Welcome to my 250th post!
William B. Schoener, Jr. was born on 29 February 1812 in Reading, PA. He was the fourth child and third son of William B. Schoener, Sr. and Catherine Boyer.
William was an extremely industrious individual. When he was eight years old, he was sent to the Friends' school house in town. He subsequently attended a school run by a Major David Madeira. When he was fourteen, he quit school and at the age of seventeen, he was apprenticed for four years to John Haberacker, a piano and cabinet maker. He stayed there for two and a half years before he bought himself free by paying $100. He then went to work for his older brother John, who had a piano and cabinet shop on the opposite side of the street from Haberacker.
After a while, he went to Kutztown where he carried on cabinet making for himself for a while before returning to Reading and establishing his business there. He continued working in wood until 1834, when he left Reading and traveled for two years though the southern and western states, sometimes stopping a while to work at his trade. Upon his return to Reading, he engaged in the agricultural and horticultural business, most notably silk and became the leader of the silk movement in Reading
Silk is the filament a silkworm produces for its cocoon. The filament is finer than a human hair. It takes 10 filaments to make one thread and 3, 000 cocoons to make a pound of silk.
Attempts had been made to develop a U.S. silk industry since the early 1600s. King James I of England encouraged settlers in Jamestown, Virginia, to abandon tobacco for sericulture (the cultivation of silkworms to create silk). German-Swiss immigrants also brought sericulture with them to South Carolina and Georgia.
While sericulture was never successful long-term in this country, manufacturing of silk yarns and threads started around the Revolutionary period. Benjamin Franklin was one of the supporters of a Philadelphia filature (silk reeling mill) that opened in 1770.
The care and feeding of the silkworms is very involved and they are very temperamental creatures. Changes in temperature or humidity, even sudden drafts, can affect their growth. They must eat mulberry leaves several times a day. This made sericulture challenging. For instance, in the 1820s and 1830s, a plague killed off many of the mulberry trees, limiting silk production.
During the 1830's Americans scrambled to plant mulberry trees as silk speculation swept the country. Prominent leaders, like former President John Quincy Adams, claimed that silk production would make ordinary people rich. Large numbers of Americans began to read government sponsored manuals and attend silk conventions. For years, silk worms and mulberry trees were widely discussed topics.
William owned considerable property in the northwestern section of the city. He planted several thousand mulberry trees on his Reading property. Since they are fast growing trees, his land soon became a mass of trees and foliage, such that some residents later said that the foliage was so thick that the sun could scarcely penetrate it.
The trees supplied the leaves he needed for his silk worms which filled his house. He spread nets out in different rooms for them and sold the cocoons to silk weavers. With many people seeing silk as a fast money maker, there was a great demand for the trees, leaves and silkworms that William raised. In addition, he also manufactured and sold silk-spinning equipment for turning the silk into thread. He cleared $10,000 in four years (over a quarter million dollars today).
However, America's silkworm craze ended after an especially cold winter killed many mulberry trees in 1839, ruining the big investments and bursting the speculative bubble. Together with the nationwide financial panic of 1837, that put many silk growers out of business and effectively ended the large-scale cultivation of silk in the United States.
William had been shrewd enough to get out of the business before the bubble burst. Many speculators and even farmers ripped up their remaining mulberry trees in frustration. William simply let his grow wild. The trees were cut down in 1882, but that did not exterminate them as some of the trees sprouted anew. They were eventually dynamited in 1906 and the tract was split into multiple building lots.
William would then go on to pursue other endeavors which will be featured in the next post.
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