|
Rockingham
County, Virginia |
Chapter
XXI |
CHAPTER XXI.
DOMESTIC ARTS AND
MANUFACTURING
ENTERPRISES.
In regard to manufactures, the same
general conditions have existed and the same general changes have occurred in
Rockingham County as in the country at large.
Early times were marked by a great many and a great variety of
manufactures in small establishments and in the homes of the people; the civil
war stimulated these local enterprises, and called forth certain ones unknown
before; the boom periods produced larger establishments than were operated
before, but which were usually short-lived; the last two or three decades have
seen most of the small factories give up their business to a few large ones.
The number of different industrial
enterprises in our county during the last century or more has been so great
that nothing more than a desultory catalogue can be attempted here, except in a
few cases.
Some of the first manufacturing
establishments, and some of the most important of all, were flouring mills,
built on the banks of the numerous power-giving streams. The Bird, Zirkle, and Strickler mills, on
Smith’s Creek, Plains mill, below Timberville, Bowman’s mill, on Linville
Creek, Paul’s mill, on Beaver Creek, Carthrea’s mill, at Port Republic, and
other mills on South River and tributary streams, were all likely built a
hundred years or more ago. The 40 mills
now in the county form one of our most important branches of industry.
Tanners, shoemakers, harness and saddle
makers, cabinet makers, tailors, weavers, and blacksmiths were on the ground,
of necessity, from very early days. In
1839 Wm. J. Ford was a saddler in Harrisonburg; in 1840 Henry Smals was a
shoemaker
in Bridgewater; for 50 years, beginning in 1850, John W. Jacobs was a shoemaker
at the same place. In 1826 Jacob Houck
and Samuel Liggett were hatters in Harrisonburg; Liggett had perhaps been at
McGaheysville beforehand. The same year
(1826) John Crummey had a gunshop in Harrisonburg; other gunsmiths in the same
town, about 1850, were Alex. McGilvray, Geo. S. Logan, and Wm. W. Gibbs. In 1854 Isaac Stone, in Dayton, J. M.
Irvine, O. C. Sterling, and J. C. Williams, in Harrisonburg, were making
chairs, bedsteads, and other furniture.
A large number of tanneries were operated
from time to time in various parts of the county. Soon after 1800 the following men were tanning at the places
indicated: John Zigler, Timberville;
Michael Wise, Bridgewater; Francis A. Hite, James Clarke, Abraham Shue, Abner
Fawcett, and Jesse Bowlin, Harrisonburg.
In 1870 the Zigler Tannery, at Timberville, declared to be one of the
best in the Valley, was still running.
Later tanners at or near Bridgewater were Geo. F. Dinkle, Philip Phares,
and A. R. Hollen. In 1842 George Conrad
had a tanyard in Harrisonburg; and later tanners here were H. J. Gray, Jos. Cline, J. A. Loewenbach, and Houck
& Wallis. Between 1860 and 1880 the
following were tanners: Jas. O’Brian,
McGaheysville; S. P. H. Miller, Conrad’s Store; S. Burtner, Keezletown; V. H.
Lamb, near Bloomer Springs; Simon Smith, Edom; Wm. S. Downs, Port Republic;
John Shutters, Cootes’ Store; and somebody at Peale’s Cross Roads.
In 1826 Henry Tutwiler made buckskin
gloves in Harrisonburg, and kept postoffice.
About the same time John Zigler had a hemp mill at Timberville. At the same time and later Nelson Sprinkel
had a shop in Harrisonburg in which he made all sorts of spinning wheels, at
times working 25 hands. He would send
out these wheels by wagons into all the adjoining counties, trading them for
flax seed, bacon, etc., as well as money.
In 1839 J. Meixell & Co. were making threshing machines, corn
shellers, etc., at Harrisonburg; in 1841 P. A. Clarke was manufacturing
air-tight stoves at Mt.
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Crawford;
in 1844 C. S. Weaver was advertising threshing machines and cloverseed boxes
from his shop “one mile below Davie Kyle’s mill on Mill Creek”; in 1854 John W.
