Weaving was a very respectable occupation. It is told that the regicide Judge Whalley lived to great old age in Narragansett--one hundred and three years--and earned his living by weaving. The son of the Congregational minister at Narragansett, Dr. Torrey, was a weaver. The province was full of weavers. Miss Hazard gives the names of many in her “College Tom.” With all the spinning-jennies for spinning a vast supply of thread and yarn, there were no power-looms in Narragansett till 1812. Hand-looms made up all the yarn and thread that were produced. The prince of Narragansett weavers was Martin Read. In 1761 he was baptized in St. Paul’s Church as “Martin Read, an adult, the Parish Clerk.” He was a devoted lover of the church and was sexton for many years. He led the singing, and it is said that under his leadership the _Venite_ was first chanted in America. During the troubled and rector-less days of the Revolution, he helped the parish work along by reading morning-prayers and the funeral-service for the dead. He was apprenticed, an orphan, at seven years of age to a diaper-weaver, and served till he was of age, with one term only of schooling; but he was ambitious and read eagerly instructive books, especially on weaving and kindred arts. He married the daughter of an Irish weaver, and soon had journeymen and apprentices, whom he taught to sing as they wove; and when they did not sing the men whistled the airs, and with singing and whistling the work speeded. This singing at the loom was not a peculiarity of Martin Read’s. We know the exclamation of Falstaff: “I would I were a weaver, I could sing Psalms and all manner of songs.” Nares says weavers were generally good singers, and that as they sat at their work they practised part-singing. Many of the weavers in Queen Elizabeth’s day were Flemish Calvinists and therefore given to psalm-singing, hence Falstaff’s reference. One weaver, named James Maxwell, wrote some “Weaver’s Meditations” in rhyme in 1756. The frontispiece of his book--his portrait at his loom--is thus inscribed: “Lo, how ’twixt heaven and earth I swing, And whilst the shuttle swiftly flies, With cheerful heart I work and sing, And envy none beneath the skies.” Martin Read reared his family well, and in the Episcopal Church. His son, Rev. Dr. Read, preached for many years at Christ’s Church in Poughkeepsie. He wove coverlets, blankets, broadcloth, flannel, worsted, linen, tow-cloth, and calamanco. This last was a glossy woollen twilled fabric, sometimes woven in a pattern in the warp. James Fontaine, a Huguenot weaver, says it was made of a fine double-twisted worsted. It was much used for the nightgowns and banians worn by substantial citizens of the day, and for women’s winter-gowns.