Old Woolen Factory, Forksville, Sullivan County

Six years in and this blog manages to surprise me sometimes.

A few days ago I received an email from Jolene Dodge, who lives in Utah. She complimented my work here at MQ and sent the gift of a marker from a county I have yet to visit, so it was very exciting. She is a descendant of the gentleman mentioned in the marker text, so it's of particular interest to her. She's the reason that Sullivan County is making its debut on the blog this week, and once again, thank you, Jolene!

The marker stands at the intersection of PA Routes
87 and 154. Image courtesy of Jolene Dodge.

The woolen factory noted on the marker only lasted for six years. Its story actually begins in Liverpool, England, where a man named Samuel Rogers lived with his wife, the former Ann Gaunt, and their children. In the summer of 1801, they made the decision to pull up stakes and voyage to Pennsylvania, accompanied by Samuel's brother George. It was a difficult journey for multiple reasons, though the most painful must surely have been the death of their then-youngest child, Jacob, at sea. Samuel and Ann were no strangers to the loss of children - they had already buried three infants back in England. They would go on to have four more after reaching the United States, for a grand total of eighteen children. Their eldest son, Samuel Jr., had already moved to Pennsylvania a year earlier, and was waiting to greet them when they arrived in the Philadelphia region.

After spending some time on a rented farm in that part of the commonwealth, the family moved north to what today is Sullivan County, though at the time it was still part of Lycoming County. I'm always fascinated when my disparate blog posts have something to connect them, and this one is no exception. Samuel purchased a tract of 140 acres along the Loyalsock Creek. The person who sold him the land was Joseph Priestley, son of the distinguished scientist Dr. Joseph Priestley, and it's surmised that the two families had very likely known one another back in England. Small world.

The first order of business was, of course, building a cabin for the large (and still growing!) family. This cabin, which was situated near what is now the Forksville Cemetery, was the very first residence in what eventually became the borough of Forksville. Samuel then settled down to his new life. His five eldest sons were, by this time, grown men, and they could see potential in their new home's rich offerings of timber and other resources. In 1810, Samuel deeded a portion of his land to Samuel Jr., Jonathan, and William for the consideration of $40, which was not a small number in those days. They built a sawmill first, then a dam and then a woolen factory, which is the subject of the marker.

The chief product of this woolen mill was a fabric known as kersey cloth. This is a coarse material, the manufacture of which dates back to medieval Europe and is named for the community of Kersey in Suffolk, England. It's made from inferior wool which has been carded - meaning that it was cleaned and detangled, then had the fibers mixed. The fibers are then spun in large thicknesses, or gauges, and woven into fabric on a four-treadle loom. The result is a thick, sturdy, lightweight cloth, which is then further treated to create a warm, smooth material suitable for clothing. It is then dyed blue, using woad or other natural dyes. (Kersey cloth is not to be confused with jersey cloth, which is made from cotton and other plant fibers. Kersey is almost always made with wool.)

The woolen factory was very successful, and provided employment for many of the settlers in the area. When the War of 1812 broke out, the Rogers family took a prestigious contract to provide their kersey cloth for the government, to make military garments. A round trip to Philadelphia and back took six weeks, so they used multiple teams of horses departing on different days to reduce the waiting time. They would transport the finished cloth to Philadelphia, where it would be given over to the government, and raw material would be purchased and brought back to the mill to continue the process. The painting seen here, dating to approximately 1814 (right in the middle of the war) and made by John Archibald Woodside, shows an American sailor wearing what in all likelihood is a kersey jacket, like those made from fabric woven in the Rogers family mill.

The woolen factory had six good years of production and success. Then came 1816, which history remembers as "The Year Without a Summer." I'm not making that up. In Indonesia, the volcanic Mount Tambora erupted in 1815, and the meteorological impacts were felt all around the world for months afterward, due to there being so much ash in the atmosphere that it actually blocked sunlight. Of course, back in those days they didn't have things like the internet, so you can imagine how confused and frightened people must have been, wondering if it was the end times or something. It remained incredibly cold in many places, including Pennsylvania; there was snowfall even into late June, causing crop failures and food shortages and people freezing to death. And somewhere in the middle of all that fear came a devastating storm, which completely wiped out the woolen factory. There were no casualties, as far as I've learned from my reading, but the factory was a total loss.

Well, almost. There was exactly one survivor of the devastation - the dye kettle. It was somehow swept away down the Loyalsock, and months later it was located about a mile from where the factory had been. The spot in the creek where it was located, inside a large hole, became known colloquially as the Dye Kettle. The kettle itself can still be seen today - it's on display at the Sullivan County Historical Society's museum, in the county seat of Laporte. You can also see it right now, though, because I did find a photo. I can't post it here, it's not in the public domain, but if you click this link you can see the dye kettle (which at the time was being used as a flowerpot) and three members of the Rogers family.

After the loss of the factory, and after surviving the summerless year, many members of the Rogers family went on contributing to the development of the region, while others headed into the western frontier. Samuel and Ann were among the founding members of the Little Muncy Baptist Church, later known as Madison Baptist Church. Sons Samuel Jr. and Jonathan continued in the woolen mill industry, which remained a family business for a couple more generations. A number of the young men born into the family, grandsons and great-grandsons of Samuel and Ann, went on to serve the Union Army in the Civil War; several of them were wounded or killed in battle. Moses, the youngest of the eighteen siblings, was the one who laid out the plans for the community of Forksville. His son Sadler, beginning when he was just a teenager, designed and constructed a number of covered bridges throughout what was to become Sullivan County. By 1890, the county boasted thirty covered Burr Truss bridges, but today there remain only three - Forksville, Hillsgrove, and Sonestown - all of which were built by Sadler. The Forksville bridge is seen here, in an image courtesy of WikiCommons.

Hundreds of families across America can trace their ancestry back to one couple, who brought their family to the Loyalsock Creek. It serves as a reminder that the human family has countless connections, and we have more in common than we think.

Thank you again to Jolene for sending me the image and information! Remember, my readers, any of you are welcome to contact me with your own marker pictures, and I'll do my best to share the stories!

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Sources and Further Reading:

Official website of the Sullivan County Historical Society and Museum

Rogers, Fred M. "Early English Settlers on the Loyalsock." Extracts from a paper compiled and delivered before the Lycoming County Historical Society, February 16, 1928. Reproduced in The Journal of the Lycoming County Historical Society, vol. VII, no. 2, Fall 1971. (Note: Fred Rogers was a great-grandson of Samuel and Ann Rogers.)

Rosenkranz, Jean Peterson. Weavers of a Legacy: Ancestors and Descendants of Samuel Rogers (1760-1828) and Ann Gaunt (1762-1823) of Yorkshire, England, and Allied Families. Self-published family history, 2006.

Samuel Rogers at FindAGrave.com

Old Woolen Factory and 400 Acres: The Start of Forksville at the Historical Marker Database 

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Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.