Long before Washington County became known for its scenic vistas and farm stands, fiber was part of daily life here.

It was out in the fields where sheep grazed on hillside pastures, and flax was grown for linen. It was in homes and workshops, where wool was washed, spun, woven, and sewn into useful goods. It was along the county’s waterways, where waterpower helped mills turn raw fiber into cloth and thread. And later, it was in village factories, where the rhythm of textile work shaped entire communities.

For generations, Washington County’s fiber story was tied to the land. From shepherds and handweavers to mills and silk factories, this is a place where wool and other natural fibers have long been part of the landscape.

Washington County did not become a fiber-producing region by accident.

The county’s rolling farmland made it well-suited to livestock and natural fiber production. Its streams and rivers powered early mills. Villages grew where water and roads met, and later, the Champlain Canal and railroad connections expanded how raw materials and finished goods moved through the region.

Like many waterways in the Northeast, the Battenkill River first supported grist mills, saw mills, and other essential operations. Over time, those same waterpower sites also supported textile production. Mill buildings were expanded, repurposed, and rebuilt as needs changed, and the river corridor became one of the county’s most important industrial landscapes.

Farther north, Whitehall developed a different kind of textile identity, one shaped not just by waterpower but by canal traffic, rail connections, and access to wider markets. Together, those places tell a larger story about how Washington County’s geography shaped the kind of fiber economy that could take root here.

Unlike today, fiber work in Washington County was not always a specialty. It was simply part of how people lived.

Families raised sheep for meat, milk, and wool. Flax was grown, processed, and turned into linen. Spinning, weaving, sewing, and mending were practical skills, and cloth was something people understood from the ground up. Before store-bought goods became the norm, the work of turning raw materials into usable fabric was built into everyday routines.

Sheep had to be sheared. Fleece had to be washed and sorted. Fibers had to be carded into alignment, then spun into yarn, woven into cloth, fulled, and finished before they became blankets, garments, thread, or household textiles.

By the mid-nineteenth century, sheep were a major part of the county’s economy.

In 1840, Washington County reportedly had more than 210,000 sheep, along with 15 fulling mills and 13 woolen factories. As the nineteenth century moved along, mills in and around Greenwich shifted and expanded into wool, linen, flax thread, and knitted goods.

The Battenkill Valley carried some of the county’s earliest and most visible textile industry. Even Susan B. Anthony’s time in this region was directly shaped by our fiber production.

Local accounts identify an early cotton mill built by Job Whipple and William Mowry in 1804 in the Greenwich area, and by the mid-1800s, the region’s textile activity had become more specialized. A woolen mill was built in 1845. A linen mill followed in 1868.

Knitting operations grew, too, including the Battenkill Knitting Works, later known as Pleasant Vale Mills. By the end of the nineteenth century, that mill was employing large numbers of workers and using mechanized knitting equipment to produce fabric at a much greater scale than home production ever could.

Perhaps the most distinctive operation in the area was the Dunbarton Flax Spinning Company, built in 1879 as a branch of an Irish firm. It became one of the most notable flax-thread mills in the country, producing linen thread and twines and employing a substantial workforce in Greenwich.

Washington County’s fiber economy also supported sewing and garment production.

In Salem, for example, a factory building erected in 1899 for the Manhattan Shirt Company remained in operation under a handful of manufacturers, with upwards of 200 workers producing clothing at a time, well into the 1980s.

If the Batten Kill corridor tells one side of Washington County’s textile story, Whitehall tells another.

By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Whitehall had become home to large-scale silk manufacturing. Its location near the Champlain Canal and rail lines helped it connect to national and international trade in ways earlier mill villages could not. Raw materials could be brought in. Finished goods could be sent out. Labor could move through the corridor as industry expanded.

The Champlain Silk Mills became one of the county’s major textile employers. By 1916, the business had grown to include two massive factory buildings, employing over 1,000 people and producing silk yarn and ribbon.

>>> Read more about the history of silk by local artist, Serena Kovalosky, from her White Mulberry Project

Whitehall’s silk era did not last forever, however. As synthetic materials like rayon gained ground in the twentieth century, silk manufacturing lost ground too. The mill eventually closed, and a major fire in 1966 destroyed much of what remained. Still, the scale of that operation says a great deal about how significant textile work once was here.

Like much of the Northeast, Washington County saw its textile economy change over time. Some mills adapted. Some changed products. Some closed. Some were destroyed by fire.

You can still see that history in Washington County’s mill communities, in its rural landscapes, and in the makers and farmers carrying that work forward.

Today’s fiber scene is smaller in scale, more rooted in local markets, and closely tied to agriculture, craft, and tourism. Festivals and fiber arts events connect farmers, processors, weavers, and shoppers in a way that feels both old and new. And the connection to the land is still very much alive.

The Washington County Fiber Tour is one of the clearest examples. It brings visitors to farms, studios, and mills, giving people the chance to see shearing, skirting, spinning, weaving, and other parts of the process up close.

Modern processing has returned, too. Battenkill Fibers in Greenwich turns fiber into yarn for knitters, brands, and makers.

For centuries, this has been a place where people knew how to make something from what the land could provide. Even after the biggest factories faded, the thread still runs through Washington County.

Have something to add? There’s much more history to share and shape our understanding of Washington County. Email us with your updates, edits, or anecdotes!