ABSTRACT
If seventeenth-century New Englanders only raised sheep and produced woolen cloth, they would have engaged in a significant textile industry that employed many hands, covered much of the colonists’ nakedness and made economic success possible. Yet sheep and wool composed only a portion of early New England’s textile efforts. Equal to the woolen industry in scope was the growth and processing of flax and hemp and the production of provincial linen and cotton fabrics. As one contemporary noted, “In [New England’s] prospering hemp and flax so well that its frequently sown, spun, and woven into linen cloth; . . . and our linen yarn we can make dimittees and fustians for our summer clothing.”2