Showalter, near Mt. Crawford, was making an improved sausage machine; in 1858
Col. Henry Miller of E. Rockingham invented and patented a corn harvester; in 1866
W. H. Karicofe invented and patented the Virginia Corn Planter, a half interest
in which he sold to H. J. Gray for $5000; in 1871 Miss Mary E. Long, of Lacey
Spring, made a skein of fine white sewing silk, from cocoons of her own
raising; in 1873 S. Loewner, at Harrisonburg, was manufacturing combs of
different styles; the same year, at the same town, F. Staling was making paint;
in 1877 R. H. Snyder (Hbg.) was making a specialty of grain cradles; in 1892
Calvert McGahey, of Elkton, invented, made, and patented a steam engine; in
1911 the Miller device for train control, invented by H. B. Miller, formerly of
Harrisonburg, was proved a success.
For many years J. G. Sprinkel,
Harrisonburg, was a skilful metal worker.
In 1857 he and Basford invented and patented an engine. He made engines under his patent, and four
of his make were in use in Rockingham in 1861 - one of them driving the press
of the Rockingham Register. He also made circular-saw mills. In April, 1863, he was advertising for six
men to make cavalry steel spurs.
In 1862-3 Isaac Reamer, Conrad’s Store,
was making (by machine) shoe pegs of all sizes for sale; at the same time J. H.
Long, Harrisonburg, was offering 5c each for old blacking boxes, to be used in
marketing his Ivory Paste Blacking. In
1840-41 Berger & Pope, in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s Chas. Eshman, and later
others, all of Harrisonburg, were manufacturing cigars, etc.; and in 1888 it
was stated that the town manufactured more cigars than any other in Virginia,
except Richmond. Peter Bolinger, at
McGaheysville, and Young & Cox, Harrisonburg, were brewers early last
century. Peter Dinkel, Mt. Stevens (p.
201), in 1822, and John Bowman, Jr., near Timberville, in 1870, had
distilleries; in 1867 J. R. Koogler and W. P. McCall erected on Muddy
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Creek,
near Rushville, a steam distillery, with a capacity of 200 to 250 gallons of
whiskey a day. In the Register of April 8, 1875, it was
said: So far this season, about 6000
lbs. of Maple sugar has been made in the upper end of Brock’s Gap.
Wagon makers and potters were important
in earlier days. The Rohrs made
carriages and wagons in Harrisonburg for half a century; Joseph Dinkle was a
pioneer carriage maker at Bridgewater.
In 1826 G. Cline had a pottery in Harrisonburg; in 1830 and 1880 J. H.
Kite, near Elkton, Ireland, Duey, & Shinnick, at Mt. Crawford, Emanuel
Suter, at New Erection, and J. D. Heatwole (Potter John), on Dry River, were
making all sorts of earthen ware. About
1890 large potteries were started at Harrisonburg and Broadway.
During the Revolution Coonrad Hansberger
(page 93) had a woolen mill on elk run, site of Elkton. Prior to 1815 Jonathan Shipman owned a
woolen mill at or near the site of Spring Creek; Abram Whitmore and Thomas
Tousey succeeded him in ownership.(1)
In the 40’s Michael B. Cline, of Dayton, was doing much wool carding;
Patrick Kelly was a Rockingham carder and fuller; and the Blossers, at Dayton,
were operating a “Silk, Cotton, and Woolen Dyeing Establishment.” Between 1860 and 1873 no less than 12
factories for carding, spinning, weaving, or dyeing wool were operated in the
county: at Riverton, near Conrad’s
Store; Port Republic; River Bank; on Cub Run; on Beaver Creek; Hollen’s Mill;
Berlinton; Mt. Crawford; Bridgewater; and elsewhere. The leading promoter of these industries was J. H. Larkin; some
other prominent in the business were C. M. Harlow, A. B. Tanquary, D. C.
Anderson, and J. F. Bradburn.
In 1880 the Massanutten Organ Company was
organized at McGaheysville, and organs were manufactured for awhile. In September, 1882, the Virginia Organ
factory, at Dayton, was started in a 2-story building, 40 x 60 feet. In 1886 the factory burned, about 70 organs
being destroyed. A few
___________________________________________________________________________
(1) S. H. W. Byrd has an old advertisement of
this mill dated June, 1815. Probably
this was the same mill operated later by Daniel Thomas.
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years
ago S. A. Myers built at Dayton a large pipe organ, which was first used there
in the United Brethren church, and which is now in the Presbyterian church of
Waynesboro, Virginia.
