The Dye House
A Little Building with a Big History
North Stonington was known far and wide for the vivid indigo blue yarns dyed here, and the beautiful plaid fabrics woven in the homes of town weavers. It was the beginning of the Industrial Age...
After spinning became mechanized in the early 1800's, the Dudley Wheeler Store, the J H Browning Store, and the Ephriam Russel Wheeler Store acted as "middle-men", bringing spun cotton yarn from Rhode Island mills to North Stonington weavers, who were paid 3 cents a yard in store credit.
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When the Rhode Island mills started mass producing weaving, they no longer needed North Stonington weavers, so local shop keepers went into cloth production for themselves, importing cotton, employing spinners and weavers, and setting up dye houses like ours.
North Stonington shop keepers kept this unique system going well into the 1850's.
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Our Dye House was owned by Horace Babcock, a dyer known for producing nine different values of indigo by a secret process using plant-based dyes. Yarns were even brought to our dye house from other towns so they, too, could be dyed by North Stonington's expert dyers.
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Our Dye House showcases fiber craft - silk, wool, and cotton and the tools and dyes used to create cloth with them in the 1800's.
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Reproductions of store keeper Dudley Wheeler's plaids were recreated from instructions found in his store ledgers
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A Spinning Wheel Dye Garden features Indigo, Madder and a host of other dye plants used historically in fabric, photography, and block printing.
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Come Visit!​
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