200 Years of Wool in Harmony, Maine

Every July, I perform my favorite summer ritual: a drop-in visit to Rosemary’s Gift & Yarn Shop in Windham, Maine. I always make a beeline for their shelves of wool from Bartlettyarns. As I tossed a skein of natural gray yarn into my tote bag this year, I grinned because I knew that in less than a week, I planned to see the Bartlettyarns mill itself and find out more about their two hundred years of Maine wool production.

In 1821, Ozier Bartlett arrived in Harmony, Maine. He founded a carding mill along Higgins Stream, using hydropower to work the machines. Hydropower was a technology that had arrived in the northeastern United States only 30 years earlier. Although the original structures of the mill burned in a fire in 1920, the company rebuilt; today, the blue mill remains a symbol of Maine’s fiber heritage.

The mill and store are located on Higgins Stream in Harmony, Maine.

My Visit to Bartlettyarns

On a misty mid-July afternoon, after buying Bartlettyarns for years, I finally got to see the famous building—and the historical machinery—for myself.