In different parts of Rockingham large
iron furnaces have been operated: In
Brock’s Gap, by the Pennybackers; at Paulington, by Faussett and others; east
of Elkton, by Daniel and Henry Forrer and others; Mt. Vernon Furnace, in
Brown’s Gap; etc. Faussett probably started
the furnace at Paulington prior to 1800; the Forrers were in control east of
Elkton for many years before 1866; Mt. Vernon Forge was at Grottoes; and there
have been foundries at Port Republic and elsewhere for many years. In the 70’s J. Shickel and Sons had a
foundry and machine shop near Rushville; from 1877 to 1885 Jos. Shickel was
superintendent of the Broadway foundry and machine shop; in 1877 a foundry and
machine shop were built at Natural Falls above Bridgewater.
Among the different manufacturing
enterprises in Rockingham at present are the woolen mill, the canning factory,
the carriage factory, and the plow factory at Bridgewater; the harness factory,
working about 30 hands, the creamery, and the Shrum Brick factory at Dayton;
the Fravel Sash and Door Factory, Houck’s tannery, and Bradley’s foundry at
Harrisonburg; Paxton’s lime kiln at Linville; the Timberville creamery; Cover’s
tannery, at Elkton, and the Elkton creamery; the Whitesel poultry coop factory,
at Pleasant Valley, from which more than 65,000 coops have been sent out.
The Bradley foundry was operated in the
50’s by Nelson Bradley and others; from 1866 to 1878, by P. Bradley and J.
Wilton; since 1878, by P. Bradley and his sons. The Houck tannery has been developed from the earlier
establishment
___________________________________________________________________________
(2)
I acknowledge information concerning Mt. Vernon Furnace received from Messrs.
J. H. Mace, J. W. Blackburn, and R. T. Miller; and concerning Faussett’s
furnace, from Messrs. John A. Armentrout and J. H. Mace.
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of
J. A. Loewenbach and others. The Elkton
tannery was built by John Cover in 1872.
Its present output is 220 sides of heavy sole leather daily. The Miller cannery at Bridgewater, the first
in the county, dates from 1888. Its
products take high rank. The
Bridgewater woolen mills, was started in 1872.
J. F. Bradburn was superintendent for many years. H. G. Miller is president; J. A. Fry
secretary and treasurer. The output of
its products is inadequate to the demand for them. The Bridgewater plow factory, with John P. Burke, J. A. Fry, and
D. S. Thomas as president, secretary, and manager, makes a specialty of the
Superior garden plows, turning out about 10,000 yearly. The Timberville creamery, E. M. Minnick
president, W. C. Hoover secretary, was making 100 gallons of ice cream and 1000
pounds of butter a week during the past summer.
Besides the things already mentioned,
brooms, barrels, etc., by the thousands, tanks of apple butter and bergs of ice
are made in Rockingham every year.
The extent and variety of our local
manufactures having thus been indicated, a detailed account is now presented of
that particular manual art in which our mothers and grandmothers have most
excelled. This account is a special
contribution to this work.
Hand-Weaving
in Rockingham County.
By Professor Cornelius H.
Heatwole.
.
. . . . . The piece prepare
And order every slender thread with care;
The web enwraps the beam, the reed divides,
While through the widening space the shuttle glides,
Which their swift hands receive, then poised with
lead
The swinging weight strikes close the inserted
thread.”
Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
A century or more ago hand-weaving was
the usual means of making the cloth used in the colonial homes from the
Carolinas to New England. The hand-loom
formerly
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used
in the colonies, and occasionally still used in some homes in Rockingham
county, is an historic machine of great antiquity and dignity. It is perhaps the most absolute bequest of
the past centuries, which we have had unchanged in domestic use, to the present
time. In some of the famous paintings
of the year 1335 you can see just such looms as many of our grandparents had in
their homes in Rockingham county.
The whole process of converting the wool
or flax into yarn went on often in close proximity to the loom, and was carried
on by some member of the household as a by-industry. the term “spinster” has come down to us from this occupation.
“The first half of the present century saw a race between
spinning and weaving. The first found
its evolution to machinery; and then led the way for similar means of carrying
on the weaving industry. By 1850
combers, spinners, and weavers were no longer individual workers, but became a
part of that great monster the mill
machinery.”(3)
When the pioneer settlers came to
Rockingham county from 1730 to 1750 to make their homes, one of the first
machines they set up was the old loom.
It found its abiding place in one of the rooms of the main house or in a
shed attached to the house; sometimes in the attic; and often a house was built
especially for the loom. There are at
present, particularly in the western part of the county, many homes that have a
building about the premises known to this day as the “loom house.” If one were to look carefully about in one
of these buildings, one could find here the old loom resting in peace, as a
relic of bygone days. It is sometimes
even now called into service for the making of a piece of rag carpet.
