In old Narragansett; romances and realitiesEarle, Alice Morse
History
In old Narragansett; romances and realities
Earle, Alice Morse
Narragansett Bay Region (R.I.) -- History -- Fiction; Short stories, American
Again did four strong men bear on their shoulders the form of the once
beautiful girl, as they passed under the branches of the sweet-scented
lilac to the grave near the old house where still is shown the
headstone that marks the last resting-place of Unfortunate Hannah
Robinson.
NARRAGANSETT WEAVERS
During the first years of this century there could be found in every
English town, village, and hamlet many hand-looms and many weavers who
on these looms wove for their neighbors and for small cloth-jobbers
strong homespun woollen stuffs, rag-carpets, woollen sheets, cotton
and wool bed-spreads, flannels, coarse linen and tow, heavy cotton
cloth and fine table and bed linen. These hand-looms lingered in use
till about 1840. So universal was then the extinction of hand-weaving
through the vast growth of power-loom manufacture and of spinning by
steam-spindle, and so sudden and complete the destruction and vanishing
of all the old-time implements and machines, that when, ten years ago,
under the stimulus of Ruskin’s fiery appeal for the revivifying of
hand-spinning and hand-weaving, these household arts were again started
in Westmoreland, but a single linen-loom could be found for the work.
In the American colonies hand-weaving was also a universal industrial
art. In no part of the country has the industry lingered longer than
in old Narragansett. In many old New England towns single hand-looms
can be found, some in running order, and with owners capable of running
them to make rag-carpets. Others are still standing, cobwebbed and
dusty, in attic lofts, lean-to chambers, woodsheds, or barns, with no
one to set the piece or fill the shuttles. In Narragansett I know a
score of old looms in good running order, though, save in one instance,
set only for weaving rag-carpets; in many cases the owners, who do
not make weaving a trade, will not “start them up” for weaving less
than a hundred yards of carpeting. This is a long strip for a room
in a cottage or farm-house, so neighbors frequently join together in
ordering these carpets, and in company send vast rolls of the filling,
which is made of inch-wide strips of cloth of all colors and materials
sewed in long strips. Within a few years these old hand-looms have been
used for weaving rag-portières made of silk strips.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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