96 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



tially given in a preceding chapter, all tending to the encouragement of 

 household manufacture. In March, 1642-'43, an act intended to favor j 

 the New England colonies passed the English House of Commons. It ex- 

 empted from duties, subsidies, and taxation all merchandise intended 

 for their use, and all colonial produce thence exported to England. This 

 ordinance had its intended effect in stimulating the industry of the colo- 

 nists, yet it probably rather obstructed than promoted the domestic 

 manufacture of clothing and other staple articles of English export. It 

 furnished facilities for a cheap and constant supply of English manu- 

 factures, and rendered the colonists simply producers of raw materials. 

 The confirmation of the law, in a modified form, became a few years after 

 the foundation of the famous act of navigation.* 



Following this act of the English Government but one year was the 

 first regular or systematic attempt at an improved manufacture of 

 woolen cloth made by the people of Eowley, who built the first fulling- 

 mill erected in the North American colonies, the mill said to have been 

 put up by John Pearson about 1643, just above the head of the tide on 

 Mill Elver, where it was still in operation in 1809, and a cedar tenter- 

 post, brought by the settlers from England, still remained perfectly 

 sound. This appears to have been the first place at which woolen cloth 

 was made in New England by people from the seat of the broadcloth 

 manufacture of Old England, " many of them having been clothiers in 

 England, till their zeal to promote the Gospel of Christ caused them to 

 wander." 



Other falling-mills followed the erection of the first at Eowley. A 

 second was built at Watertown in 1662, which was sold the next year 

 to Thomas Leveran, a cloth-worker from Dedham, in Essex County, 

 England. In 1681 one was erected at Dedham, Mass.; another at 

 Watertown in 1686 ; one at New London, Conn., in 1693 ; one in Eahway, 

 N. J., in 1703, and many about this time in Pennsylvania by the Quaker 

 emigrants from Yorkshire and other cloth districts, among whom, in 

 1698, were enumerated dyers and fullers, comb and card makers, spin- 

 ners and weavers. The first fulling-mill of Virginia appears to have 

 been set up about 1692. Their multiplication in all the colonies from 

 this time forbids further enumeration. 



Fulling is an important process connected with the making of woolen 

 cloth, and concerning it and wool carding deserves brief notice. As is 

 well known, the manufacture of wool consists of two principal branches, 1 

 the woolen manufacture proper and the manufacture of worsted, both 

 based upon the qualities and character of the wool employed, and more 

 particularly upon its length of fiber or staple. The worsted manufac- 

 ture requires a wool of long staple and firm fiber, little disposed to 

 shrink, curl, or felt in process of weaving or finishing. Wool of a long 

 staple is the produce of a peculiar variety of sheep and varies in the 

 length of its fibers from 3 to 8 inches. The Leicester, Eonmey Marsh, 



* History of American Manufactures. J. L. Bishop, vol. i, p. 303. 



