Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 8, 2025
Here in Pont-de-Saint-Michel almost every one is employed in the Gaspard filature, or in the throwing mills; and if not, the people raise silkworms. Since the men have been called to the colors practically all the work of this big manufacturing plant is being done by women, boys, and children.
The cocoons delivered at the filature in 1760, weighed seven thousand nine hundred and eighty-three pounds, and there were spun eight hundred and thirty-nine pounds. Mr. Ottolenghe was now honored with the full appointment of "superintendant of the silk culture in Georgia," with a salary appropriate to his station.
Shall we begin then our journey through the filature? We will go into the sorting rooms first, where the cocoons that are sent to us are classified. Most of them have already been cured, or baked, for the majority of our customers do that for us. When they do not we have to expose the cocoons in our own ovens." "Don't most of your cocoons come to you sorted?" questioned Pierre.
Before the silk was reeled off the cocoons would, of course, go through another and more thorough classification under the hands of the experts at the filature, as the reeling factory was called. But even this first rough grouping was a help to the buyers. In the meantime some of the caterpillars that worked more slowly were still busy with their spinning, and could not be disturbed.
On the 26th of June, Henry Kennan made proposals to the Board of Trade, for carrying on the filature; but they were of a nature not at all advantageous to the culture, and Governor Wright, in his reply, on the 21st of October, disapproved of the plan, and exposed the fallacy of his scheme, which was in consequence abandoned.
A machine was erected near his house, and two women succeeded very well, by which the people were stimulated to renewed exertions, and a public Filature was contemplated. The enterprise of these Germans, seemed to excite the envious disposition of Mrs. Camuse, with whom had been placed two women from Ebenezer; but the conduct of Mrs.
Camuse, son, and daughter, who, it appears, gave the commissioners no little trouble by their perverse conduct, returned to Savannah and were engaged to labor at the filature, at three shillings per day, at which Mr. Habersham exclaims, "monstrous wages!" The reelers now advanced with much proficiency, and five of them, on the 10th of May, wound off eleven pounds of cocoons each.
Robinson brought with him a large quantity of silkworm seed, but all failed, save about half an ounce; the commissioners determined at once to erect a filature, which should be a normal school to the whole province, and it was their opinion that it would be "a sufficient nursery to supply, in three or four years, as many reelers as will be wanted, when we make no doubt of many private filatures being erected, which can only make their culture a general staple."
In a message of Sir James Wright, to the Commons House of Assembly, 19th of January, 1774, he says, "The filature buildings seem to be going to decay and ruin; may it not, therefore, be expedient to consider what other service or use they may be put to?" and the Assembly answered, "We shall not fail to consider how it may be expedient to apply the filature to some public use;" and henceforth it was used as an assembly or ball-room, a place where societies held their meetings, and where divine service was occasionally conducted: more recently, it was converted into a dwelling-house, and was thus appropriated at the time of its destruction by fire, on the afternoon of March 25, 1839.
The good effects of the filature were now happily evident in the increased interest of the planters in the subject, who sent both their daughters and young negroes to acquire the art of reeling. In 1756, three thousand seven hundred and eighty-three pounds and one ounce of cocoons were received at the filature, and two hundred and sixty-eight pounds of raw silk reeled.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking