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May 2004

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Subject:
From:
Paul Drake <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Paul Drake <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 30 May 2004 19:03:52 -0500
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****Ms. Susan: Your question should be of interest to most of us, even though you did not tell us the "where", the names of your people, or the "whens" involved.  Your words reveal one of the few small milling businesses, the records of which have survived.  I would enjoy knowing of everything in that inventory, since a more complete analysis (conjecture ?  guess ?  haha) could be made, I suspect. 
  ... Drake families seem to have a large number of fulling machines, carding machines, saw mills, oil mills and cotton factories. 

  *** Your use of the plural words "machines" and "factories" throws me.  It would be a tad surprising if they owned more than one (1) such facility or set of equipment if they owned no other land or such as a residence property.  You better check that again.  Still though, it may have been a quite small business with a residence on a little tract, and almost surely it was located on a creek or stream whereby they might create water power to drive the equipment you have named. If you have their names I would bet that the property and site of the mill(s) could be located from whatever document you have uncovered.       
    
  ....I am assuming that since they only owned 1 acre of land they made their living by producing cotton and woolen material. 

  *****If they lived in the South, you better not presume that they produced wool, as sheep were few and far between till the development of inexpensive wire fencing in the last half of the 19th century.  Thus, they almost certainly bought raw cotton (and perhaps linen - flax - or hemp), bleached, dyed and separated those, and wove "stuff", i.e.,  cloth of several sorts and perhaps several colors.  They quite likely sold their products as a) raw, dyed cotton or cotton/linen yarn,  b) as cotton fabrics and materials, or c) even as simple clothing for such as servants and slaves.   Then too, since you said "mills", they may also have ground "corn", barley, or any other grain from their area.  Notice also that in their day and time one acre would have been a LARGE manufactory.   

  *****The fact that you did not mention any such as the supplies that would have been required for the making of clothing on a wider scale tells me that they were in the business only of converting raw materials into cloth for further sale to the garment making tradesmen.   One thing seems apparent from your description; these people were of an entrepreneurial bent.   
   
  My question is: What did the average family of that time own in the way of such mills and machines? Did they rent the use of these machines and mills to  other people to produce their cloth and such? If they did rent the usage of the machines, what would have been the payment? 

  *****If before the Revolution, almost all payments were made through barter of their products or tobacco (or both), the latter being the common medium of exchange and settlement.  Paul


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