Up the Gatineau! Article
This article was first published in Up the Gatineau! Volume 20.
Spinning and Weaving in Days Gone By
Norma Geggie
The last three categories in the Agricultural Census Return for 1842 fire the imagination and curiosity of present-day readers. They read: “Number of yards of fulled cloth1 manufactured in domestic way in same family; Number of yards of flannel or other woollen cloth not fulled; Pounds of wool." Who produced this cloth, and how was it accomplished?
Of the thirty-seven families listed in the return for Wakefield, Canada East (Quebec), only Michael Mahoney, John Kelly, David Cahill, James Murdy, James Pritchard, William Maxwell, Joseph Shouldice, Thomas Copeland, Foster Moncreiff, Joseph Irwin and William Fairbairn reported under the above categories. Between them they had 45 sheep, produced 122 pounds of wool, and had woven 152 yards of cloth. They had all arrived from their native Ireland within the previous ten or fifteen years, and had evidently brought with them their spinning and weaving skills.
Spinning, the twisting of fibres to strengthen them and thus produce a continuous fibre or thread, and weaving, a method of forming the thread into fabric, are ancient crafts, practised by primitive peoples and ancient cultures. We find evidence of this in earthenware whorls, weights used on a drop-spindle, found in Roman excavations; early Egyptian and Greek pottery has decorative designs portraying women holding spindles; and Greek mythology brings us the story of Penelope weaving and unweaving her endless web of cloth.
The use of a spindle, a relatively slow method of producing yarn, is still practiced in South American countries. The spindle is efficient and inexpensive and can he carried about by people tending sheep on a hillside in Guatemala or squatting with a small weighted stick in a howl in India. However human ingenuity has always found ways of speeding up a tedious process. If the whorl was to be twisted by hand, the next step would be to harness it to a wheel. The spindle was supported horizontally, with a wheel similarly supported on a low stand, a drive band connecting the two. The hand-operated wheel now twisted the spindle, and this became known as the walking-wheel, or great wheel. As the name implies, the operator walked miles in the process of yarn production. One hand was occupied with the occasional turning of the wheel, while the other hand attended to the supply of fibre, the twisting of it, and the winding of it onto the spindle.
If the wheel could be operated by foot, both hands could attend to the spinning, and the miles of walking would be eliminated. And so a rod was connected to the axle of the wheel and a treadle. Both of these wheels had a single drive band between the rim of the wheel and the whorl of the spindle. The next innovation was a double drive band, or a continuous string which went twice around the wheel. One of these ran around the whorl as before, the second ran around the wheel of a flyer which automatically fed the spun yarn onto a bobbin. The ultimate in mechanization was a machine called the Spinning Jenny2 which was one of the factors in the industrial revolution.
Traditionally, spinning was a female activity carried out as part of her role in clothing her family. Our vocabulary reflects this. Spinster is a term reserved for the woman who did not marry and so presumably spent her days at her spinning wheel. A distaff is a rod on which flax is wound in preparation for being spun; it now refers to the female side of the family. Many parts of the spinning wheel continue this reference to the female: the two supports which hold the flyer are called “the maidens", and the whole flyer unit is called “the mother-of-all", the command unit of the machine.
In Canada, the French in Acadia and Quebec (Lower Canada or Canada East), the Scottish in Ontario (Upper Canada or Canada West), and the German-speaking settlers such as the Mennonites of Ontario, brought with them a tradition of hand weaving and undoubtedly spinning of the materials to be used in the weaving. In the late 17th century in the Acadian communities, with a population of 885 persons, there were 758 sheep. The animals must have been small, as they produced only about 3 lbs. of fleece, yielding one and a half lbs. of wool. This was an average of 12 oz. of wool per person per year, so this limited output was supplemented with hemp and linen. A report of the time indicates that hemp and flax grew well, the quality of the wool was good, and the clothing of most inhabitants was home produced. In Quebec at the same time, Jean Talon sponsored hemp and flax production and placed looms in selected houses or religious institutions, where the young girls, both French and Indian were being taught to spin.
