260 Fercy Wells Bidwell 



Village Industries. 



Every town had its complement of grist-mills, saw-mills and fulling- 

 mills; usually there were three or four of the grist and saw-mills 

 and one or two fulling-mills.^ The grist-mills ground the farmer's 

 corn and rye; the saw-mill prepared the lumber for building pur- 

 poses; the fulling-mill, or clothier's works, as it was sometimes 

 called, contained simple machinery for shrinking and dressing the 

 cloth which had been spun and woven in the farm-houses.^ Com- 

 bined with the fulling-mill was often a carding machine which per- 

 formed by water power the laborious operations of preparing the wool 

 for spinning. These machines had only recently been introduced,* 

 but had spread so rapidly that by 1810 they were found in almost 

 every town. The business carried on by these mills was often in- 

 terrupted in summer by the failure of the streams on which they 

 depended for their water power; at other times it was small in 

 amount, being limited almost without exception to the needs of the 

 community."* The number of mills in a community is by no means 

 an indication of an equal number of proprietors receiving their entire 

 income from this sort of industrial activity. Often various sorts 

 of mills were carried on under one ownership, and besides the pro- 

 prietors of these various enterprises were regularly farmers as well.-' 



' Exceptionally large towns such as Litchfield, in Connecticut, had a much 

 larger number of these mills. 



' The business of a fulling-mill in Cheshire County, N. H., is described in 

 detail in Gallatm's Report on Manufactures, American State Papers, Finance, II. 

 435. Its labor force consisted of two men and four apprentices, working four 

 months in the year. The total amount of cloth dressed was 6,700 yards per annum. 

 Such mills were often erroneously designated as woolen factories in early descrip- 

 tions of manufactures. 



» About 1800. 



* An exception is found in the case of towns within reach of a market, as for 

 example the coast towns of Fairfield County, Conn., in which considerable mill- 

 ing of flour was done. 



5 An instance is given by Miss Lamed in her History of Windham County. 

 In Pomfret, Conn., in 1787, one Captain Cargill owned and operated three sets 

 of grist-mills, a bolting-mill, a blacksmith's shop, a fulling mill, and a churning 

 mill, all on the same water power and under the same roof. Vol. II. p. 266. See 

 also Ibid. IL 240. 



An illustration of the combination of several of these enterprises with farm- 

 ing is given in the Hampshire Gazette (Northampton, Mass.), Feb. 20, 1811. A 

 farm of 130 acres is advertised in the town of Savoy, having on the premises a 

 store, potash works, grist-mill, and saw-mill. As if these were not enough to 

 keep the future owner busy, the seller adds that the place is a good site for a 

 tavern. 



