A to Z Challenge 2020 - U

The Blogging from A to Z Challenge is to post everyday (except Sunday) in the month of April 2020 starting with the letter A and going all the way to Z. My theme is...
Ancestor Occupations 

ULVERTON WOOLEN MILL BUILDER & WORKER

In 1849 William Reed Dunkerley bought Lot 10 with 200 acres of land in Ulverton, a village in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. My 2x great grandfather John Porter built the mill there in 1850. The mill was later turned into a woolen mill.

After a couple of other owners, in 1895 the mill and all buildings were purchased by Albert Harry Hepworth, a woolen manufacturer from Vaudreuil. In 1900 the town paid John Porter $5 for a design, then had him build the covered bridge that went over the river to the mill. 

Original Mill bridge 1952

Farmers brought their wool to the mill for carding, spinning and colouring. Albert's brother George Hepworth worked at the mill as a spinner and was earning about $300 a year. In 1903 George Hepworth married Salome Margaret Porter, my great grand aunt and one of the daughters of my 2x great grandfather John Porter.

The mill employed 10-15 workers who laboured ten hours a day, six days a week. A carder was making about $175-200 /year 

In 1906 Albert sold the mill to neighbour Joseph Blanchette and moved his family to Red Deer, Alberta. George still worked for the new owner for a few years, then in 1918 George, Aunt Salome and their children moved to Red Deer. 


The mill shut down in 1944, was used as a mink farm for a brief period then abandoned.

In 1982 the mill was recognized as a heritage property and was restored. It is now open as a very unique interpretive center, with working antique machinery. Visitors can see all the steps in the process of cleaning, sorting, carding and spinning the wool, and the making of woolen socks, which they sell in their store.

You can see in the video the socks being made into the basket lower left.

This is how they come out of the machine. Just snip and sew.