“Arthur Scholfield respectfully informs the inhabitants of Pittsfield and the neighboring towns that he has a carding machine, half a mile west of the meeting-house, where they may have their wool carded into rolls for twelve and a half cents per pound; mixed, fifteen cents per pound.  If they find the grease and pick the grease in it will be ten cents per pound, and twelve and a half mixed.”

The first broadcloth manufactured in the United States was by Scholfield in 1804, the wool being carded in his machine and woven by hand.

In 1808 Scholfield manufactured thirteen yards of black broadcloth, which was presented to James Madison, and from which his inaugural suit was made.  A few Merino sheep had been imported from France, and Scholfield, obtaining the wool, and mixing it with the coarse wool of the native sheep, produced what at that time was regarded as cloth of superior fineness.  The spinning was wholly by hand.

The time had come for a new departure in household economies.  Up to 1809 all spinning was done by women and girls.  This same obscure county paper, the Pittsfield Sun, of January 4, 1809, contained an account of a meeting of the citizens of that town to take measures for the advancement of manufactures.  The following resolution was passed:  “Resolved that the introduction of spinning-jennies, as is practiced in England, into private families is strongly recommended, since one person can manage by hand the operation of a crank that turns twenty-four spindles.”

This was the beginning of spinning by machinery in this country.  This boy at play—­or rather, working—­on the hill-side farm of Campton, was in his seventh year.  Not till he was nine did the first wheeled vehicle make its appearance in the Pemigewasset valley.  Society was in a primitive condition.  The only opportunity for education was the district school, two miles distant—­where, during the cold and windy winter days, with a fire roaring in the capacious fire-place, he acquired the rudiments of education.  A few academies had been established in the State, but there were not many farmer’s sons who could afford to pay, at that period, even board and tuition, which in these days would be regarded as but a pittance.

Very early in life this Campton boy learned that Pemigewassett valley, though so beautiful, was but an insignificant part of the world.  Intuitively his expanding mind comprehended that the tides and currents of progress were flowing in other directions, and in April, 1823, before he had attained his majority, he bade farewell to his birthplace, made his way to Boston—­spending the first night at Concord, New Hampshire, having made forty miles on foot; the second at Amoskeag, the third in Boston, stopping at the grandest hotel of that period in the city—­Wildes’, on Elm street, where the cost of living was one dollar per day.  He had but two dollars and a half, and his stay at the most luxurious hotel in the city of thirty-five thousand inhabitants was necessarily brief.  He was a rugged young man, inured to hard labor, and found employment on a farm in Newton, receiving twelve dollars a month.  In the fall he was once more in Campton.  The succeeding summer found him at work in a brick yard.  In 1826 he was back in Boston, doing business as a provision dealer in the newly-erected Quincy market.