116 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



colonists encouraged the household manufacture of their own wool int<j 

 stockings with such effect as to produce large quantities of coarse wooleii 

 hosiery. Much of the wool in colonial times was spun as worsted, that 

 is, with a double thread, and was used for knitting. Virginia on several 

 occasions offered premiums for worsted goods, but it was the Dutch 

 and German settlers of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania that 

 excelled in this branch of household industry. Stockings of red, blue, 

 or green worsted were among the articles which a thrifty Dutch matron 

 was proud to display beside her stores of bleached homespun linen . We 

 are told that knitters of coarse yarn stockings in Pennsylvania, in 1698, 

 received half a crown a pair. The German Palatines, who about that 

 time settled at Germ ant own, Pa., established the hosiery manufacture 

 at that place, which has ever since taken the lead in the manufacture, 

 particularly of frame-knit goods of cotton thread and worsted. 



German town hosiery became an attractive feature of the semi-annual 

 fairs established by William Penn in Philadelphia, which drew visitors 

 from neighboring States, and it was always to be found on sale in the 

 market house in the city. Previous to the Revolution the manufacture 

 was essentially a household one and embraced only coarse articles of 

 ordinary wear. Frame- work knitting appears to have been introduced 

 into this country before the Eevolution, either by the Germans of Penn- 

 sylvania or by English artisans from Nottingham and Leicester, many 

 of whom settled in New York and other eastern and middle States. 

 The earliest mention we find of stocking weaving is in 1723, when one 

 Matthew Burne, of Chester County, Pa., is mentioned as having served 

 John Camin one or two years at stocking- weaving, during which time 

 Camm's stockings obtained some repute. Mention is also made of a 

 stocking manufactory at Annapolis, Md., about the year 1747, which was 

 regarded as a great curiosity, but did not succeed. In 1776 the commit- 

 tee of safety in that State appropriated 300 to enable Mr. Coxen- 

 dorfer, of Frederick County, to establish a stocking manufactory. A 

 society of arts, established in New York in 1764, offered, among other 

 premiums, 16 and 12 for the two largest quantities of three-thread 

 wove stockings made in the province during the ensuing year. In 

 March, 1766, the same society proposed a premium of 10 for the first 

 three stocking looms of iron set up during the year, and 5 for the 

 next three, and 15 for the first stocking loom made in the province. 

 It also continued the premium of 10 for the largest quantity, not less 

 than 100 pairs, of thread or worsted stockings made. In 1777 it was 

 stated that there were one hundred stocking- weavers with their looms 

 at Lancaster, Pa., then the largest inland town in the country, and that 

 they were all out of work. There were only three stocking- weavers 

 there in 1786.* 



Stocking factories and other woolen establishments increased 



"Introduction to the Eighth Census of the United States. Manufactures. 



