Washington

Introductory note.

The Tale of the Spinning Wheel is revised and enlarged from a paper read before the Litchfield Historical Society in Litchfield, Connecticut; New England Society in the City of New York; Waldorf Astoria, New York City; Mary Floyd Talmadge Chapter, D.A.R., Litchfield; Judea Chapter, D.A.R., Washington, Connecticut; Massachusetts Society of the Colonial Dames of America, Boston; Katharine Gaylord Chapter, D.A.R., in Bristol, Connecticut; Connecticut Society of the Colonial Dames of America, New Haven; and also in Hartford; Denver Chapter, D.A.R., in Denver, Colorado; Warren and Prescott Chapter, D.A.R., Boston, Massachusetts; Orford Parish Chapter, D.A.R., South Manchester, Connecticut; National Arts Club, New York; Esther Stanley Chapter, D.A.R., New Britain, Connecticut; Annual Spring Conference, Connecticut D.A.R. at Middletown; Dorothy Ripley Chapter, D.A.R., Southport, Connecticut; Wiltwyck Chapter, D.A.R., Kingston, New York; Litchfield Club, Litchfield, Connecticut; and so on.

The Tale of the Spinning Wheel.

Queens of homespun, out of whom we draw our royal lineage.

So highly were these bounty coats prized that the heirs of the soldiers who were killed at Bunker Hill before receiving their coats were given a sum of money instead.

The list of names of soldiers who then enlisted is known to this day as the coat roll, and the names of the women who made the coats might form another roll of honor.

The English sneeringly called Washington's army the Homespuns.

They little knew the power and significance of that title.