Rivanna River

38 01.209N 78 27 280W looking up-river

In the matter of marketing their products, mills passing through their infant stage demonstrated exceptional similarity, also. As we have noted, these enterprises were designed to supplement home production of cloth in a limited section. A common device was the exchange of the finished material of the mill for raw wool from the farmers of the surrounding countryside-- often the only real source of that essential commodity. Between 1830 and 1870, commission houses located principally in Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, and Boston, and having both selling and financing functions came into being and began to dominate the industry but once again the effect of a national trend reached the outlying areas only slowly. As late as 1870, many western mills were exchanging up to 70,000 pounds of wool cloth each year for raw wool directly from farmers.--Harry Poindexter