The operating of the loom, together with
the accessory occupations, such as spinning and carding, were duties assigned
to the women of the household. The
mother took
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(3)
Earle’s Home Life in Colonial Days, page 231.
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the
weaving side of the work, while the daughters did the spinning and
spooling. During the spring months the
loom was occupied with the making of rag carpet, while in the fall it was used
for making the requisite amount of clothing and linen for the household - jeans
(usually grey) for suits for the men and boys; linsey (chestnut browns, dull
blues, and Scotch plaids) was the material used for the wearing apparel for the
women and children. Sometimes a piece
of linen for the table, towels and counterpanes, were made during the
fall. The flax used in making these
articles was grown in a little patch near the house, and was harvested and
prepared for the loom by the women.
During one generation the old loom would
turn out a number of those rare products of the weaver’s art, the
coverlets. The size of the family
usually determined the number of these; for every ambitious housewife desired
that each one of her children should have at least one of these interesting,
and in many respects artistic, bed covers.
These were made and carefully stored away in a chest, and were presented
to the children on their wedding day.
The coverlet is probably the highest form of the hand-weaver’s art.
The woolen blanket was a product also of
the hand-loom. Each member of the
family fell heir to one, when she left the old homestead to establish a new
home of her own. All the work attending
the preparation of the wool for these fabrics, such as washing, combing,
carding, and spinning, was done on the premises by the women.
The various colors used in dyeing these
household fabrics, particularly the carpets and linseys, were usually the
bright, warm colors; red, yellow, green, and blue; though sometimes the more
delicate shades were obtained. These
colors were arranged in patterns of stripes either in the warp, or chain, or in
the woof, and sometimes in both. The
sources from which these dyes were obtained were largely vegetable, and
procured according to the most primitive methods. The hickory bark furnished the yellows, walnut bark or hulls made
the rich browns, sumac berries produced the deep warm reds,
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oak
yielded the shades of purple, and the cedar berries furnished the delicate
dove, or lead color. The simplest method
of extracting the coloring matter from these vegetables was employed. The bark was put into a large kettle and
boiled for several hours, and then the wool and rags were immersed in this
liquid and hung upon the line or fence to dry.
The work preparatory to the actual
weaving was probably the most difficult phase of the whole process. The person planning the article to be made
on the loom must have skill in handling the instruments, mathematical accuracy
for grouping threads and determining the size and proportion of the piece. The aesthetic taste of the individual was
shown in the choosing of the patterns and in the selection and combining of
colors.
After coloring the chain, which was
usually on sale at all country stores, and known as “prepared chain,” the
skeins were placed upon the swift and run upon spools or quills. These spools were generally made of corn
cobs, and the quills of the stalk-part of the weed known to the German people
as “Boova Strahl,” but to others as teasel.
The main reason for using these was because the pith was easily
removed. Sometimes these quills were
made of rolls of paper and paste.
These spools, filled to the requisite
number, were placed in the spool-rack or, in the parlance of the weavers of
some sections of the country, the “skarne.”
This is a large frame, with every few inches small sticks or wires running
through, upon which the spools were placed.
A thread is gathered from each one of these spools and run through holes
in a paddle so that the weaver can gather the threads into “bouts” and run them
upon the warping bars. The warping bars
are an upright frame revolving with one end of the axle on a pivot on the floor
and the other at the ceiling. The bars
upon which the war-threads were wound were one yard apart, and so the length of
the threads, and also the length of the piece of cloth, was determined. One takes off twenty yards of thread if one wants
to weave twenty yards
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of
cloth. Forty warp-threads make what is
called a “bout,” and a warp of two hundred threads was designated as a warp of
five “bouts.”
From the warping bars these bouts were
wound upon the warping beam of the loom.
The bouts however were first passed through the “wrathe,” or rake, a
wooden bar with rows of closely set wooden pegs. This rake kept the bouts from becoming entangled, and gave the
warp the proper width as it was wound upon the beam. This particular process of winding the warp upon the beam was
known as “beaming the piece.” It took
two persons to do this, one to turn the beam and the other to hold and guide
the warp.
