culture. It
was quickly and proudly noted of towns and of individuals as a proof of
their rapid and substantial progress that they could carry on any of the
steps of the cloth industry. Good Judge Sewall piously exulted when
Brother Moody started a successful fulling-mill in Boston. Johnson in
his _Wonder-working Providence_ tells with pride that by 1654 New
Englanders "have a fulling-mill and caused their little ones to be very
dilligent in spinning cotton-woole, many of them having been clothiers
in England." This has ever seemed to me one of the fortunate conditions
that tended to the marked success of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, that
so many had been "clothiers" or cloth-workers in England; or had come
from shires in England where wool was raised and cloth made, and hence
knew the importance of the industry as well as its practical workings.

As early as 1643 the author of _New England's First Fruits_ wrote: "They
are making linens, fustians, dimities, and look immediately to woollens
from their own sheep." Johnson estimated the number of sheep in the
colony of Massachusetts, about 1644, as three thousand. Soon the great
wheel was whirring in every New England house. The raising of sheep was
encouraged in every way. They were permitted to graze on the commons; it
was forbidden to send them from the colony; no sheep under two years old
could be killed to sell; if a dog killed a sheep, the dog's owner must
hang him and pay double the cost of the sheep. All persons who were not
employed in other ways, as single women, girls, and boys, were required
to spin. Each family must contain one spinner. These spinners were
formed into divisions or "squadrons" of ten persons; each division had a
director. There were no drones in this hive; neither the wealth nor high
station of parents excused children from this work. Thus all were
levelled to one kind of labor, and by this levelling all were also
elevated to independence. When the open expression of revolt came, the
homespun industries seemed a firm rock for the foundation of liberty.
People joined in agreements to eat no lamb or mutton, that thus sheep
might be preserved, and to wear no imported woollen cloth. They gave
prizes for spinning and weaving.

Great encouragement was given in Virginia in early days to the raising
and manufacture of wool. The Assembly estimated that five children not
over thirteen years of age could by their work readily spin and weave
enough to ke