The wool trade of the United States; history of a great industry; its rise and progress in Boston, now the second market of the world ...

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I. Prenatal

Trading in wool as a business by itself has been followed in the United States less than a hundred years. Yet in 1897 the volume of business in wool at the country's chief wool center surpassed that of any other market in the New or in the Old World.

This marvelously rapid advance in a trade is significant in many ways. It first reflects the growth of the country and the development of its natural resources. It bears conclusive witness to the progressive character of the people and their adaptability to the intricacies of commerce and finance. It shows their daring in the manipulation of a vast volume of the world's commodities, their fearlessness in operations involving millions of dollars placed at a venture, their shrewdness, calculativeness, and their confidence in self -judgment and native resource.

But more than all else this evolution, within a century from an embryonic trade of bartering by comparatively valued commodities to a business encompassing hundreds of millions of pounds of wool and involving extensive capital, evidences the patient, remitless toil, the unconquerable energy, and the ingenuity of the several generations of men who built up the wool manufacturing industry of this country to its present well-nigh peerless perfection.

BIRTH OP THE TRADE.

In the early part of the present century wool manufacture in America was in its birth throes. At the dawn of the nineteenth century the production of woolen cloths was just emerging from a household industry to its more comprehensive scope as a public enterprise. During the period of colonial life the agriculturists, constituting the greater part of our people, spun their yarn from their own carded wool and wove their cloths for wear at their own hearthstones. Later, as the colonists became generally more affluent, the imported English goods were most widely worn, while homespun clothing was confined chiefly to the poorer people and those living near to the soil.

England watched with jealousy the expanding desire shown by the colonists to clothe themselves with their own homespun garments, and when it became evident that the Americans were about to embark independently upon the enterprise of wool manufacture, the mother country stood ready to use every means in her power to preserve the industry and trade to herself and to stamp out the nascent establishment in the New World. The first mill in the United States for the entire production of cloth from wool as it was taken from the sheep's back was built and put into operation toward the close of the eighteenth century, some half dozen years after the treaty at Paris.

EARLY FULLING MILLS.

For nearly a century and a half mills for fulling the cloth as it was brought woven from the homesteads had been in existence in every settlement of prominence throughout the eastern colonies, being generally run in conjunction with the village saw or grist mill and forming nearly as important an adjunct to the village industries.

Presently these fulling mills added the archaic hand cards to their equipment, and their usefulness expanded. Farmers would send their cleansed wool to the mills to be carded into rolls suitable for spinning, and when the yarn had been woven into cloth at the hearthstone another trip was made to the mill to bring back the cloth fulled and finished. But it was not until 1788 that a movement was set on foot to differentiate wool manufacture from a household industry. In this year a fund was raised in Connecticut by subscription td establish at Hartford. a plant for the manufacture of woolen cloth.

THE HARTFORD WOOLEN COMPANY.

On the 2d of May, 1788, the Hartford Woolen Company announced that business operations should be at once begun as soon as sufficient wool had been secured by the agent. At the beginning of the following year, 1789, the company held its first sale of cloth, which was of a satisfactory quality when there were taken into consideration the mill's ramshackle equipment and the poor quality of the raw material. Yet goods of British make, of better quality, imported over a duty of 5 per cent, undersold the American goods in the town of their manufacture.

This first enterprise was a much-qualified success, since its operative facilities were of the most crude character, such as might have been found on a smaller scale in every household throughout New England. Competition under these conditions with foreign goods was impracticable. The Hartford Woolen Company lived, however, to attain the unique and creditable distinction of supplying the Union's first and greatest President with his inaugural suit of clothes, and shortly afterwards went out of business.

ARTHUR AND JOHN SCHOFIELI).

Six years after this first attempt newer methods of manufacture were introduced into the United States through the efforts of two English mechanics, who had come to win their fortune in America and had brought with them their knowledge of the English wool manufacture of that day. These two brothers, Arthur and John Schofield, came to the United States in 1793, and as theirs was the first attempt made in America to manufacture woolens in a manner similar to that in the matured mills of Europe, their efforts deserve permanent record in the annals of the industries.

In October of 1794 the Schofields had constructed and put into operation America's first carding machine, and its successful workings attracted widespread interest and attention. The machine placed the industry on a higher and more matured plane, and once it was thus fairly under way it expanded rapidly, rearing its youthful head with somewhat amazing frequency throughout the Xew England and other Xorthern and Eastern States.

