EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 27 



two sorts, the ftrst a coarse cloth entirely woolen, three-fourths 

 yard wide, and the other a stuff called linsey-woolsey. The warp was 

 woolen and the woof linen, and but a very small quantity of it was 

 ever sent to market. The custom of making coarse cloths in private 

 families prevailed throughout the whole province, and almost in every 

 house a sufficient quantity was manufactured for the use of the family, 

 without the least design of sending any of it to market. Every house 

 swarmed with children, who were set to work as soon as they were able 

 to spin and card, and as every family was furnished with a loom the 

 itinerant weavers who traveled about the country put the finishing 

 hand to the work. 



NEW JERSEY. 



In the neighboring province of New Jersey sheep were introduced 

 by Swedes, first in America of those increasing masses which now bid 

 fair to make the offspring of the Scandinavian races more numerous in 

 America than in their original homes in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. 



In 1634 the scattering Swedish settlements in the Delaware had a 

 few sheep, and under good care their flocks increased and multiplied. 



In 1642 the counsellors of the young Queen Christiana, of Sweden, 

 in giving instructions to Governor Printz, who was about to plant 

 another colony on the banks of the Delaware, said : 



Among other things he shall direct his attention to sheep, to obtain them of good 

 kinds, and as soon as may be, seek to arrange as many sheepfolds as he conveniently 

 can, so that presently a considerable supply of wool of good quality may be sent 

 over to this country. 



In 1693 a letter from one of the colonists to friends in the old coun- 

 try said : " Our wives and daughters also busy themselves much in 

 spinning both wool and flax; many also with weaving." Wool at that 

 time was comparatively cheap. 



The Quakers from Yorkshire and London, who settled Salem and 

 Burlington counties in West Jersey in 1677, with a population second 

 to none for morality and industry, soon commenced the manufacture 

 of cloth, and in 1697 an English writer informs us that they made 

 "very good serges, druggets, crapes, camblets (part hair), and good 

 plushes, with several other woolen cloths, besides linnen." 



Mutton was fat, sound, and good, being only fed with natural grass, 

 and the profit of raising sheep was considerable. They were not sub- 

 ject to the rot, and the ewes commonly, often the first time, brought 

 two lambs at once. The wool was good, but not enough raised to supply 

 the manufacture, for which purpose considerable quantities were pur- 

 chased from Ehode Island and other adjacent places at 6 pence a 

 pound. 



East Jersey was not so forward as West Jersey, though sheep were 

 quite plentiful at the end of the seventeenth century, and every farm 

 had its small flock to supply the spinning-wheel and deck the family in 



