I fished. I love being on the water,” he said. “I can walk to water in three directions from my home. I’m not on the water. I don’t have a waterfront property. But I can literally walk from the Bay to the Sound.”

The companies also provides sail and rigging maintenance year-round, but are busiest, all hands on deck, from March to July, doing different things at different times. They during winter wash, repair and make new awnings.

“We try to encourage customers to order in the fall, so it’s ready in the spring,” Mills added. “Boat owners and home owners should consider looking into booking work in the fall or having it done. It guarantees a more timely delivery.”

When asked to name the most popular products, Mills pauses before indicating they do a lot of awning work on the North and South forks along with boat canvas on the North and South Forks and Shelter Island

“We do a national business across the country with Boston Whaler canvas,” Mills continued. “We can make the canvas without seeing the boat. We have 30 to 40 years worth of patterns logged onto our computer.”

They also make a dizzying array of different awnings these days, including retractable and fixed frames, sometimes buying frames from manufactures and putting canvas on it.

“We love where we live, where we work, where we play,” Mills said. “We’re born and bred on the North Fork. It’s a tough place to leave.”

While Mills loves his work, he said, in the end, the company is a vehicle for him and his family to live a good life in a beautiful area.

“What’s important to me is my family. It’s always been my family. My wife, my two children and my granddaughter. That’s first. Second is my friends, relationships with people,” Mills said. “The business is the business. It’s afforded me a comfortable living in a place that I love to live.”