In Townsend, Massachusetts, it is said that “a devoted mother and her daughters did in a day and a night shear a black and a white sheep, card from the fleece a gray wool, spin, weave, cut, and make a suit of clothes for the boy whom they were sending off to fight for liberty.” W. J. Stillman in his Autobiography tells of a similar instance occurring in the pastor’s family in Newport, Rhode Island, in whose home his mother grew up. Coming from such homes as these, no wonder that the boys of ’76 won that fight.
But New England was not alone in her encouragement of flax and wool culture. Virginia, where wild flax grew in profusion, was even earlier than Massachusetts in arousing an interest in flax-spinning. In 1646, two spinning-schools were established in Jamestown, and prizes were offered for the best work, until the whole colony was engaged in this home industry. Every great and little plantation had its spinning-house, where the female slaves were kept busily spinning, the mistress herself joining in the work. We are of course reminded of the spinning-house at Mount Vernon, where “Lady” Washington marshalled her dusky spinners. It is said that she ravelled and dyed her old silk gowns and silk scraps, and had them woven into chair-covers. Sometimes she did the reverse, weaving a dress for herself out of ravelled cushions and the General’s old silk stockings.
Madame Pinckney, another dame of high degree, was actively instrumental in starting the flax industries of South Carolina.
COTTON IN POD
The German settlers of Germantown were also great flax-growers, as attested by their town-seal, the device of their leader, Father Pastorius. And what we now know as “Germantown” still testifies to their proficiency in the wool industries.
The wives and daughters of the Swedish colony, as early as 1673, employed themselves in spinning wool and flax, and many in weaving; and the excellence shown by the wool and flax workers of New York occasioned uneasiness in the mother-country, which rightly saw in it the possible independence of the colonies of all English cloth and clothing.
The production and manufacture of cotton was not taken up in this country until 1770, three years after the invention of the spinning-jenny by Hargreaves. Cotton, in the earliest times, was spun like flax, first on the hand-distaff, and then on a wheel like the flax-wheel. For some time after its introduction into this country, it was far more expensive, and considered more of a luxury, than linen. It was called by the East Indian name of “hum-hum.” A work-pocket in the Litchfield Historical Society (see illustration) contains a piece of the first cotton cloth made in America. The pocket is large and was worn at the side, evidently to hold flax in while spinning, for some flax still remains in it. The growing and spinning of cotton cannot, however, be counted among the truly colonial industries.