USA > Connecticut > Windham County > History of Windham County, Connecticut, Volume II, 1760-1880 > Part 47
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The fabrication of cloth taxed the united energies of the household. Strong arms were needed to break and swingle the stubborn flax fibre, cleanse and separate the matted fleece, ere feminine hands could undertake the hatcheling and carding. Children, grandparents and feeble folk could wind the quills and turn the reel while the sturdy matron and her grown-up daughters accomplished their "day's work " at the loom or spin- ning wheel. The various kinds and grades of eloth needful for family use, sheeting, toweling,-blankets, coverlets, heavy woolen cloth for men's wear in winter and tow-cloth for summer, woolen stuff, linsey-woolsey and ginghams for women and children, were still mainly manufactured at home. And when to this Herculean labor was added the making of butter and cheese, the care of pick- ling and preserving a year's supply of beef and pork, the cramming of chopped meat into skins for sausages, the running of candles, and other vital necessities, little time was left for ordinary domestic affairs and household adornment. The homespun gowns were made up in the simplest fashion. Perambulating tailors cut and made the heavy garments for men, and revolving cobblers fashioned the family shoes from its own cowhides and calfskins. Bean porridge, baked pork and beans, boiled meat and vegetables, rye and Indian bread, milk, cheese and eider, with plenty of shad and salmon in their season, and a good goose or turkey at Thanksgiving, made up the bill of fare. Butchers and
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HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY.
markets were yet almost unknown but a self-regulating meat exchange was found in every community-neighbors "slaughtering" in turn, and lending to each other so that the supply of fresh meat might be indefinitely prolonged. Even their salt was bought in the rough and had to be taken to the mill for grinding, millers from time to time setting apart a day for this specific purpose.
This toilful life, hard as it seemed. had its pleasant phases. No man or woman was ashamed of working. Matron and maid exultingly displayed their webs of cloth and notable pieces of handicraft, and never thought of apologizing when found in short-gown and petticoat at the loom or spinning-wheel by an afternoon visitor. Community in toil developed mutual sympathy and helpfulness. Neighbors and friends joined together in such jobs of work as involved great ontlay of strength. and found that more could be accomplished by working like bees in company, and so husking. wool-picking, apple-paring bees came into vogue, in which old and young delighted to participate. Spinning matches and quilting's relieved the monotonons routine of home duties, the afternoon pleasant rivalry followed by dance and frolic in the evening. Work was made easy, good-fellowship and neighborly intercourse promoted by these informal labor-associations. Rural, social life was never more brisk, buoyant and enjoyable than during the years following the Revolution. As in the parallel rebound after the Restoration in England, the long period of darkness and repression was followed by an extravagant outburst of gayety and frolic. Notwithstanding the poverty, embarrassment and anxieties of many, a certain stir, and spring and hopefulness permeated the popular mind. Social requirements as to dress and entertainment were not burdensome, and these hard-working men and women could always find time to help each other in sickness and need, and participate in unnumbered publie festivities. Training days and General Musters, Fourth of July and Masonic celebrations, dedications, ordinations, funerals of distinguished men, never failed to bring together great throngs of people. eating, drinking and making merry, egen on the latter occasions. The abundance and cheapness of liquor had much to do with the universal jollity. Everybody drank on all these festive occasions, the minister before his prayers no less than the soldier upon review, and the good-wife at every roll of the quilting-frame. Excess in drinking and merry-making led on to dissipation and revehry. In- temperance and kindred vices greatly prevailed. The neighborly " bees." so friendly and helpful in their original design, were often turned into disgraceful orgies. The freedom allowed to young people, the unrestrained intercourse between young men and women, was greatly abused, and lapses from morality and virtue were common
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even among the most respectable families. Society was in a rudi- mental state. It had the vices as well as the virtues of immature development. The masses were yet far from being civilized. Their speech was rough : their fun was coarse and broad. Practical jokes were very common. Nicknames were often given. especially to mark some personal defect or peculiarity. Young people were very fond of playing tricks and prying into the future. The ordinary mode of living was unfavorable to health and morals. Promiscuous occupation of kitchen and sleeping-room was incompatible with cleanliness. Con- tagious diseases often raged with great violence, and offensive cutane- ous eruption was so common that an annual "inting " or anointment was more inevitable than house-cleaning. Fleas and other vermin were prevalent in every household. and no head of hair could be secure from unwelcome intruders.
