The Merino Sheep and Oxford Industry

David Humphreys was the first successful importer of Merino sheep to this country.  His mills at Humphreysville (later Seymour) became famous for the excellence of its work, and his factories were cited as models for the concern which Humphreys exhibited for his employees. Before the importation of the Merinos, sheep raised throughout New England did not produce the best wool.  They also tended to be small in size, making for less meat production as well.

Humphrey's importation changed the agriculture and the economy of Oxford and the entire Naugatuck Valley.  Merino sheep are bred for their fleece.  Each fleece weighs between 15 to 20 pounds. This fleece strands are fine and long.  It can measure up to six inches long across the back and side of the sheep. 

While Colonel Humphreys was in Madrid he wrote to an old friend, Dr. Timothy Davis, and asked him to find a good location for a farm. It was the intention of Humphreys to import Merino sheep to Connecticut to establish a farm for himself.  He also wanted encourage other American farmers to improve their farms, so the new nation could become self-sufficient.  

Humphreys purchased 25 rams (males) and 75 ewes (females) from one to two years old. With special permission from the Spanish government and with a small escort of Portuguese soldiers, the flock was driven across Spain and Portugal to Lisbon. On on April 10, 1802, they were boarded on the ship Perseverance, bound to New York. The journey lasted nearly 50 days, and during the voyage, four rams and five ewes died.

Arriving in New York, the ship were put on a sloop bound for Derby. Farmers from near and far came to view the sheep.  Humphreys talked extolled the breed's advantages to all who came to see them. Interest in the breed soared and the Colonel agreed to sell some of the sheep. Some sheep were sold below Humphreys' original cost, at $100 each. Local farmers wanted to improve their flocks with the Merinos.  

As interest in the breed mounted, prices reached $400, Colonel Humphreys refused to sell at such high prices, opposing speculation. However, the great interest caused prices eventually to go as high as $2,000 for a Humphreys merino ram.

The Merino breed is what is known as a 'fine wool type" sheep.  The individual fibers of wool are much finer and smaller in diameter than other groups of sheep. In addition, there is a greater amount of wool per sheep in this group. With the introduction of the improved sheep breed in the area, the farmers of the Valley region provided a large quantity of high quality fleece. Colonel Humphreys was not satisfied to have simply started an improved agriculture - he put his efforts into developing a woolen industry. Humphreys explained his desire to start the industry was both for the benefit of the area farmers and for the young nation, who up until that time had been dependent on foreign nations for its wool supplies. 

The date for the establishment of Humphrey's mill has been variously set - but historians generally place the date at between 1808 and 1810. Perhaps the use of two different names for Humphreys' enterprises has added to the confusion of historians on this matter. The business at Humphreysville was originally carried under the name of "T. Vose and Company." Vose had married a niece of Colonel Humphreys. The Colonel provided all the capital for the project and shared with several nephews the profits. In 1810 the partnership was dissolved and by an act of the Legislature a corporation, The Humphreysville Manufacturing Co., was formed with the same partners. 

Mrs. Ann S. Stephens, a well-known writer in her day, was the daughter of the plant superintendent - John Winterbotham. She wrote of the Colonel as follows:

"Colonel Humphreys took great interest in the discipline and education of the apprentice boys attached to the factory. Seventy-three of these boys were indentured, I have been told, at the same time, from the New York almshouse, and others from neighboring villages. 

"For these he established evening and Sunday schools, with competent teachers; and indulged his military taste by uniforming them at no light expense as a militia company, drilling them himself. . .. Colonel Humphreys did not forget the literary propensities that had mated him with Trumbull and Barlow in Yale College. He wrote a great deal for the benefit and amusement of the operatives; and the Christmas holidays were frequently celebrated with private theatricals where an original play, of which he was the author, would be performed by the most talented work-people, and he more than once took a prominent part in them." 

One of the many apprentice boys who settled in the area was Samuel Wire, who established a mill of his own. In November 1814, He purchased John W. Wooster's a clothiers shop and fulling mill on lower Chestnut Tree Hill Road, near Route 67. 

William C. Sharpe wrote in Oxford Sketches, Part II, "Captain Wire carried on the business there for about thirty years. The wool from sheep on the surrounding farms was brought to the mill to be carded and spun. Many paid for these two processes and then took the yarn home to knit into stockings and mittens, etc., or to be woven on hand looms. Much cloth was, however, manufactured at the mill, principally satinet, which was generally shipped to commission merchants in New York, but was also retailed to the people in the vicinity of the mill." 

Although the area towns enjoyed a period of great prosperity due largely to Colonel Humphreys' introduction of merinos, the good times did not last forever. In the 1870s, sheep breeders all over the state began to suffer from sheep kills inflicted by wandering dogs.  In Oxford, the 1876 Selectmen's Report noted that $753.50 was paid to farmers who had sheep killed by dogs, and said, "The amount paid for sheep killed by dogs has been larger than ever before known, and if some means cannot be found to prevent such wholesale destruction, sheep culture will be destroyed entirely in our farming towns as neighboring towns are suffering as heavily as we."

As economic conditions changed, and with the development of power other than water power, the mills of the area were gradually closed down. With their demise a period of unprecedented prosperity drew to a close.