Col. Paul Whitin, (1767–1831) was a skilled blacksmith and pioneering industrialist who in 1831 in Northbridge, Massachusetts established the Whitin Machine Works, which would later become the largest maker of specialty textile machinery in the world.He was born in 1767 in the South Northbridge section of Uxbridge, Massachusetts in Worcester County (which became the separate town of Northbridge in 1772).