Social life in the last century had thus its good and evil, its sunshine and its shadows, but whether light or dark predominated it was soon to be left behind. The Nineteenth Century had come. New ele- ments, revolutionary forces were already at work. The spirit of the age had even reached Windham County, and though home and social life flowed on for a time in its old channels. it had led hundreds of val- nable families and scores of enterprising young men to seek more favoring chances in wider fields. As it became increasingly evident that a large population could not be supported by agriculture alone, that six or eight hearty boys and girls could hardly find sustenance, much less a life settlement upon a Windham County homestead. it might have been a question whether the County had not reached its maximum of attainment and was destined to premature depopulation and decrepitude, but for the opening of new sources of business and prosperity. The great law regulating demand and supply brought relief just when the time was ripe for it. The invention of machinery and the introduction of manufactures solved the problem, stayed the ebbing current and opened a new era of growth and development.
BOOK VIII. 1807-1820.
I.
THE CARDING MACHINE. POMFRET MANUFACTURING COMPANY. MANUFACTURING FUROR. WAR OF 1812-14.
TIHIE first harbinger of the new mechanical era was a machine for facilitating the manufacture of woolen goods. Arthur and John Scholfield, who came from England in 1793, succeeded after ten or twelve years of experimental effort in making ready for market " double carding machines, upon a new and improved plan, good and cheap." "A machine for carding sheep's wool" was set up by John Scholfield, Jun., in Jewett's City, in 1804, who accommodated numer- ous customers by picking, breaking. carding and oiling wool at twelve cents per pound. Families in adjacent parts of Windham County hastened to avail themselves of this most welcome aid and service, and in two years Scholfield advertised a second machine already in opera- tion. But he was not long allowed to enjoy a monopoly of this in- vention. Its benefits were too great to be restricted to one town or neighborhood. June 20, 1806, Cyrus Brewster thus advertises in the Windham Herald :-
" CARDING MACHINE.
ATOTICE is hereby given that the machine for picking, oiling and carding wool, erected on the Falls of Willimantic River in Windham, at the Mills of Messrs. Clark & Gray, is now ready to do business. Those gentlemen that will favor the proprietors with their custom may depend on having their work done with neatness and dispatch, and all favors gratefully acknowledged. Price for breaking and carding, cash in hand, seven cents per lb .. eight cents other pay ; for picking and oiling, two cents per lb. cash in hand-other pay, three cents."
Swift and Brewster at the same date advertised a machine ready for work in Mansfield, and others were soon put up in all parts of the County. Few inventions have brought more instant and general re- lief and emancipation. The saving of time and labor and the greatly improved condition of the wool were universally admitted. The most niggardly farmer, accustomed to work himself and family to the bone rather than spend a penny, found that it paid to pay out money or
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HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY.
barter for wool-carding, while women everywhere exulted in the beau- tiful white, soft, clean fleecy rolls which made spinning and weaving a positive enjoyment.
In this same summer of 1806, when carding machines were making their way all over Windham County, the foundation of another industry that was to work a radical change in the mode of lite and labor was also laid. Wool and flax were to lose their ancient suprem- acy. A boll of pulpy cotton with its deep embedded seeds did not seem a formidable rival, but when freed from those seeds and drawn out into cohesive filaments by the arts of Gin and Jenny, and when those dnetile threads were woven into fabrics far more suitable for domestic use than rough tow cloth and heavy woolen-cotton was welcomed as a most helpful ally if not yet recognized as a claimant for royal honors. Experimenters in Rhode Island after much labor and cost had constructed machines for spinning cotton by water power. Samuel Slater with his father-in-law. Ozias Wilkinson and others, had erected the second cotton mill at Pawtucket, in 1798. and now the Wilkinsons songht a more independent position and selected the Quinebaug Falls in Pomfret, as a most eligible site for such an enterprise. January 1, 1806, Ozias Wilkinson, his sons, Abraham, Isaac, David, Daniel, Smith, his sons-in-law, Timothy Green and William Wilkinson, together with James, Christopher and William Rhodes, formally associated as "The Pomfret Manufacturing Com- pany." A deed of the mill privilege, and about a thousand acres of land adjoining, was secured from James Rhodes for the sum of $25,000. The site now occupied by the thriving village of Putnam, with its mammoth mills, intersecting railroads and multifarious business opera- tions, was then a little mill village nestling between rocky hills, still covered with dense forests. " A wilderness" indeed it looked in the eyes of the young Smith Wilkinson, who came in March to superin- tend the preparations for building. The youngest son of the house, fond of books and home, his mother and sisters deeply mourned his banishment to this sequestered corner of Connecticut. Saw and grist- mills, clothiery works, the dilapidated gin distillery, a blacksmith's shop, a three-tenement block built by Captain Cargill west of the river, and two or three small houses, comprised the settlement. Roads of more or less antiquity led to Bundy's mills and the surrounding towns. Land in Thompson, east of the Quinebang. was purchased by Mr. Wilkinson, who prosecuted his mission with a spirit and energy that left little time for homesickness. Timber and stones were procured, ground prepared and everything set in motion. The raising the frame of the " factory " on the Fourth of July was a happy stroke of policy, not only getting a hard job of work out of the national
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MANUFACTURING COMPANIES, ETC.
