Figure y. — In thi; Coi.i.f.ction of the Hk.nrv Ford Misf.um, Dearborn, Michigan, Is liiis 

 Original Scholfield Wool-Carding Machine of the early iglh century. (Photo courtesy of 

 the Henry Ford Museum.) 



expense of transporting machines llu- hunclnd odd 

 miles to Montvillc. However, John Scholficld's sons 

 reported '" that they had taken a carding engine with 

 them when they moved to Connecticut in 1799 and 

 had later transferred it to a factory in Stonington. 

 The sons claimed that the frame, cylinders, and lags 

 of the machine were made of mahogany and that it 

 had originally been imported from England. How- 

 ever, it would have been most uncommon for a textile 

 machine, even an English one, to have been con- 



'" R. C. Taft, Some notes upon the introduction of the woolen manu- 

 faetuie into the United Slates, Providence, 1882, pp. 17-18. The 

 Scholfield sons, of whom three were still living in the 1880's, 

 were quite elderly at the time Taft talked to them; only James, 

 aged 98, would have been able to remember the Connecticut 



striictcd of mahogany; and having built successful 

 carding machines, the men at Byfield would have 

 found it unnecessary to attempt the virtually impos- 

 sible feat of importing an English one. If it ever 

 existed and was taken to Connecticut , therefore, this 

 machine was probably not a carding machine manu- 

 factured by the Scholfields. It is more probable that 

 the first Scholfield carding machine remained in the 

 Byfield mill as the property of the Newburyport 

 Woolen Manufactory. 



During the next half century, this mill was held by 

 a number of individuals. \Villiam Barllett and Moses 

 Brown, two of the leading stockholders of the com- 

 pany, sold it in 1804 to John Lees, the English over- 

 seer who succeeded the Scholfields, and he continued 

 to operate it for about 20 years. On .August 24, 1824, 



10 



BULLETIN 218: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY .AND TECHNOLOGY 