It gave to the eighteenth century as its chief product, and in addition to the staple broadcloth made from the imported fine wools, such coarse, rough cloth as could alone be made from the harsh, heavy fibered wool of the domesticated sheep of America. Spanish sheep, before the days of the merino, producing coarse wool suitable only for carpets, had been early introduced into Mexico. The sheep of Virginia and Massachusetts were of the English breed of that time, long legged, narrow chested, yielding very coarse wool, not at all similar to the highly bred Lincolns and Shropshires of to-day. The flock in Xew York State, comprising chiefly the lowland sheep of Holland, were not unlike the breed in Massachusetts.

The mills of the late eighteenth century drew upon supplies of foreign wool for a good share of their raw material. But the cost of the imported wool, disproportionate, though at that time duty free in its relation to the production of cloths from domestic wool, rendered dependence upon foreign stock undesirable and encumbered the progress of the industry with additional obstacles.

PROTECTION ADVANCES THE INDUSTRY.

With the ushering in of the nineteenth century the newly born industry appeared to acquire fresh life. The minimum of protection afforded by the first tariff of the United States, enacted in 1789. was turned to every possible advantage by the manufacturers. This first tariff was apparently not designed to extend protection to the wool manufacture, nor, indeed, was protection its first purpose. After the Revolution the country was burdened with an extensive war debt, and to alleviate this load an act was passed on July 4, 1789, which laid a duty upon almost all incoming merchandise. In its preamble reference was made to the necessity for " encouragement and protection of manufacturers," but in view of the undeveloped condition of the wool manufacture in the United States at that time, and its lack of recognition as a public industry in Alexander Hamilton's comprehensive report some two years later, it is safe to conclude that the duty on importations of woolen goods was designed for purposes of revenue only.

In 1800 our consuls and ministers resident abroad were inculcated with the idea of infusing into the flocks of America the high breed attained in sheep husbandry in foreign countries. Their first efforts were attended with the usual obstacles which greet the inception of all new ideas. In 1801 the first full-blooded merino buck imported into the United States was brought by M. Dupont de Xemours, who had secured from the French Government 4 lambs from a flock of 4,000 merino sheep presented to France through the Spanish treaty of Basel. Of the 4 sheep with which M. Dupont had started for America only one survived the voyage, but his progeny, distributed through New York and later through Delaware, materially enriched the breed in those States.

EXPENSIVE MUTTON.

Previous attempts to bring Spanish sheep into America had been unsuccessful. The Hon. William Foster, of Boston, in 1793, smuggled into this country, on account of their exportation being prohibited, two ewes and a ram of Spanish breed and gave them to his friend, Andrew Craigie, of Cambridge. Mr. Craigie, ignorant of their value as wool producers, rejoiced in their excellence as mutton, but some years later when he was called upon to pay $1,000 for a ram of similar breed was forced to regret his hasty appetite.

Dr. James Mease, of Philadelphia, endeavored to secure merino sheep from abroad as early as 1796-97, but his consignments were lost en route, and it was some years later before his attempts in that respect met with success.

In this same year of 1801 Arthur Schofield, one of the two mechanics who had first brought English methods into American factories, completed the first improved carding machine in New England. One of the many obstacles which England imposed in the way of the growing wool manufacturing industry of America was prohibiting from being sent to this country any plans, patterns, machinery, or its parts, such as were in common use in the highly perfected English mills. Thus Schofield was obliged to make several voyages to the land of his birth to familiarize himself with English machines so that he might from memory construct similar works in the country of his adoption. His successful endeavors in the year noted constituted the greatest single step yet made in America's nascent industry, and to his efforts and those of his brother John more than to any one thing else is due the early establishment of wool manufacturing in this country.

The fulling mills, though indispensable to the colonists, were not of the same importance in the development of wool manufacture as was the Schofields' carding mill, which was the true precursor of the woolen mill of to-day. The former, when the manufacture of woolen cloths was distinctly a household enterprise, afforded a separate trade in itself, and even into the youth of the nineteenth century the " clothier " of the colonists yet practiced his Calling.

THE MERINO STRAIN.

