56 ON MULBERRY TREES AND SILK. 



MRS. RURBA-NK's statement. 



To the Committee on Mulberry TreeSy S^c, 



Gentlemen — Agreeably to your request I send 

 you the particulars of Mrs. Mehitabel Burbank's 

 commencement in the raising and manufacture of 

 silk. 



A Mr. Jacobs brought the eggs from India, and 

 she obtained them in 1815. Some mulberry trees 

 had been planted on her land some years before by 

 a Mr. David Burbank, who was a tenant in her 

 house. Where he obtained them I am not able to 

 inform you. Mrs. Burbank was seventy years old 

 when she commenced, and in the course of two years 

 raised the silk and made the gown that has been 

 lately exhibited at Georgetown; besides silk gloves, 

 and sewing-silk, a considerable of a quantity. Being 

 ignorant of the art of reeling silk, she was obliged 

 to pick the silk from the cocoon, and card it, and 

 then spun it on a linen wheel, and wove it in a com- 

 mon loom. The gown was colored and dressed at 

 Mr. Morse's mill in Bradford. 



She is now living in Bradford, and was ninty five 

 years old last April. She is the widow of Samuel 

 Burbank, who was ensign in Baldwin's regiment, in 

 the revolution of 1776; came home on a furlough in 

 1777, and died of the small-pox. Mrs. Burbank, 

 likewise, had the small-pox, and has since been 

 pressed for a nurse in pest houses. She has been a 

 widow sixty three years, and followed the last of her 

 children to the grave thirty years ago; and has been 

 a member of a church forty years. She now enjoys 

 very good health, and enjoys a ride of several miles 

 as well as many young persons, 

 Yours in esteem, 



J. W. REED. 



Bradford, November 12, 1840. 



