Connecticut Water Trails Association
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Connecticut Water Trails Association |
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Connecticut Water Trails Program History Of Connecticut's Water Trails History of Mills In Connecticut
About Flax and Woolen Mills
Two of the most important products of the farms of long ago were wool and flax. On summer days flocks of sheep could be seen feeding on the hillsides and waving fields of blue-flowered flax could be seen on almost every farm.
Flax was not harvested the same as grain or hay, but was pulled up by the roots and stacked. Later in the season it was put through a process of sweating or rotting to separate the fiber from the woody part of the stalk. It was then crackled to break the wood or straw of the flax. This was done by beating it with wooden mallets. After this, it was hatchelled or hackled; this was done by drawing the stalks of flax over sharp pointed iron teeth thickly set in a block of wood. This separated the fiber from the woody or straw portion of the flax. The fiber, after hetcheling, was called tow or lint; this was cleaned and spun into linen yarn or thread, and woven on the hand looms into different kinds of linen cloth, and then bleached.
The wool was worked up in a different way. After being sheared from the sheep, it was washed and cleaned. Then it was carded into a light fleecy mass (like the cotton batting of today.) The hand cards were pieces of leather or thin wood thickly set with fine wire points which caught and separated the fiber of the wool. Sometimes the wool was bowed the same as hatters' fur was in the olden times. This was done with a large bow strung with catgut; pulling the string caused it to vibrate in the wool, separating it the same as in carding.
After carding, the wool was formed into rolls, from which it was spun into woolen yarn or warp and then woven into woolen cloth of many kinds, and blankets. A cloth for dresses and skirts was woven, called linsey-woolsey. It had a linen warp and woolen filling; a heavier cloth made of the same materials was called fustian.
After washing, the cloth was dyed, fulled, and
finished ; oftentimes the warp and filling were dyed before weaving. For
many years all this work was done by hand on the farms where the wool
and flax were raised. Later little shops and mills were built along the
stream where the wool and flax were prepared. for weaving and where the
home-made cloth was fulled and finished.
1788 - Water-powered worsted mill, opened in Hartford. First U.S. worsted mill to use water power, first strictly commercial worsted mill (worsted yarns are more tightly twisted than are the bulkier woolen yarns).
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