Pinned-Down Spinning Wheel
 Jennifer Landes
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(6/24/2008) Nothing, perhaps, epitomizes the world of antiques or conjures up the domestic life of the early American settler as much as the spinning wheel. And yet, for an area with so much of its past preserved, East Hampton has never been able to lay claim to a wheel crafted by one of the members of its own cabinetmaking dynasty, the Dominy family, until now.
The Dominy shop operated in East Hampton in the 18th and 19th centuries. The sale of 115 of its spinning wheels has been documented, but even so it’s not easy to positively identify one of them.
You might be able to tell by sight if a wheel was made in New York State. You might even be able to narrow it down to Long Island. But since the Dominys did not sign their wheels, and since the simple designs do not leave much to the imagination, there had been none that offered proof positive that they came from that shop.
Although there are some very old wheels and weaving machines in the collection of the East Hampton Historical Society, the first confirmed Dominy wheel actually came to it very recently. Its provenance was confirmed by Kathy McMahon, a specialist in textile making and the tools of that craft.
Ms. McMahon was hired by the historical society to do a complete inventory of its holdings. She recently spent a week going through the collection and documenting what she found.
“I’ve been personally looking for a Dominy wheel for a long time,” she said.
The reason this particular wheel could be confirmed was that it had belonged to the same family since its purchase, and members of the family gave the wheel to the historical society. The sales records of the Dominy shop, in the collection of the Winterthur Museum and Country Estate in Delaware, document the sale of a wheel by Nathaniel Dominy V to Thomas Strong on Aug. 14, 1821.
“I’m pretty sure this is it,” Ms. McMahon said, indicating one of several wheels in various states of completeness that she had gathered in a new storage barn on the property of the historical society’s Mulford Farm. She noted, however, that “there’s nothing distinctive about it,” adding that “anybody and his brother could have made it.” Nonetheless, she did point out that the wheel’s legs had similar turnings to those of Dominy-designed chairs.
In the society’s collection there are two other New York wheels, “but I’m not convinced the others are Dominy” she said. “I’m not sure and we may not ever know.” The Dominy family sold 67 wool wheels and 48 Dutch wheels crafted by Nathaniel Dominy IV and Nathaniel Dominy V.
The Strong family wheel is a great or wool wheel, which is larger than the smaller wheels used for spinning flax that are also called Dutch wheels. Wool requires a longer draw to make its yarn. Flax is a thin, hard yarn and can be made with a smaller wheel.
South Fork settlers had sheep, but found that flax grew well in this climate, and it became a chief source of their textile fibers. There are examples of linens woven from homespun yarn at the Mulford Farm as well. “Everybody spun, but not everybody wove,” Ms. McMahon said. “Professional weavers counted on clients to bring their own spun yarn. They did not spin themselves.”
There are probably no more than 1,000 people in the United States interested in collecting wheels or who are part of the overall “spinning community” today, Ms. McMahon estimated. A wheel in good condition with all of its parts can cost only a few hundred dollars.
She grew interested in spinning and weaving about 30 years ago and became professionally involved in it about 10 years ago. “There’s no school or formal education” related to the history and craft of spinning, she said. Instead, she undertook a more traditional apprentice-and-master relationship with one of the acknowledged experts in the field. Bill Ralph, a restorer and collector from Pennsylvania, was her mentor. After his death his home became a museum for his collection of wheels and records.
“At his side I learned a lot, and he introduced me to a lot of people who collected their own tools to weave early-American textiles: their tools, their techniques. It’s just a passion.”
Although she grew up on Long Island and lived in Sag Harbor as an adult, she moved to a town north of Binghamton, N.Y., 14 years ago to raise her own sheep and spin wool from them. She has become an expert in her own right and now does what her mentor used to do.
When she has a role in a find such as that of the Dominy wheel in the historical society’s collection, she said, “I get palpitations. I can’t speak.”
“The Dominy wheel has so much information to impart” about the shop’s style, the local craft, and the families who lived here in those earlier years, she said. “It’s invaluable.”