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In the early 1830's, raising silkworms and their food supply, the leaves of the mulberry tree, was a popular pastime throughout the Connecticut Valley. After the silkworms (the caterpillar Bombyx mori) spun their cocoons each spring, housewives would unwind them, twist the "raw silk" into thread, dye it, and and use it for stockings and sewing.
The Mill River (shown here running northwest to southeast, where it joins the much larger Connecticut) turned the wheels of thirty mills in those days, including -- after 1833 -- a silk mill.
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