holiday but enlisting popular sympathy and co-operation in behalf of the enterprise. As many as two thousand people came together to help and look on, and as free punch was furnished to all it was a most agreeable change from the customary formal " celebration." The "solitary walk " laid ont by his predecessor was less attractive to Mr. Wilkinson than a brisk ride to Killingly Hill, where he found agree- able society in the hospitable home of Captain Sampson Howe. In the following winter he was married to Miss Elizabeth Howe, and set up family life in a small house west of the river. Building went on rapidly, machinery was hauled up, and on April 1, 1807, the first cotton factory in Windham County was set in operation. It was a four-story wooden building, a hundred feet long and thirty-two in width. Nine boys and girls picked up in the neighborhood, with three or four men to help and oversee them, comprised its working force. The children were delighted with the new occupation and thought the glittering machinery "the prettiest thing in the world." When on the second Monday morning they found the roads snow- blocked, the little girls put on men's boots and waded nearly a mile through the drifts rather than lose a few hours labor.
It was not children alone who welcomed the new dispensation. The Jennies like good Genii brought with them innumerable blessings. All that they did was to spin yarn for their sister workers. Domestic labor picked and cleansed the cotton and wove the yarn into coarse cloth and bed-ticking. No greater boon could have been brought to the women of Windham County. Nearly every house had its loom, with its active, capable women skilled to use it, and eager to add to the comforts of their family by weaving cloth for Pomfret Factory. Hard labor had heretofore merely brought them food and raiment ; with little additional labor they could now earn much better clothes and many other comforts and luxuries. Young girls obliged to stifle their natural craving for pretty dresses and ornaments, hastened to improve the privilege thus afforded. A store promptly opened by the company, offering all manner of useful and ornamental goods in exchange for labor, greatly stimulated feminine enterprise and enthu- siasm. Women from all the surrounding towns, even the wives of the ministers, doctors and lawyers, entered with alacrity into the lists and looms in competition with their more needy neighbors. The impulse given by the new industry was felt in every direction. Many work- men were employed in tending mill, hauling cotton and goods, pre- paring ground and putting up buildings. A handsome house opposite the factory was built for Mr. Wilkinson's residence, and other houses for operatives and incoming residents. . Much money was thus brought in and put in circulation. Farmers found a new demand for produce
51
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HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY.
and lumber. Labor received a more bountiful recompense and land increased in value.