At the beginning of the 18th century, the bottom fell out of the market for beaver, and with the colonies‘ purchasing power gone, there were fewer ships from France and thus fewer supplies. Cloth production became more necessary. A weaving shop was set up in Montreal3. It is interesting at our time in history, when we have watched the decline of the textile industry which at one time was so important in Quebec, to note that it possibly had its origin in this Montreal workshop.
In contrast to spinning, weaving had developed as a man's occupation, and many boys were apprenticed into the trade in the early days and into the mid-18th century. After this time in Canada women became more involved in the craft, and the women of rural Quebec took over the task of processing fibres, spinning and weaving for their households‘ clothing, bedding and so on. The reason for this was purely economic; until this time there had been a market for grain production, but with the competition of better farmlands in Ontario, Quebec farmers had to become self sufficient. By 1844. almost 85% of farms in Quebec had between 5 and l6 sheep. They produced all the wool the family required, plus a small surplus for barter.
It would appear that the Gatineau area was settled mainly by young men and women from the British Isles, fleeing difficult conditions at home. If a pioneer family could bring furnishings and treasures from home, and many of the middle class families did so, the spinning wheel would have been included. Similarly, if a man had trained in the weaving trade, at least the metal parts of a loom might have been brought from home with the idea of constructing the wooden frame later. I expect that many of the earliest settlers in the Gatineau came with very little. Once established with some stock, including a sheep or two, a man with limited woodworking skills could put together a walking wheel. The main structure was remarkably simple. In the mid-19th century, a patent was taken out in the United States for the multiplying head which could be attached to a walking wheel. This was a clever set of wheels which operated as gears, to increase the speed of the spindle. A multiplying head could be purchased by mail order, and thus, the walking wheel was perhaps the one most commonly found in the country.
With so many skilled craftsmen in Quebec, it was no time before foot-powered wheels were being produced in this country. The earliest wheels had mostly wooden parts: a wooden treadle, footman, and tension screw, the odd piece of leather, and very little metal. By the latter part of the 19th century, the wooden treadle and rod operating it were being replaced by metal. Most, but not all manufacturers, had their names proudly engraved somewhere on the table. I had one such, possibly built in the first quarter of this century by Frères Bordua of Richelieu County. A similar, but older “Quebec” wheel, with all wooden working parts, has no mark on it. A friend of mine had one made by the Connor washing machine company. Mr. Connor, as a young man, set out each Monday morning with his wagon and several washing machines, to hawk around the country. It is possible that he also carried the odd spinning wheel with him for the same purpose. New wheels are still being turned out, the designers, usually spinners themselves, taking into consideration all of the factors which help to make spinning so pleasurable.
And what of the sheep that supported this wool industry? A few were mentioned by Champlain in 1619. Fifty were included in a cargo from France in 1671. The best flocks belonged to the religious institutions. Little was understood of animal husbandry, and with poor food and conditions, it is easy to understand that locally produced fabrics were not prized; better materials were available from France. Following the end of the French regime, sheep were introduced from England: Southdowns for medium wool, Leicesters and Lincolns for long wool, and crossbreeds of these.
In 1834 William Farmer left Shropshire in England with his wife and seven children, as well as ten families and considerable stock to support his proposed settlement in Canada. This unusual contingent warranted a separate ship, the Kingston, which he hired to deliver them all from Liverpool to Quebec. They finally made their way to the site on the east bank of the Gatineau River which was to bear his name. “Farmer's Rapids4". The stock included two Southdown rams and 14 Southdown ewes, one Leicester ram and 13 Leicester ewes. Perhaps we can take enough license to presume that this solid base of three rams and 27 ewes might have supplied the farmers of the Gatineau with stock in the late 1830s and 40s when so many new immigrants were starting out in subsistence farming.
