Merinos and Vermont's Early Wool Industry
By Jennie Shurtleff
Merino sheep first arrived in the United States in the early 1800s. While the introduction of a new breed of sheep may seem like a small, inconsequential thing, the advent of merinos ultimately changed Vermont’s landscape, stimulated the growth of new businesses, and changed the size and structure of Vermont’s farms for decades to come.
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, most of the farms in Vermont were small subsistence farms. These farms were well diversified and largely self-sufficient, with most of a farm’s livestock and crops being used by the farmer’s household. Only in the event of a surplus, would items be sold or bartered.
For many Vermont farmers, that agricultural paradigm changed in the early 19th century after the introduction of merino sheep.
Merino sheep were a prized breed of sheep that originated in Spain. For many years, the exportation of merinos had been prohibited in an effort to protect the Spanish wool market. In the early 1800s, William Jarvis was the United States’ Consul to Portugal. Although the details of how Jarvis was able to acquire a large flock of merinos differ, he ultimately was able to bring about 4,000 of the sheep to the United States.
The arrival of these sheep in America set off a wave of sheep farming that became known as “merino mania.” Prior to the introduction of merinos, most of the sheep in Vermont were all-purpose animals that were used for both meat and wool, even though their fleeces tended to be coarse and not particularly thick.
Merino sheep on Mt. Tom
In contrast to the native sheep, the merinos brought from Europe had soft fleeces. The reason for this softness was due to the fineness of the merino wool fibers. The diameters of textile fibers are measured in microns. A micron is a micrometer, or one millionth of a meter (0.000039 of an inch). Typically, the micron count for merino wool is in the high teens or low twenties, although it can be as low as 15 microns. This means that some merino wool is as fine and soft as Cashmere, without any of the itchy feeling that is often associated with the wool from other breeds of sheep. Because of its softness, merino wool is often used for making clothing, whereas other types of sheep’s wool is commonly used for items like blankets and insulation.
In addition to its softness, another feature of merino wool that makes it so desirable for clothing is the abundance of small crimps in its fibers. These small crimps create pockets of air between the fibers that increase the wool’s insulation value.
While one generally thinks of wool as being a cold-weather fiber that is worn to keep warm, wool also offers benefits during the warm weather. Because wool fibers are porous, they absorb and wick moisture vapor from skin before it turns into a liquid. Because merino fibers are finer than those of other wool, they are able to release the moisture they wick more rapidly, thereby keeping the wearer feeling drier and cooler.
Merino wool
Detail showing the crimps in the fiber.
An 1857 view of Woodstock, Vermont, from the vantage point of Mount Tom.
Notice how much of the landscape had been deforested by this time in order to provide wood for heating and building, as well as to clear pastures for sheep. This deforestation, in turn, had a number of negative environmental impacts, including precipitating soil erosion.
The largest and most visible of the woolen mills in Woodstock was the five-story brick building on the western end of Woodstock Village. In 1847, Solomon Woodward purchased this mill, and for three decades it processed and produced woolen products. The mill finally closed in 1877 following several declines in the wool market.
The former Bridgewater Woolen Mill, which straddles the Woodstock and Bridgewater town line, was the last of the area’s woolen mills to cease operations. It continued to produce many high-quality fancy woolens until 1973. It finally closed after being extensively damaged by a flood.
View of the Solomon Woodward Woolen Mill.
The lower stories of this building are the present-day Woodstock Recreation Center.
Merino ram.
During the period of “merino mania,” farmers increased the quality and productivity of their sheep by introducing merino genes into the bloodlines of their existing flocks. During the early days of the merino craze, a good quality merino ram could command over a thousand dollars, while a common sheep might only bring a few dollars.
Although many farmers in the early 1800s might not have known all the technical reasons why merino wool was softer, warmer, and more absorbent than many other fibers, it was clear to all that the prices that merino wool commanded were far greater than those for the wool from other breeds of sheep. According to an article written by the New England Historical Society, entitled “The Spanish Sheep Craze that Forever Changed Vermont,” some textile manufacturers paid farmers as much as $2.00 a pound for merino wool, whereas the wool from other breeds of sheep was selling for about 37.5 cents a pound.
Many farmers who had been subsistence farmers, raising a diversified array of crops and animals, became sheep farmers. As they increased the size of their flocks, they needed more land, which led to them buying up and consolidating many of the small farms into larger farms.
In order to provide adequate forage for their sheep, farmers then began cutting down more forests to open up the land for grazing. Vermont’s sheep industry, combined with early Vermonters’ reliance on wood as a building material and a source of fuel for both heating and cooking, led to wide-scale deforestation during the 1800s, so that by the late 19th century, 80% of Vermont was deforested.
Unfortunately, Vermont’s sheep industry was subject to several “boom and bust” cycles. Case in point, in 1835, the price of wool was 57 cents a pound. Five years later, in 1840, it had fallen to 25 cents a pound. Marked fluctuations in prices, such as these, ultimately led to two-thirds of Vermont’s sheep being slaughtered between the years 1846 and 1850.
What led to such a precipitous decline in wool prices? Primarily it was the decrease and later abolition of protective tariffs, which the woolen mills favored because it allowed them to purchase wool more cheaply. However, other factors, such as the opening of the West, with its vast tracts of land where sheep could be raised more economically than in Vermont, also contributed to the sharp decline in wool prices.
The loss of Vermont’s sheep farms had a domino effect on other businesses. In the early 1800s, in order to process all the wool being produced, a number of small mills had sprung up throughout Vermont, including in Woodstock, South Woodstock, West Woodstock, and Pomfret. As sheep farms went out of business, these mills also closed or were forced to transition to other types of manufacturing.
Cloth dressing mills
Clippings from local newspapers showing just a few of the local “cloth dressing” mills that sprang up in the Woodstock area during the first period of merino mania (from about 1810 to about 1824). At cloth dressing mills, people could have the cloth they made finished and dyed.