Other towns and companies hastened to follow this inspiriting ex- ample. In August, 1807, James Danielson, Zadoc and James Spalding asked liberty to build a dam on the Quinebaug between Brooklyn and Killingly, while Rhode Island manufacturers sought privileges in other towns. The relation between the Windham towns and their eastern neighbors, had been always most intimate and friendly. Providence was their most accessible market. Their first public work was to open a way to that town. . In the days of their own weakness and poverty they had joined in efforts for sending it missionaries. In the Revolutionary struggle they had furnished it with soldiers and supplies as well as a patriotie governor. They had taken Providence boys to school while its own institutions were suspended, and sent back hundreds of their own boys to engage in business and useful labor. In trade and barter a most helpful reciprocity had long been estab- fished, and now they joined puise and hand in manufacturing enter- prise. The Narragansets in aborignal days had claimed rights in the Quinebang Country, and Moosup had affixed his name to a large branch of the Quinebang River. Modern Narragansets now invaded the land and took possession of old Moosup's River, but they paid for their right in lawful wampum or barter. Windham gave what she could best spare-land, water-privilege, labor-and received what she most needed-money, and business openings. Asa Ames, Isaac Pitman and Alexander Tefft of Providence. associated with John, Archibald and Samuel Dorrance and Dixon Hall of Sterling, in 1808, as Sterling Manufacturing Company,, buying land "at a ledge of rocks, called the Devil's Den chimney thence west by and down a small brook to Moosup River." Thomas Rhodes of Providence. Peter B. Remington of Warwick, " Holden and Lawton " of Rehoboth, united with Obed Brown, Dyer Ames and others of Sterling, as the American Cotton Manufacturing Company, securing a privilege " near Ransom Perkins' fulling mill on Quandunk River." Rufus Waterman, S. G. Arnold, Joseph S. Martin, David and Joseph Anthony of Provi- dence, Peter Cushman of North Providence, David King of Newport, united with Anthony Bradford, Henry Dow, John Dunlap, Walter Palmer, Christopher Deane, Jonathan Gallup, Joseph Parkhurst, Edward Hill, John Lester, Jeremiah Kinsman, James Gordon, Jun., Nathaniel Medbury, James Goff, John Freeman, Elias Deane, Edward Clark, all of Plainfield, Calvin Hibbard and Lemnel Dorrance of Sterling-" for the carrying on the manufacture of cotton under the name of Plainfield Union Manufacturing Company," buying very valu- able privileges and land on the Moosup. Jos. K. Angell with Nathan
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MANUFACTURING COMPANIES, ETC.
Burgess, Humphrey Almy and other non-residents, arranged to occupy the privilege long owned by Nathan Angell, under the name of Moosup Manufacturing Company. Walter Paine and Israel Day of Providence, William Reed, Ira and Stephen Draper of Attleborongh, Ebenezer and Comfort Tiffany, John Mason and Thaddeus Larned of Thompson, William Condall, senior and junior, joined with Danielson and Hutchins in the Danielsonville Manufacturing Company of Killingly. With all possible expedition these various companies constructed dams and buildings and made ready to join in the spinning-race. The greatest hurry and bustle prevailed throughout the favored towns. The Sterling Mannfactory and Plainfield Union were ready for work in 1809: Daniel- son's took the field in 1810, and others in Thompson, Killingly and Plainfield opened in quick succession. As the increasing difficulties with England shut out foreign goods and raised the price of domestic fabrics, the manufacturing interest increased in fervor. The river ques- tion, so perplexing in early times, was settled forever. No more con- ventions were needed to discuss what should be done with them. Those "tedious" and turbulent streams which had caused so much expense and contention, could be made to run mills instead of running off' with bridges. Cautious men foreboded over-production and finan- cial disorder. The Windham Herald raised its warning cry :-
" Nov. 1811. In Nov. 1809, there were within thirty miles of Providence 26 cotton mills in operation, containing 20,000 spindles and 13 erected not then ready to run. At the present time there are 74 mills within the same distance containing 51,454 spindles, making an increase of 36 mills and 31,454 spindles in less than two years! Are not the people running cotton-mill mad ?"
In spite of these dolorons forebodings and warnings, the people went on setting up manufactories of woolen and cotton goods on every fall that could turn a mill wheel. The larger establishments were carried on by foreign capital ; small factories in several towns were built and managed by their own citizens in joint stock companies. The benefits accruing from these mannfactories more than counter- balanced the disastrous influences of war. Hundreds of men and women found remunerative employment, the raising of sheep, stock and all farming products was greatly stimulated, the tide of western emigration sensibly checked. Even the revulsion following the return of peace and renewed importation from England did not permanently injure the wealthier companies, nor weaken confidence in the ultimate development and triumph of manufacturing interests.