In the following year, that of 1802, greater and more important progress was made in the infusion of the merino strain into the American flocks. Through the instigation of Hon. David Humphreys, ambassador from the United States to the court of Madrid, 100 merino sheep were purchased in Spain and driven across Portugal to Lisbon by three Spanish shepherds, under an escort guard of Portuguese soldiers. This little flock was brought to New York by the ship Perseverance, in which the brothers Schofield had nine years earlier taken passage to America, and from thence taken by sloop to Derby, Conn.

The Hon. Kobert R. Livingston, minister resident at Paris, in the same year secured for exportation to America a half dozen sheep from the imperial flock of France, which had been established at Chalons in 1786. Mr. Livingston had his flock of merinos brought to his farm at Clermont, in Columbia County, N. Y., and his first attempt to establish merino stock in America shortly achieved wonderful success.

The introduction of these two lots of pure merino breed constituted a most important step in sheep husbandry in America, and was the first of many efforts in a similar direction, which in a few years brought the flocks of the country to a much higher grade of usefulness as wool producers. As soon as the superior merino wool was found to be raised in quantitj^, fine woolen mills, with improved and necessary equipment, were established; inducements were thereby given to growers to multiply the number of their fine wool growing sheep, and many were encouraged to engage both in the growing and the manufacture of the finest wool.

COL. DAVID HUMPHREYS.

In the year 1803 Col. David Humphreys, who had done such serviceable work in American sheep husbandry, engaged in operating a fulling mill in Derby, Conn. This enterprise some years later took him into the business of wool manufacturing in accordance with the methods perfected first by the Schofields, which had quickly been diffused throughout the United States. Associated with Colonel Humphreys in this work was a skilled maker of woolen cloths, trained in the factories of England, and the energy and financial resources of the one united with the knowledge of his trade and the skill in labor of the other presently rendered their mill the best equipped and one of the most successful of the American wool manufactories of that day.

This mill produced chiefly the finest of domestic broadcloths, said to be " inferior to none which is imported," which brought $4.50 per yard. An account of the factory, written some feV years later, however, states that the equipment consisted of "4 breaker and finisher cards, 2 jennies, a billy with 40 spindles, a picker, 4 fulling mills, 2 newly invented shearing machines, 4 broad looms, 8 narrow looms, and 18 stocking frames.

II

The Schofields also were not idle at this time, and although engaged principally in the construction of carding machines, yet found opportunity to establish woolen factories here and there in New England. One of their mills at Pittsfield, Mass., was the first producer in the country of broadcloth from merino wool. The fabric in question was gray mixed, and when it was offered for sale in the town of its production the local -dealers looked at it askance.

Some short time later one of the principal merchants of Pittsfield brought back from New York several pieces of this same cloth, which he had purchased there for " foreign " goods. Together with his Pittsfield woolen mill. Arthur Schofield conducted the manufacture of single and double carding machines of improved pattern, which he sold complete for $400, although several years earlier his carding machines had brought as high as $1,300 each.

Livingston's flock of merinos.

During this same period finest merino bucks from Spain commanded $300 a head, and the profitable opportunities afforded by the expansion of the merino flocks in America encouraged considerable enterprise in that direction. In 1807 Robert R. Livingston issued to a local agricultural society a very interesting report on the condition of his imported merinos, showing the profits which had accrued from their yield. His 5 full-blood merinos of Rambouillet stock had that year yielded 28f pounds of wool, which was sold for 10 shillings per pound. From interbreeding Mr. Livingston had secured 24 three-quarter bred sheep, which gave 106 pounds of wool that brought 5 shillings a pound (though valued at 8), and 30 half-bred sheep, which yielded 139J pounds of wool, for which 5 shillings per pound was obtained. This sale was one of the first of that sort of wool which had taken place in the United States. Full-blood ram lambs brought $100 each, while seven-eighths bred ewes were worth $40.

From the few attempts which had been made to introduce merino sheep into this country such successful results had been obtained that farmers here and there throughout the North and East were paying more attention to sheep husbandly. The demand for the finest wool was still further augmented by the establishment of several new manufactories, adapted for working it into the best cloth of the period; but, although this demand was considerably in excess of the domestic supply, woolen manufacture in general had received all told but a small share of the country's attention.

THE COUNTRY'S COMMERCIAL INTERESTS.

