The Rise of Manufactures. 127 



make any sort of the clothes fit for use and shall shewe the same 

 to the next magistrate or to two of the deputies of this Court, 

 upon certificate thereof to this Court or the Court of Assistants, 

 the party shall have allowance of three pence in the shilling of 

 the worth of such cloth according to the value certified."^ This 

 bounty was to continue for three years. We hear of the allow- 

 ance having been given to Goodman Null and four others, for 

 832 yards of cloth valued at 12 pence per yard, but the measure 

 was repealed the same month (June, 1641), as being too great a 

 burden. Fifteen years later, very definite action was taken to 

 encourage home manufacture, by setting women, girls and boys 

 to spinning. The officials were required to assess every family 

 for spinners, every one so assessed to spin for thirty weeks each 

 year one pound per week of " lining, cotton or wooling, and 

 so proportionably, for halfe or quarter spinners, under the pen- 

 alty of twelve pence for every pound short." Spinning classes 

 began to be formed in the town.- About 1643, some twenty 

 families from Yorkshire, trained in the cloth manufacture, set- 

 tled at Rowley, Mass., and set up a fulling-mill ; so that Row- 

 ley surpassed all the other towns in the making of homespun. 

 Imported wool was chiefly used at this time.^ The number of 

 fulling-mills increased considerably toward the end of the 

 century. 



Along other lines, also, signs of industrial activity were not 

 wanting. Smelting, forging and refining of iron were going 

 on in Lynn down to 1683, and there were iron works started at 

 Braintree.* In 1646, Joseph Jenkins got a patent for 14 years 

 to build a mill for making scythes ; and he invented " divers 

 other engines for making divers sorts of edge tools."' The 

 leather trade was active, and the wearing of leather by men and 

 w^omen was one of the results of the poverty of the country peo- 

 ple.^ Shoes were made in Boston and New Haven, but the 



^Mass. Records, Vol. I, p. 454. 



2Weeden, p. i98. 



*Weeden, p. 177. 



*Ibid. 



*Weeden, p. 182. 



®Bolles, Chapter on " Manufactiires." 



