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The Village Hatter

The Village Hatter image
Parent Issue
Day
8
Month
April
Year
1891
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

The wool hat industry is native to the soil in this country, aecordmg to the New York Sun. Away back La colonial times th.ro was a village hatter, ju there %vas a village blacksmith. Ie made hats of feltcd wool, doubtlcss in imitation of patterns brought from the mother country by tlie latest immigrante. Wool fcltiag, by the way, '.vas, according to an ancient tradition, the accidental discovery of the hatters' patron saint. According to the legend the good man, trudging along a dukty highway that led to his monastery, found hi.s foet bleeding and blistered from the gravel that got into his Bandals. Xot being of a penitential order, he paused beside a hedge, picked sorae wool that' passing sheep liad lelt upon the thorns, and thrust it into his sandals for greater ease. Then he trudged onward, and on reaehing the monastery was surprised to find the wool felted into a compact mass by the constant pounding it had received from his feet. This hint was enough, and in course of time the future saint set up as a felter. From the monastery the trade spread to neighboring villages, and so over Europe. In course of time, too, the colonists brought it wifch them to America. Here it flourished in a small way for more than a century, until the stirring activity of Americans led them to cast about for labor-saving machinery. However, the factorj' system was not thoroughly developed in this country until thirty or thirty-five years ago. The factories do practically all the work now, and all kinds of hats are marvelously cheapened. Buffalo Bill's cowboys buy tJieir hats of a manuf acturer in central New York, and they are vastly cheaper than those made by hand in Mexico. Cowboy f ancy must be studied by the manjifacturer, and there is a great variety of ornaments on these hats. One has an enamelled leather band about the crown; anothcr an elabórate tinsel owl on the front; another a stout twisted cord or band, with a tiny baseball dangling from ooe end.

Article

Subjects
Old News
Ann Arbor Courier