The United States was then dominated by tw^o industrial and commercial classes. These were the agriculturists, developing the natural resources of the country and extending the possibilities of native production, and the merchants who dealt in these products in their own country, but concerned themselves most particularly in trading with other nations. Excellent prices were obtained for all natural products, and the extensive markets open to American enterprise in colonial days were further increased in the latter part of the eighteenth century by the political disturbances of southwestern Europe. Moreover, the carrying trade the world over was an exceedingly profitable venture-, offering especial inducements to Americans who shipped from their own ports the natural produce of the land and brought back the finished goods from foreign markets.

The cost of importation was relatively so meager that the thought of building up a manufacturing industry sufficient in itself to supply all domestic wants hardly suggested itself to the country. It is true that the stern object lesson offered by the lack of sufficient clothing during periods of the Revolution was felt the country over, yet when the war was at an end and importations were again being received the people became indifferent to the possibilities of a repetition of the same scarcity and want, which the future might, and. indeed, did, hold for them.

THE WOOL TEADE OF THE UNITED STATES.

RIVAL INDUSTRIAL PURSUITS.

Moreover, the two distinct commercial interests of the United States were in themselves so very profitable, rendered so by the peculiar conditions of the world's trading, that the greater body of Americans had become accustomed to their promotion alone. Any nascent interests that promised to rival or antagonize these pursuits were especial objects of aversion, and in the popular fear that the new manufacturing industries might divert labor and capital from the nation's accepted callings adverse legislation even was not wanting to protect the latter from encroachment.

In 1802 the peace of Amiens set Europe at rest for a time, and the return of the soldiers to their trades and industries affected notably the growing volume of America's foreign commerce. During the two years of European tranquillity which followed, our carrying trade lessened markedly, and with a check to this enterprise internal industries secured a moment's respite in which they established more firmly their hard-won position. In 1804, however, our carrying trade increased magnificently, and up to and including 1807 dominated all other interest in this country. In this latter year the exports of the United States reached the highest value yet attained, nor was it surpassed until 1838. It amounted in value to $108,343,150, an increase in sixteen years of $89,331,109. The imports into the United States during the same year were valued at $138,500,000, also a highwater mark.

MANUFACTURES DEVELOP

WITH RESTRICTION TO FOREIGN COMMERCE.

1808-1814. •

In 1808 began the retaliatory acts of the United States directed against Great Britain, which culminated four years later in actual warfare. The first of these was the famous embargo act which, prohibiting American vessels from engaging in any foreign trade and foreign vessels from taking cargoes from the United States, practically destroyed, for the time being, all American commerce with other lands. In the following year the too stringent act of 1808 was modified to the form of nonintercourse only with England and France, but the commerce of the United States with other nations, which had received its first serious blow, languished and lessened in volume for seven consecutive years.

During this suspension of foreign trade the manufacturing industries of the country made their first great progress. TTith the partial cessation of importations there came the greater necessity for supplying home wants from domestic sources. Furthermore, American merchants, exporting and importing traders, had made a great deal of money during the prosperous season of extensive commerce, whose curtailment left much unemployed capital all over the country.

The unsparing efforts of the Schofields, of Humphreys, and others no less persevering or energetic had shown to the people of the United States the possibilities afforded by an extensive manufacturing industry. Consequently the current of national attention ran largely in that direction, slowly, at first, as the difficulties of the enterprise appeared greater than the results would warrant, but gathering volume and force as the dependence of the country upon l home supplies increased each year with the continued exclusion of foreign goods.

The result thus noted was not, however, of immediate ensuance upon the restrictive acts. Indeed, internal industry and commerce was at first much depressed and demoralized by the stoppage of foreign commerce, which had the effect of checking the free circulation of currency. But later, when absolute prohibition of foreign trade had been changed to nonimportation, specie flowed rapidly into the United States and money became more plentiful.

NEED OF FINE WOOL.

The chief hindrance to rapid progress in wool manufacture was the small available supplies of desirable raw material, and to the end of establishing an adequate fine-wool producing flock in the United States several prominent agriculturists bent their efforts. Assured of a ready market for all the fine wool that could be grown, promoters of merino breeding pursued their attempts on a much more extensive scale than heretofore. Mr. Livingston had, between 1807 and 1811, increased his stock to the number of 645 sheep from full to half blood, and 310 of the best American ewes and half or three-fourths wethers. There had also been brought to Cheshire, Mass., sheep of the English breed known as New Leicester or Bakewell and from this flock halfblood ram lambs sold for $30 per head.

