Bartlettyarns History & The Famous Bartlett Mule

In 1821, Ozias Bartlett started his yarn spinning mill on the west bank of Higgins Stream in the village of Harmony, Maine.  He took in locally raised wool and returned spun yarn in much the same manner as a village miller taking in grain and returning flour or ground meal.  The original Bartlett spinnery probably was first powered by an undershot water wheel that was replaced some time in the 1840’s by a water turbine.  Great-grandson Harry Bartlett took over management of the mill at age 16 in 1899, and operated the mill into the 1940’s when the first owners outside the Bartlett family took over.  Bartlettyarns still remains a privately-owned, small yarn mill specializing in 100% wool knitting yarns, wool blankets, and wool rovings.

Today Bartlettyarns continues its original tradition of taking in wool from shepherds who nowadays deliver fleeces to the mill from all over the United States.  Many of the growers take back yarn in trade for their wool to use or to sell from their farms.  The mill also sells its warm wool yarns directly to retailers, wholesale customers, designers, production knitters, and weavers.

Bartlettyarns is most famous for its Fisherman yarns that are lanolin-rich for softness and weather resistance.  Select fleeces are blended carefully to produce a large array of colors in heathers, marls, tweeds and solids.  All of the company’s yarns are spun on the woolen system, using a mule spinning frame.  “Mule spun” yarns have a distinctive appearance and desirable homespun qualities, compared with the more common worsted spun yarns.

There are two basic spinning systems for wool—the woolen system and the worsted system.  Our woolen system yarns generally have a softer twist and more loft than worsted yarns.  As a result, whereas worsted weight knitting yarns contain four plies, our traditional woolen system yarns require only two plies for the standard knitting weight.

In this country, spinning frames are the most common spinning machine used by yarn mills, largely because high-speed frames work well with cotton and man-made fibers.  The mule, which revolutionized yarn spinning when it was invented nearly 200 years ago, is still used extensively in Europe and Asia.  In the U.S., however, the mule is almost extinct except at Bartlettyarns.

The principle of the mule is to duplicate the motion of a hand spinner.  In hand spinning, the spinner’s hand moves to and from the tip of a spinning bobbin.  Raw wool fibers are snagged onto the end of the bobbin and are drawn and spun between the tip of the bobbin and the spinner’s fingertips.  In mule spinning, a carriage containing a row of bobbins moves back and forth, simultaneously drawing and spinning a six foot length of carded roving attached to each bobbin.  The yarn that is spun by a mule resembles the classic woolen yarns used in a wide range of garments from Aran sweaters to Harris Tweed jackets.