nt withall, as spinning
upon the rock, knitting and weaving tape, &c."

Spinning-classes were also formed; the General Court of Massachusetts
ordering these in 1656, this being part of the general effort to begin
some form of manufactures. But fishing to load ships, and shipbuilding
to carry cured fish absorbed the energies of the growing population; and
these vessels brought textiles and manufactured goods from the cheapest
markets everywhere and anywhere.[5]

These "homespun" industries soon showed a tendency toward division. By
1669 much weaving was done outside the home as custom work; and there is
record of one Gabriel Harris who died in 1684 leaving four looms and
tacklings and a silk loom as part of the small fortune he had
accumulated in this way.[6] His six children and some hired women
assisted in the work. In 1685 Joseph, the son of Roger Williams, entered
in an account book now extant,[7] a credit to "Sarah badkuk [Babcock],
for weven and coaming wisted." This work was, however, chiefly in the
hands of men.

The records of Pepperell, Mass., show that many women saved their pin
money, and sent out little ventures in the ships built at home and
sailing to all ports with fish. These ventures included articles of
clothing, embroideries, and anything that it seemed might be made to
yield some return. There were also women of affairs, some of whom took
charge of large industries. Thus Weeden, in his "Economic and Social
History of New England," quotes from an interesting memorandum left by
Madam Martha Smith, a widow of St. George's Manor, Long Island,[8] which
shows her practical ability. In January, 1707, "my company" killed a
yearling whale, and made twenty-seven barrels of oil. The record gives
her success for the year, and the tax she paid to the authorities at New
York,--fifteen pounds and fifteen shillings, a twentieth part of her
year's gains.

Other women oversaw the curing of the fish; but there is no record of
the wage beyond the general one which for the earliest days of the
colony gives rates for women as from four to eight pence a day without
food. These rates followed almost literally those of England at that
time. Half of the day's earnings were accounted an equivalent for diet,
and contractors for feeding gangs in agriculture, among sailors, or
wherever the system was adopted, allowed seven and one-half pence per
day a head for men and women alike. Women servants received ten
shillings a