The full-blood merino sheep of Spanish breed, which had come from the flocks of Mr. Livingston in New York and of Colonel Humphreys in Connecticut, rose rapidly in price as their value in wool manufacture became generally recognized. Their scarcity in that period commanded for them seemingly extravagant prices, since from $500 to $1,500 was paid for single rams. In 1809 Hon. William Jarvis, American consul at Lisbon, whose home was at Weathersfield, Vt., sent to this country 1,400 merino sheep, purchased from the crown flocks of Eseuriel, which were sold at that time by order of the French Government. A short time afterwards Mr. jarvis sent over 2,500 more full-blood merinos, which increase to the American flock some years afterwards reduced the prices which the breed earlier commanded, but which also greatly assisted fine wool manufacture in this country.

PROMOTION OF THE MERINO BREED.

In 1810 public auctions Avere held at Philadelphia for the sale of fine merinos. Full-blood sheep brought from $230 to $250 each. One lot comprising 25 sold for $5,900, while a lot of 63 ewes brought $250 a head. For full-blood bucks as high as $350 was obtained. In New York State, where promoters of fine sheep husbandry were more energetic in their endeavors and the merinos were even more scarce, fine bucks were sold at $500 to $1,500 a head.

In 1811 sj^stematic movements were made in France and in England to propagate the valuable merino breed and for this purpose societies were formed, after which Americans patterned. One such organization, known as the Merino Society of the Middle States, held its first meeting at the farm of its president, near Haddonfield, N. J. Several hundred full-blood merinos were exhibited, and the interest awakened was shown in the publication shortly afterwards by the

THE WOOL TBADE OF THE UNITED STATES.

society of a list of premiums of from $20 to $50 for essays on sheep husbandry and for best examples of the merino stock.

The earliest census report of the number of sheep in the United States was that for the year 1810, when the total number was estimated to be 10,000,000. Of this number, however, only a very small proportion produced wool that could be used with any degree of satisfaction in the woolen or worsted mills of that day. The estimated yield of wool in the same year was reported at 13,000,000 pounds, which, when compared with the number of sheep, showing an average yield of 1.3 pounds per sheep, reflects the difficulties under which the statistician of 1810 labored.

EEVIVAL IN MANUFACTURING.

A revival in domestic industries had followed the temporary check upon internal commerce exerted by the disturbance in the country's foreign relations. By 1809 a quite plentiful supply of the necessary quality of wool was available for manufacturers of fine cloths and the very satisfactory profit on finished goods, which the scarcity of woolen goods in America afforded, induced several new ventures in their manufacture. During this year several factories, in a small way, were started in Massachusetts, which State already contained some of the most important mills in the Union, James Beaumont was then making satinets in his mill, on the Neponset River, which he had built the year previous. This fabric, which was woven with a warp of sea-island cotton, was very popular and commanded, according to Beaumont's own account, $3.50 per yard.

Following the example of the Hartford Woolen Company, which had supplied Washington with his inaugural clothes, the factory of Colonel Humphreys this year sent President-elect Madison a coat made from the finest merino wool, while the recipient wore also on his inauguration a waistcoat and small- clothes from fleeces of the Livingston flock, of Clermont.

In 1810, Secretary of the Treasury Gallatin, in response to a resolution by the House, taken in 1809, submitted a partially complete report on the manufactures of the country. Information had been obtained, among other subjects, on 15 woolen mills, although there were undoubtedly a number more in existence at that time. These mills were established one each at New Ipswich, N. H. ; Byfield, Mass.; Warwick and Portsmouth, R. I.; Humphrey sville (Derby), Conn. ; Poughkeepsie, N. Y. ; two on the Brandywine, Del. ; one each at Baltimore, Elkton, and Frederick, Md. ; three and some smaller ones at Philadelphia and one at Germantown, Pa. The capital of these 15 mills was from $3,000 to $20,000 each. They employed from 8 to 29 hands and produced annually from 5,000 to 27,000 yards of cloth.

