Tag Archives: weavers

Witch Hunts after Salem

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Although the witch craze in Salem ended, with many consequences as I have mentioned in an earlier post, the belief in witches did not end. With an increasing interest and belief in science, a belief in witches faded but did not disappear, either in Europe or in the Colonies – new United States. Legally, a witch trial and a judicial solution to perceived witch craft became unlikely (and I imagine that the uncritical acceptance of spectral evidence by Samuel Parris in Salem had a lot to do with increasing skepticism) hanging by lynch mobs could still happen.

In Europe women were still attacked and in some cases executed for witchcraft. In Denmanrk (1800), in Poland in 1836 and even in Britain in 1863. Violence continued in France through the 1830’s. And in the United States, as previously mentioned, Ann Lee of the Shakers was arrested and charged for blasphemy in 1783. But she was released.

In the 1830s a prosecution was begun against a man (yes) in Tennessee. Even as recently as 1997 two Russian farmers killed a woman and injured members of her family for the use of folk magic against them.

Why am I blogging about witchcraft? Well, one of the comments about one of my earlier posts talked about the influence of one person in swaying a community to hunting a witch. No matter how you look at it, most of the motivations behind witch hunts show the worst of human nature. Readings I’ve done point to class warfare and gender conflict. And while it is true that in some European countries men have been accused, in most of Europe and the United States the ones hunted have been women. There are a variety of opinions: control of a woman’s sexuality for one. The control of women’s reproductive life (and the eradication of midwives) for another. Considering what is still happening here I believe it. But some of the other motivations are equally as unflattering: greed, malice, revenge.

With all of this bouncing around in my head, I’ve decided that my next Will Rees (after Death in Salem) will look at some of these themes. You heard it here first.

Salem tunnels late eighteenth century

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So there were already some tunnels in Salem linking the fine houses, the docks, the brothels and the counting houses. Many of the men who had made their fortunes running privateers became Senators, a Secretary of State, and other wealthy and influential men. As Salem shipping  imported cargo from Russia, India, the East Indies, and finally China, Salem became not only the sixth largest city in the U.S. but the wealthiest.  Custom duties to a large degree supported the Federal Government.

To collect these duties during the time Rees visited Salem, the merchant ships were required to tie up about three miles out. The customs inspector would row out to inspect the cargo and assess the duties. Do I believe that this prevented smuggling? Not a chance. I’m sure a number of shippers found ways to circumvent these efforts and used the already existing tunnels to transport goods to the counting houses out of sight of the prying eyes.

In 1801 Thomas Jefferson became the third president of the United States and began, not only enforcing the already existing laws on the books but put in new strict laws on the collection of duties. The harbor was silting up and New Bedford, Boston, and other ports would soon become more prominent. Elias Haskell Derby Jr. found it difficult to maintain his lifestyle.  He embarked on a building program in the Commons, and put in tunnels to the wharves, the counting houses and the banks. But isn’t 1801 is several years after Death in Salem? Yes, that is so but a number of the houses listed as having tunnels connected to them were built before 1797.

I made a leap and decided to claim there were many tunnels prior to the Derby scion in 1801. The tunnels would have been helpful during the Revolutionary War and the British incursion, especially when it would have been important to move goods without British knowledge.

Finally, my excuse for this bit of slippery history is: Well, the story is fiction and I think the tunnels could have been there and been used as I described.

Salem, past and present

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One of the things I like to do when researching a book is visit the location where it is set. I did that with Salem when I was writing Death in Salem.

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I like getting the feel of the place and a sense of the geography.

Salem is a good place to research since they have kept a lot of their past. Not all of it but enough. And a number of reminders of Salem’s past. and the past of the United States, are still present. The Burying Point, the cemetery, is there. I like that you can still visit this place and see the headstones from the distant past.

Not the accused witches, however. Witches were not allowed to be buried in consecrated ground so  were dumped. Families, although forbidden to do so, frequently found the bodies and buried them properly. This meant a great deal in this religious past. But the burying point does have memorials to these men and women. (even two dogs were accused and executed!)

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The witch trials are well remembered and some of the houses were built in that time, 400 years ago.

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Salem still has many houses from the period of the merchantmen also. Below is the Derby house, built within sight of Derby wharf. Although there are many fine houses on the waterfront, a short walk to Chestnut Street reveals a block of beautiful houses, many from the late 1700’s.

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As the merchantmen grew wealthy, they built houses on Chestnut Street. And many of these houses are still occupied.

Although the 1790’s are not ancient compared to Europe and their long history, for these United States it represents the early part of our history and so I find it exciting.

 

More about Salem

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My new Will Rees mystery will be coming out next spring. This time, he travels to Salem, Mass and, of course, is embroiled in a mystery.

I went to Salem to research the area.

I mixed real people and characters of my own invention but tried to keep the facts of the sailing industry accurate.

This is a photo of the custom house, but a few years later. During the 17902, the location switched among several buildings.

custom house

This is the India store. I based the store run by my widow on this store.

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and this is a museum representation of a counting house. Again, I based my description on this.

counting house

I’m sure I will get questions on the tunnels underneath Salem. Although I read about them, I did not see any. I guess it’s time for another road trip!

The Industrial Revolution and the Loom

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The Industrial Revolution mechanized the entire process of cloth making. According to Brouty, prior to the invention of the flying shuttle in the 1750’s, three to four spinners were needed to produce enough yarn for a weaver. The statistic I’ve read other places is nine. Anyway, many spinners are needed for each weaver. The flying shuttle, again according to Brouty, quadrupled the weaver’s output. If you think that then people would try to find a way to increase the yield of the spinners, you would be right. The spinning jenny was invented in the mid 1700s and the first spinning factory was set up in 1761 by a gentleman named Richard Arkwright. Samuel Compton invented the spinning mule ten years later (unfortunately for him, he was a talented inventor that had his life threatened several times and died in poverty) and now handweavers were hard pressed to keep up. Pressure mounted for a mechanical loom that could keep up with the spinning machines.

