The first record of Arthur's sale of carding machines appeared in the
_Pittsfield Sun_ in September 1803. The next year, in May 1804, his
advertisement informed the readers that A. Scholfield continued to card
wool, and also that:
He has carding-machines for sale, built under his immediate
inspection, upon a new and improved plan, which he is determined to
sell on the most liberal terms, and will give drafts and other
instructions to those who wish to build for themselves; and
cautions all whom it may concern to beware how they are imposed
upon by uninformed speculating companies, who demand more than
twice as much for machines as they are really worth.
Scholfield must have felt that some of his competitors were charging
much more for their carding machines than they were worth. Also, others
were producing inferior machines that did not card the wool properly.
Both factors encouraged Arthur to continue the commercial production of
wool-carding machines. In April 1805 he again advertised:
Good news for farmers, only eight cents per pound for picking,
greasing, and carding white wool, and twelve and a half cents for
mixed. For sale, Double Carding-machines, upon a new and improved
plan, good and cheap.
And in 1806:
Double carding machines, made and sold by A. Scholfield for $253
each, without the cards, or $400 including the cards. Picking
machines at $30 each. Wool carded on the same terms as last year,
viz.: eight cents per pound for white, and twelve and a half cents
for mixed, no credit given.
With both carpenters and machinists working under his direction, he soon
abandoned completely the carding of wool and devoted his full time to
producing carding machines. An advertisement in the _Pittsfield Sun_
shows Alexander and Elisha Ely providing carding service there with a
Scholfield machine in 1806. Scholfield machines were also set up in
Massachusetts at Bethuel Baker, Jr., & Co. in Lanesborough in 1805, at
Walker & Worthington in Lenox, at Curtis's Mills in Stockbridge, at
Reuben Judd & Co. in Williamstown, in Lee at the falls near the forge,
at Bairds' Mills in Bethlehem in 1806, and by John Hart in Cheshire in
1807. Subsequently many more Scholfield machines were set up in many
other places as far away as Manchester, New Hampshire, in 1809 and Mason
Village, New Hampshire, in about 1810.
One of the difficulties that Arthur encountered in building these early
machines was in cutting the comb plates that freed the carded fleece
from the cylinder. These plates had to be prepared by hand, the teeth
being cut and filed one by one. In 1814 James Standring, an old friend
and co-worker, smuggled into this country a "teeth-cutting machine,"
which he had procured on a trip to England.[12] Standring kept the
machine closely guarded, permitting only Scholfield and one other
friend to see it. Standring used his machine to make new saws of all
descriptions and to re-cut old ones as well as to prepare comb plates
for the carding machines. But in spite of this new simplified method of
producing comb plates Scholfield's business did not flourish, for the
tremendous influx of foreign fabrics after the War of 1812 greatly
damaged the domestic textile industries, including the manufacture of
carding machines.
By 1818 Scholfield's friends had persuaded him to apply to Congress for
relief. To his brother John on April 20, 1818, he wrote:
... I have been advised by my friends to apply to Congress by a
petition as we were the first that introduced the woolen Business
by Machinery in this country and should that plan be adopted I have
but little hopes of success but they say if it does no good it wont
doo any harm but at any rate I should like your opinion and advice
about it....
Apparently John felt the plan would not succeed, for on the following
December 17 Arthur wrote him again:
... With regard to applying to Congress I have given that up for I
am of your opinion that it won't succeed what gave me some hopes I
was advis'd to it by a member of the Senet who is a very
influential man in Congress but he is now out and I think tis best
to drop it....
Arthur never applied to Congress for the recognition his contemporaries
felt he deserved.[13]
Several changes in the construction of wool-carding machines took place
during this period. As early as 1816 John Scholfield, Jr., was reported
to have in his mill in Jewett City, Connecticut, a double-cylinder
carding machine 3 feet wide. And in 1822 a Worcester, Massachusetts,
machine maker advertised that he was "constructing carding machines
entirely of iron."[14] Although a few of these iron carding machines
were sold, they did not become common until 50 years later.[15]
There is no record that Arthur Scholfield manufactured carding machines
of a width greater than 24 inches, or entirely of iron. However, little
is known of his last business years except that he remained in
Pittsfield until his death, March 27, 1827.
Only three wool-carding machines attributed to the hands of the
Scholfields are known to exist today. All are 24-inch, single-cylinder
carding machines of the same general description (see fig. 8). They
differ only in minor respects that probably result from subsequent
changes and additions. One (fig. 9), now located in the Plymouth Carding
House, at Greenfield Village, Dearborn, Michigan, was discovered in
Ware, Massachusetts. Another (fig. 10), now at Old Sturbridge Village,
Sturbridge, Massachusetts,[16] was uncovered in a barn in northern New
Hampshire. The third (fig. 1), is in the U.S. National Museum in the
collection of the Division of Textiles.
Both it and the Dearborn machine have in former times been described as
"the original Scholfield woolen card." It is a romantic but
unsubstantiated idea that either of these is the first Scholfield
carding machine set up in the Byfield factory in 1794. The author's
opinion is that all three were built by Arthur Scholfield during his
years in the Pittsfield factory. Examination of the National Museum
machine supports this opinion. The woods used are all native to the New
England region. The frame, the large cylinder and the roller called the
fancy are constructed of eastern white pine (the Sturbridge machine is
also constructed principally of pine). The joints of the main frame are
mortised and tenoned. At the doffing end the main frame and cross
supports are numbered and matched, I to IIII, and at the feed end they
are numbered V to VIII but were mis-matched in the original assembly.
Further rigidity is achieved by means of hand-forged lag screws. The
arch of the frame is birch and the arch arm maple. The 14-inch doffer
roller is made of chestnut.[17] The iron shafts are square and turned
down at the bearings. The worker rollers are fitted with sprockets and
turned by a hand-forged chain. The comb plate, stamped "Standring," is
hand filed, and is undoubtedly one of those made before the
"teeth-cutting machine" was smuggled from England, for although
one-third of the plate is quite regular, the size and pitch of the teeth
in the remaining two-thirds are irregular. Part of this irregularity
might be explained as having been caused by the hand-sharpening of a
plate originally cut by machine, but the teeth in one 2-inch span not
only vary in size but have a pitch that would have been impossible to
produce after the original plate had been made.[18]
There is no doubt that this carding machine was made by Arthur
Scholfield, or under his immediate supervision, sometime between 1803
and 1814. It may well be one of the machines sent to southern New
Hampshire in 1809 or 1810, as it is known to have been run in Nashua and
Jeffrey, New Hampshire, in the 1820's and 1830's, after which it was run
by James Townsend in Marlboro, New Hampshire, from 1837 until 1890, when
it was exhibited at the Mechanics Fair in Boston. Mr. Rufus S. Frost
purchased the machine and owned it until his death in 1897. When the
Frost estate was settled, the old Scholfield wool-carding machine was
purchased by the Davis & Furber Machine Co., by which in 1954 it was
presented to the National Museum.
The disappearance of the original Scholfield carding machine is
regrettable, but fortunately the Scholfields' importance to the American
woolen industry does not depend on their having produced this one
machine. These brothers, arriving here at a critical time in our
nation's history, made important contributions to our economic and to
our technological progress--John by his mill operations, Arthur by his
ultimate work of constructing wool-carding machines for sale. Of these
two aspects, it is the contribution of Arthur that has had the more
far-reaching effect, for he spread his expert knowledge of mechanical
wool carding, in the form of machines, throughout the New England woolen
centers. His machines now stand as monuments to the work of both.