Spinning wheels were a common sight in Montpelier homes in the 1700s and early 1800s when many housewives spun their own linen thread or wool yarn. This wheel was known as a “great wheel” or “walking wheel” because the user walked back and forth to spin her yarn. The basket on the floor contains raw sheep’s wool that is ready to be carded before it is spun.

This wheel was manufactured by E. Hopkins of Chesterfield, N.H., and purchased at the J.W. Howes store in Montpelier. Joseph Wilder Howes, was born in Lebanon CT in 1783 and spent his adult life in Montpelier with his wife Patty and their 9 children. In the 1840s he operated a store at the corner of State and Main Streets (J.W. Howes, or the Corner Store) as well as a wholesale business, traveling to New York and Boston to bring an amazing array of items back to Montpelier to sell. His son Joseph W. Howes, Jr., continued the business. The family owned numerous buildings behind the Court House along Elm Street. Joseph, Jr., became U.S. consul to Montreal.

Wool was an important industry in Vermont beginning in the 1830s. William Jarvis of Weathersfield, Vermont, began importing Merino sheep from Spain in 1812. Jarvis recognized that Vermont was an ideal location for raising Merino because of its treeless hills denuded by the pioneers’ need for firewood, building materials, and lumber for the potash markets. In the 1830s Vermont farmers sold their cows to make room for more sheep and by 1837 there were over one million sheep in Vermont.

In the late 1840s the industry weakened due to changing tariff rates and competition of the Western states. Between 1850 and 1860 Vermont lost one quarter of its sheep population. The Civil War brought a brief rise to the industry with the soldiers’ needs for uniforms and blankets. In the 1860s the world production of wool increased by more than one-third, causing an oversupply. Soon dairy cows replaced sheep in Vermont, making use of plentiful open fields and hillsides.

Spinning wheel donated to the Montpelier Historical Society by Cindy Blakesley in 2001.

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