Hand spinning and weaving, a honored and important job (primarily done by women) became a ‘craft’. Most people don’t even think of the connection between the clothing on their backs and the process by which it got there.

The Jack Loom

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The jack loom is a horizontal loom; i.e. the warp runs horizontally and most of the size is front to back, not up and down. The weaver can sit on a bench. With the vertical looms, like those still used in Scandinavia and previously in Greece, the warp threads hang down and the weaver must stand on a stool or the floor itself must be lowered to provide enough room.

folded loom

A loom this size could easily be put into the back of a wagon and transported from place to place, as I have my main character/detective doing in my historical mysteries. This is a back view, by the way. The white canvas is for the back apron. I prefer to have my finished cloth roll up on the back beam so i tie on the warp threads to the back and then thread them through the heddles and the reed.

Heddles; what are they? I’ve mentioned them several times and then someone emailed me and said I don’t know what heddles are. Well, mine are long metal wires with an eye exactly like a needle. Mine are made of metal, but the looms I saw in Greece had thread heddles. I think I would find weaving with those confusing.

heddles one heddles two

In the first photo, it is possible to see three of the four sheds. Each one has its own set of heddles. Threaded and tied up to the treadles, these sheds make it possible to weave many patterns.

And finally, the reed. The dents, or spaces, determine the fineness of the fiber and is another mechanism for keeping each thread smooth and untangled. I hope you can see the spaces here. Weaving with silk, for example, requires a reed with many many slots,

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Weaving Words

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Until the Industrial Revolution weaving, and the words associated with the equipment and materials, was probably as familiar to most people as the words we now use to describe our cars.Now most of the terms sound like a foreign language unless, of course, you are a hand weaver who loves the craft and still weaves in the traditional European manner. I clarify with European because a different style of weaving, still practiced in Peru and other such countries, employs the backstrap loom. Instead of a beam, the warp goes around the weaver’s back. Using memorized patterns, their fingers pick up the threads and press the weft through. (It is truly amazing to see their fingers blur as they pluck the threads, similar to watching a good guitar picker.)

However, the ‘weaver’s cross’ is still obvious and as my weaving teacher once told me there is no weaving without the cross.

Anyway, I would venture to guess that most people know maybe three or four words that pertain to weaving : warp, weft, shuttle and loom. I would also bet that there is some confusion in most people’s minds between warp and weft. (Just so we’re clear, warp is the the skeleton of fibers that runs from beam to beam in a loom. The weft is the fiber sent crossways through the warp on the shuttle.)  The loom, on the other hand, is not a static piece of equipment but has many pieces that work together to take two strands of fiber and make them into finished cloth.

A loom can be warped back to front or front to back so, depending upon the method, the steps would be slightly different. But the basic process is the same.

The warp is wound upon a warping board, a board or free standing rack with pegs. Ties are put at each end of the cross and then at each end of the warp at about one yard intervals. These ties are called choke ties; these are released once the warp is put on the loom. Long thin sticks called lease sticks are inserted on either side of the cross to hold it while the warp is wound around the rear apron rod. The warp is spread and the fibers are brought forward and threaded through the heddles. These are slim metal pieces that hang down from on rod on the castle. Each heddle has an eye and each thread must be pulled through a heddle. Then the strands are pulled through another piece that slips into the loom, a piece that resembles a comb although closed on both sides, and is called a reed. This step is called sleying the reed, I am not sure why. The reeds have slits of varying thicknesses depending upon thickness of the threads: cotton, linen, wool or silk, that is drawn through them and how closely woven you want the cloth to be.  Each handful of finished strands are knotted loosely to keep them tidy. When all the warp is finished, it is tied to the front beam.

Confused yet? Every loom has a certain number of  shafts from 2 on up. The more sheds, the more complicated a pattern can be woven. What is a shed you ask? The framework that holds the heddles. The space between the upper and lower warp is call a shaft and it is through this space that a shuttle goes. The treadles, foot pedals on the floor, are attached to the bar that connects these shafts. Stepping on the treadles raises and lowers different shafts, different warp threads in other words, and it is this interaction that creates a pattern.

At its most basic, stepping on a treadle lifts a certain number of threads. The shuttle with the weft thread passes through to the other side. Then you push a piece of the framework called the beater that pushes the weft tight. Step on another treadle, lift another set of threads, and pass the shuttle back to the first side.

Problems can arise at any point. Your warp threads can break. The tension of your warp may not be even. You may have missed threading a strand through a heddle or the reed.

Sounds complicated doesn’t it? And it is. Another quote from my weaving teacher: weaving is a process of constant problem solving. Although looms are now mechanized, this basic design: the cross, the sheds, the shuttle has not changed. The big difference is that a hand weaver, such as Rees, would use his feet to raise and lower the sheds and it would take him a lot longer to finish several yards of cloth.

A traveling weaver, such as Rees, would have to reassemble his loom at every stop, make a warp and put it on the loom, thread the heddles and so on before he even began weaving. Then the loom would have to be disassembled at the end of his job. No wonder weavers were considered skilled craftsmen and completed an apprenticeship of several years.

As complex and labor intensive as this process seems, a weaver was still able to keep 9 to 11 spinners busy.