The factories at Humphrey sville, Poughkeepsie, and one of the mills on the Brandywine made chiefly broadcloth from the merino wool. The origin of these 3 manufactories can be traced to the importation of Spanish full-blood merinos made, respectively, by Colonel Humphreys, Robert R. Livingston, and M. Dupont. The average price secured for their products by the 15 mills noted in Secretary Gallatin's report was from $1 to $i0 per yard.

III

The quality of manufacture, in the mills included in Gallatin's report, was said to be superior to the imported goods, although the American manufacturers were not yet able to impart the nicety and elegance of finish to their cloths that were presented by the foreign fabrics. Secretary Gallatin stated, further, that the principal obstacle to the expansion of the industry was the lack of wool in suitable quality. The flock was, however, gradually improving through the infusion of the merino breed. In spite of the increasing number of woolen factories, the production of cloths had by no means been taken entirety from the household. Gallatin's report showed that during the years of restricted commerce an extraordinary extension of home spinning and weaving had been made. Indeed, it was estimated that two-thirds of the cloth, including hosiery, house and table linen used by inhabitants outside of the larger cities was the product of family manufacture. In Delaware 150.000 pounds of wool

[was annually spun and woven in private families. In New Hampshire nearly every township of a few hundred families had a carding and fulling mill. The former cost about $500 and carded wool for 7 cents a pound, with 3 cents additional where the oil was found by

(the carder. In this State there were in all about 140 fulling mills.

] whose average cost was $1,500. They received for dressing, annually, about 6,700 yards each, $1,225, of which sum $600 was for labor and materials. The cost of manufacturing 18 pounds of wool into 20 yards of cloth was about $21.24. This cloth was finer and more durable than English cloth which sold in the stores for $3.50 per yard. Vermont had 163 fulling mills.

The origin of the first carding machine employed in America is disputed, contradictory evidence having been presented to prove its construction both in England and the United States. The machine came into the possession of Eufus S. Frost, of Boston, and was exhibited by him at the Mechanics' Fair in Boston, in 1890, with card attached stating that " it was built in England in 1792. and was shipped to this country in two parts by John Lees and Abram Marland, afterwards of Andover, Mass., and John and Arthur Scholfield. It was put together in Chariest own, Mass., and run there about three years by John Lees ; also in Byfield Parish about four years by said Lees in connection with William Bartlett, a wealthy shipowner, of Newburyport ; afterwards run in Nashua, Janrey. and Marlboro. N. H., by a Mr. Fisk, and for the last fifty-three years by Mr. James Townsend in Marlboro, X. H., who is about 93 years of age."

Later, the Davis & Furber Machine Company, of North Andover. Mass., purchased the machine from the estate of Eufus S. Frost, in whose possession it now remains. Mr. S. X. D. North, secretary of the National Association of Wool Manufacturers, became interested in the history of the carding machine, and his inquiries elicited the following convincing letter from the Hon. Eoyal C. Taft, of Provi-

dence Iv L *

Providence. R. I.. March 19, 1 896.

S. N. D. North, Secretary.

Dear Sir: Some years since I sent to Hon. Rufus S. Frost a copy of my book, Some Notes on the Woolen Manufacture in the United States, from which resulted some correspondence relative to the first carding machine built in this country. Mr. Frost supposed that his carding machine was the one referred to in my narrative and that it was imported from England. His authority, as he admitted, was only a statement which he supposed to be correct. The evidence upon which I based my statement was given me by James Scholfield in 1872, when he was 88 years old, and verified in 1882, when I rewrote the book. James Scholfield was 9 years old when the Scholfields moved to Newburyport, and 11 years old when the Byfield factory was started. Mr. Scholfield was perfectly clear in his recollection and positive that the machine was built under his father's direction at Newburyport. Mr. Frost was positive that it was the first machine, but in face of the direct evidence I had from Mr. Scholfield doubted if he was correct in claiming the machine to have been made in England. This correspondence was only a short time before the decease of Mr. Frost. What led me and the Scholfields to our conclusion was a written statement by a grandson of John Scholfield, who was desirous of having his grandfather receive the credit which was his due and prepared and left behind him the substance of what I certified through James Scholfield. It was a common subject of talk among the Scholfield family, several of whom have written me thanking me for the investigation which I made and the giving credit to their grandfather for what they had all known from him and his children.