The spinning process was rather tedious. Firstly, if the wife was indeed a spinster, and perhaps not many were, she would insist that before shearing the sheep must be washed in the nearby stream. This prewashing cut down her work considerably. The sheep would be submerged in the stream, to get rid of dust and loose straw etc. When dry and shorn, the fleece needed to be sorted, teased and carded. The older children might be trained to do the teasing and carding, the combing and aligning of the fibres. The more relaxing spinning process could proceed during any leisure time the womenfolk could find.
The next minor luxury in a woman's life was the establishment of a carding mill in her vicinity. This rather simple enterprise was a water-wheel which in turn operated a set of toothed or carding cloths which combed the fleece, lining up the fibres and loosening debris. The wool was then delivered in loose fluffy batts or a loosely roiled cheese of roving, ready for spinning. There was a carding mill in Kazabazua, and many others no doubt.
In the 1850s the Maclarens in Wakefield expanded their grist mill establishment to include a woollen mill. It is doubtful whether any of the local spinsters continued to card their own fleece after this. To be freed of this lengthy process has to be experienced to be appreciated.
Men who had trained in weaving prior to coming to Canada may now have sought employment at the woollen mill. Joseph Irwin, who had settled in Wakefield in 1929, appeared on census returns as a farmer until 1871, when his profession of weaver becomes apparent. To date we have no record of the original weavers and spinners at Maclaren's Woollen Mill, but some of those who worked there at the turn of the century, and until 1910, are still remembered by older residents of the community. Reg Clarke recounts that his mother, Carry Hyde, loved working on the looms until her marriage to David Clarke in 1905. But it was not without hazard: one of the workers had her apron ripped off when it became caught in the machine. Carry's sister, Hattie, Maggie Piche (Mrs. Fred Wills), and Sarah Ardis (Mrs. Ben Brown) were also mill workers. The bolts of suiting material and blankets produced at the woollen mill could be purchased from the grand store, situated one hundred yards further east, and run by the Maclarens. There was also the added luxury of having the choice of fabric fashioned into a garment by the dressmaker on staff.
Maclaren‘s woollen mill stood a little apart from the grist mill, on the area that is at present groomed into a park area. At about the turn of the century, additions were made to this mill, which had been operating for almost 50 years. The first floor was occupied with weaving, the second floor held the carding equipment, and the third floor, the spinning. An adjoining building housed the picking room and a dye room. A photograph of this period shows a staff of about 25 men and women, so there is little doubt that Maclaren's mill complex was a hive of industry and the largest centre of local employment.
As well as providing carding services, fleece was no doubt shipped to the mill from far and near for sale and perhaps at times, for barter. The end products were wool blankets and fabric for clothing. Woven goods need to be fulled (see note 2) and in the case of the blankets, possibly brushed. Dyeing may have taken place at any of three stages: in the fleece stage prior to spinning, after having been spun into yarn, or after having been woven into goods. A race, or long tunnel-like structure which ran parallel to the road, was where the fabric could be stretched onto tenter-hooks to dry.
The water-power on the Lapêche River ground the grain in the grist mill, powered the looms and spinning equipment, and produced electricity for the complex as well as the general store.
On the morning of May 17, 1910 a spark from a metal object in the carding mill ignited the greasy wool. The fire which ensued destroyed the entire complex. Although the grist mill was later restored, this tragedy rang the death knell on the Maclaren empire in Wakefield and the local weaving industry.
Footnotes
- Pulling is the process of shrinking and thickening cloth after weaving; traditionally this involved treating it to remove oil from the fibres, washing and beating it. The rinsed cloth was then stretched to dry on frames.
- This was a machine which could spin more than one thread at a time. James Hargreaves, an English spinner, obtained a patent in 1770 for a machine capable of spinning i6 yarns simultaneously.
- Burnham, Dorothy, Keep Me Warm One Night, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press in co-operation with the Royal Ontario Museum, 1970).
- 5 Farmer. Brig. G.R.D.; "Farmer's Rapids on the Gatineau River", Up the Gatineau!, Volume 6, 1980.