The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1917-03-13
FIRST u, .S,STRAW
bonnet WAS MADE:
bYALITTLEC Child
Girl of Twelve Years, Betsey
Metcalf Founded Great
Straw Hat Industry

Boston, March 13.-With Spring
styles of straw hats for women al
ready pictured in the fashion jour-
nails, it is nearing the time when the
comic artist will again resurrect the
| old joke of hubby, confronted with
wifey's bill for Easter finery, exclafm-
ing, "Piffle who invented the bon
net anyway"
Imagine a girl of ~, teasing for an
imported, incidentally, straw bon
net and then appeasing her curiosity
to know how it was put together by
picking 1t to pieces, strand by strand
Such a case happened and the girl
was Betsey Metcalf. Betsey had a
constructive brain and after she had
examined infinitely every detail of the
composition Of the bonnet, she was
possessed with childish desire to
make on herself.
She was successful and what she ac-
complished is claimed to be the foun-
dation of the now enormous straw
hat industry Of the United States.
In later years, as Betsey Baker Of
West Dedham, she made more bon
nets and was regarded as an adept in
the skill and finish of her product.
The indomitable perseverance of
little Betsey Metcalf furnished an oc-
cupation which endowed the town Of
Foxboro with what, for many years,
was it's sole industry, and even at the
present day is it's chief business.
Foxboro, Wrentham and Framing
ham are said to be claimants for the
'honors Of having first manufactured
straw to any extent. There is prob
ably little difference In the time when
no fret
places, but Foxboro has earned the
title which was conferred upon it by
popular sentiment from 1850 to 1860,
that of 1.-THE Home Of Straw
Foxboro built the first straw bon
net factory in the country in 1874.
Then the Foxboros Union Straw
Works, built in 1858 and destroyed by
fire in 1900, was in its early days the
largest straw mandatory in the
country. Warren Carpenter of Fox
boro had made trip to Italy in the
40s. hired a convent for a storehouse
and bought up all the straw and goods
of popular style and SO monoplized
the business.
When the making of bonnets was
in its infancy the raising Of straw,
the splitting, bleaching, braiding, sew
ing and shaping gave employment to
practically all the adults of the town
Of Foxboro and even children had a
part to perform, for many of the girls
and boys we're allotted amounts Of
straw to split or braid each day before
they could consider themselves &ree
to play.
History says that Polly Carpenter,
seven years Of age, was required to
braid two yards daily.
Straw splitting machines" were a
crude affair in those days, simply a
stick with tacks driven through, the
points >protruding on one side.
The first manufacturer in Foxboro,
If not in the country, was Mrs Hep
zebah Sumner Metcalf, who lived in
what is konwn as the Jones Dow
place, a historic house which was once
the home of the first minister in Fox
boro. and later the town almshouse.
Mrs. Metcalf's skill in bonnet maxi
ing was so pronounced that she took
in apprentices and employed women
and children in the ell Of her home.
Another house, used for manufac-
turing, was the William Payson place
on South street.
The bonnet Of the 1885 to 1910
period Is extremely odd as viewed in
the present workmanship and the tex
ture OF material are remarkably fine
considering the facilities at hand.