The next process in the order of placing
the warp upon the loom was called “drawing in.” The end of each thread or group of threads was “thumbed in” with
a warping needle through the eye or mail of the harness, or “heddle.” The harness was commonly called “gears” by
the weavers, and consisted of two rows of twine or cord stretched vertically
between two horizontal bars, which were fastened above to a pulley and below to
a foot-treadle.
The warp-threads were next drawn through
the inter-spaces of the reed, or sley.
This was done with a “reed-hook.”
Two or more warping threads were drawn through each space. The reed, or sley, was composed of a row of
thin strips of cane arranged somewhat like comb-teeth, and called “dents.” There might be fifty or sixty of these dents
to an inch for weaving very fine cloth.
The number of dents to the inch determines the fineness of the cloth. The reed when filled was placed in a groove
in the heavy batten, or “lathe,” which hung by two side bars and swung from an
axle, or “rocking-tree,” at the top of the loom. The swinging of this batten “strikes close the inserted thread,”
as Ovid puts it, and produces that thwacking sound heard in hand-weaving. All the threads thus drawn are brought over
the front frame of the loom and fastened in the cloth-beam and wound round
it. By means of ratchets connected with
the cloth-beam and the warp-beam the warp is stretched up and the piece is
ready for weaving.
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The temples are adjustable bars with
sharp teeth-like pegs in the ends to catch in the selvage to keep the cloth
uniform in width. The shuttle is an
instrument that contains the woof, and is thrown from one side of the loom to
the other by the weaver’s hand, and by moving the harness with the foot the
shuttle goes over every alternate thread.
With the motion of the batten the weft-threads are crowded into place,
and thus the operation continues till the piece is finished.
Some one has calculated that in weaving
three yards of close woolen cloth, which was regarded as a day’s work, the
shuttle was thrown three thousand times, and the treadle pressed down and the
batten swung the same number of times. The number of yards regarded by the housewife as a day’s work
depended upon the kind of cloth. With
the finer fabrics, such as linen and jeans, three or four yards was a good day’s
work; while with carpets as many as ten yards have been woven in a day, though
six or eight yards of carpet was regarded as a good day’s work. In an old copy of the Rockingham Register, dated March 2, 1871, it was reported that a
married lady living in Harrisonburg, age fifty-seven, had woven in the past
three years, on an old fashioned-loom, 1800 yards of carpet, besides attending
to her domestic duties. It is safe to
say there were hundreds of these old looms in Rockingham county during the last
half of the nineteenth century, and thousands of yards of the various kinds of
cloth and carpets were turned out annually by them. The price paid for the weaving of carpet was from ten to twelve
cents per yard; for jeans, linseys, and linens the price was considerably more,
probably from twenty-five cents to fifty cents per yard.
The
loom was made of heavy timber, and the ordinary carpenter in the community
could make it. Sometimes it happened
that one person specialized in this particular line, and made looms as a
business. It is known that Samuel
Weaver made many looms in the western part of the county, on the farm now owned
by Mr. Elias Brunk. A man by the
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name
of Lamb made looms in the section locally known as “The Brush.” John G.
Heatwole also made many looms on the farm now owned by Mr. Abram Heatwole, a
few miles north of Dayton. These men
got any where from eight to ten dollars for doing the carpenter work on one of
these looms.
Just how many of these old looms may be
found now within the bounds of Rockingham county is hard to say; and how many
are now and then brought out for a piece of rag carpet can hardly be
ascertained without a great deal of effort.
The people in the county of German extraction are still given to making
rag carpets, to a great extent. The hand-looms
are probably never used any more for the making of such fabrics as linen, wool
blankets, coverlets, linseys, etc.
Nowadays one often notices in bills of sale, particularly where an old
household is being broken up, the “old loom” mentioned as one of the articles
for sale, and when put up it generally goes for the meager amount of
seventy-five cents, or at most for a few dollars. One was sold a few months ago at a public sale for fifty cents.
The old Rockingham county loom is fast
approaching the period of its history when it will be regarded as a relic of
the past. Its products, such as linen
for table cloths, coverlets, and blankets, are already being treasured by the
present generation, and valued for their associations. In almost every household, if you should
speak of these rare products of the old loom, the housewife would go to a chest
of drawers and bring out, from a safe keeping place, pieces of the various
kinds of cloth woven on the old ancestral loom. It is to be hoped that some one who has a proper appreciation of
the things of the past will made a collection of the old looms, their
accompanying paraphernalia, and their interesting products, and preserve them
in a suitable museum for the information and interest of the coming
generations.