The War of 1812-14, with preceding events and discussions, excited great interest in Windham County, intensifying party spirit and enkindling sectional and political animosities. The old Federalists as a body denounced the war and its advocates, and quite overbore for a
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HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY.
time the influence of the sympathizing Jeffersonians. In the "alarm- ing crisis " following the Embargo Act of 1807, the citizens of Windham Connty were called to meet at its Court-house. Believing that " the same patriotic spirit which conducted us to LIBERTY and INDEPENDENCE will now animate us when that Liberty and Inde- pendence are in danger, and that the American Nation are prepared to sacrifice their lives and fortunes in defence of the only Free Repub- lican Government on Earth against the insidious wiles or the open attacks of any foreign power,"-delegates from the several towns expressed their reprobation of this arbitrary and suicidal Act. The position of the leading Federalists at this time is best shown in the following resolutions passed in Brooklyn in 1809, when after urgent remonstrances from Connecticut, Massachusetts and other New England States, Congress had determined " to enforce and make more effectual " the hated Embargo :--
" Deeply impressed with the dangers which threaten our common coun- try :-
Resolved, that while we will support the Constitution of the United States as the supreme law of the land, we view all acts contrary to and not war- ranted thereby as usurpations of power to which we are not bound to sub- mit, and that committing their execution to a military force is an attempt to establish a despotism on the ruins of Liberty.
Resolved, that we view the several acts laying an Embargo, more particu- larly the last, with indignation and horror for various reasons- lastly, to fill up the measure of oppression it creates a DICTATOR, whose unpublished edicts become the laws of the land, and their execution is committed to crea- tures of his own appointment with the aid of military force.
Resolved, that we will hold in detestation and abhorrence every officer or soldier of the militia of this state who will shed the blood of his fellow citi- zens in attempting to execute laws by force, which are subversive of those rights of the people secured to them by Constitution.
Resolved, to request the Governor to convene a General Assembly.
Resolved, that Connecticut is a free sovereign state, and when powers ceded . to the General Government are perverted, and their political existence as a state in danger of being overwhelmed in the vortex of consolidated power committed to individual hands, it is their duty to proclaim it in the face of the Nation."
Notwithstanding the dominance of the Federal party and the strong influence of such men as Swift and Goddard, personal experience of the exactions and insolence of Great Britain, as well as the spirit of party, led many to welcome the prospect and declaration of war. Windham sailors had been taken from American ships under false pretenses and made to serve for years in the British Navy. The brisk little Windham and other craft had been seized and confiscated under Berlin Decrees and Orders in Council. The military spirit, kept alive by reports of Revolutionary exploits and frequent military exercise, flamed up anew at the report of actual encounter with their ancient foe. Young men of bravery and patriotism, desirous of redressing the
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WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN, ETC.
wrongs of the country and gaining renown in arms, yielded to the inducements held ont by recruiting officers of good pay, clothing and living, with the prospect of retiring "to private life with a handsome property," and being "hailed with enthusiasm as the supporter of the rights and liberties of his happy country." The Windham Herald, while loudly denouncing the folly and madness of those reckless men who were leading the country to ruin, opened its columns to tempting inducements,* viz .:-
"RECRUITING SERVICE !!
TO MEN OF PATRIOTISM, COURAGE AND ENTERPRISE.
AVERY able bodied MAN, from the age of 18 to 45 years, who shall be enlisted for the ARMY of the United States, for the term of five years, will be paid a bounty of SIXTEEN DOLLARS; and whenever he shall have served the term for which he enlisted, and obtained an honorable discharge, stating that he had faithfully performed his duty while in service. he shall be allowed and paid in addition to the aforesaid bounty, THREE MONTHS PAY, and ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY ACRES OF LAND ;- and in case he should be killed in action, or die in the service, his heirs and representatives will be entitled to the said three months pay, and one hundred and sixty acres of land, to be designated, surveyed, and laid off at publick expense.
HENRY DYER,
Lieut. U. S. Infantry.
Rendezvous, Windham, May 11th, 1812. tf6
N. B. A good DRUMMER and FIFER are wanted immediately."
The refusal of the government of Connecticut to order the militia of the State into the service of the United States on the requisition of the Secretary of War and Major-General Dearborn, was approved and sustained by a large majority of the voters of Windham County. So unpopular was the war at the outset that in the election following this refusal only thirty-six Democrats were elected out of about two hundred representatives. Yet they did not hesitate to raise troops and provide munitions of war, subject only to the order of the Gover- nor of the State. Daniel Putnam was made Colonel of the Second Regiment raised for special service. Second Company, Asa Copeland,
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