Photo by Michael Schlenoff
Charlestown Middle School teacher Michael Schlenoff’s eighth-grade class was given a demonstration on the process of spinning wool on Wednesday, March 23.
The demonstration was led by Carla Boyington, the K-8 school library media generalist at Fall Mountain Regional School District. Ms. Boyington is a former employee of the Philipsburg Manor Living History Museum in Tarrytown, New York, and is an expert on fiber and the fiber arts.
The demonstration was related to the local history of the region during the early Republican era of the United States.
Students learned about William Jarvis of Weathersfield, Vermont, and the merino sheep craze of the early 19th century, when the local landscape was dramatically altered to accommodate the nearly 2 million sheep that grazed the deforested land. Eighth graders saw photos from the 18th century of clear-cut hills and fields, places where thick forests grew before and after, yet were barren for 40 years during the economic boom.
While the country was rapidly expanding, thanks to the ceaseless march of American settlers to the west, New Englanders in the Upper Connecticut River Valley were experiencing the most economically prosperous agricultural period in its history. The sheep fever is over, but there is still evidence of that remarkable time all over our community, the most obvious being the stonewalls, a much-beloved New England relic of a time long past.
Ms. Boyington will be back soon to lead the students in a hands-on felting activity as we continue looking at the local history during those formative years in American history.
This piece was written by Michael Schlenoff, eight-grade social studies and science educator at Charlestown Middle School.
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