In the 1840s, Patuxent Manufacturing Company president Horace Capron built homes for mill workers in Laurel Factory, including the one occupied since 1996 by the Laurel Museum. The homes originally housed four families, each with a separate kitchen in the basement. Children and adults lived in close quarters and worked in the mill eleven to twelve hours a day. In 1850, men earned an average monthly wage of $9.54 and women $5.00. The company also operated a store and a school, owned much of the early Main Street area, and controlled the town's operations.