machines as they are really worth.

Scholfield must have felt that some of his competitors were charging much more for their carding machines than they were worth. Also, others were producing inferior machines that did not card the wool properly. Both factors encouraged Arthur to continue the commercial production of wool-carding machines. In April 1805 he again advertised:

And in 1806:

With both carpenters and machinists working under his direction, he soon abandoned completely the carding of wool and devoted his full time to producing carding machines. An advertisement in the Pittsfield Sun shows Alexander and Elisha Ely providing carding service there with a Scholfield machine in 1806. Scholfield machines were also set up in Massachusetts at Bethuel Baker, Jr., & Co. in Lanesborough in 1805, at Walker & Worthington in Lenox, at Curtis's Mills in Stockbridge, at Reuben Judd & Co. in Williamstown, in Lee at the falls near the forge, at Bairds' Mills in Bethlehem in 1806, and by John Hart in Cheshire in 1807. Subsequently many more Scholfield machines were set up in many other places as far away as Manchester, New Hampshire, in 1809 and Mason Village, New Hampshire, in about 1810.

One of the difficulties that Arthur encountered in building these early machines was in cutting the comb plates that freed the carded fleece from the cylinder. These plates had to be prepared by hand, the teeth being cut and filed one by one. In 1814 James Standring, an old friend and co-worker, smuggled into this country a "teeth-cutting machine," which he had procured on a trip to England.[12] Standring kept the machine closely guarded, permitting only Scholfield and one other friend to see it. Standring used his machine to make new saws of all descriptions and to re-cut old ones as well as to prepare comb plates for the carding machines. But in spite of this new simplified method of producing comb plates Scholfield's business did not flourish, for the tremendous influx of foreign fabrics after the War of 1812 greatly damaged the domestic textile industries, including the manufacture of carding machines.

By 1818 Scholfield's friends had persuaded him to apply to Congress for relief. To his brother John on April 20, 1818, he wrote:

Apparently John felt the plan would not succeed, for on the following December 17 Arthur wrote him again:

Arthur never applied to Congress for the recognition his contemporaries felt he deserved.[13]

Several changes in the construction of wool-carding machines took place during this period. As early as 1816 John Scholfield, Jr., was reported to have in his mill in Jewett City, Connecticut, a double-cylinder carding machine 3 feet wide. And in 1822 a Worcester, Massachusetts, machine maker advertised that he was "constructing carding machines entirely of iron."[14] Although a few of these iron carding machines were sold, they did not become common until 50 years later.[15]

There is no record that Arthur Scholfield manufactured carding machines of a width greater than 24 inches, or entirely of iron. However, little is known of his last business years except that he remained in Pittsfield until his death, March 27, 1827.

Only three wool-carding machines attributed to the hands of the Scholfields are known to exist today. All are 24-inch, single-cylinder carding machines of the same general description (see fig. 8). They differ only in minor respects that probably result from subsequent changes and additions. One (fig. 9), now located in the Plymouth Carding House, at Greenfield Village, Dearborn, Michigan, was discovered in Ware, Massachusetts. Another (fig. 10), now at Old Sturbridge Village, Sturbridge, Massachusetts,[16] was uncovered in a barn in northern New Hampshire. The third (fig. 1), is in the U.S. National Museum in the collection of the Division of Textiles.

Both it and the Dearborn machine have in former times been described as "the original Scholfield woolen card." It is a romantic but unsubstantiated idea that either of these is the first Scholfield carding machine set up in the Byfield factory in 1794. The author's opinion is that all three were built by Arthur Scholfield during his years in the Pittsfield factory. Examination of the National Museum machine supports this opinion. The woods used are all native to the New England region. The frame, the large cylinder and the roller called the fancy are constructed of eastern white pine (the Sturbridge machine is also constructed principally of pine). The joints of the main frame are mortised and tenoned. At the doffing end the main frame and cross supports are numbered and matched, I to IIII, and at the feed end they are numbered V to VIII but were mis-matched in the original assembly. Further rigidity is achieved by means of hand-forged lag screws. The arch of the frame is birch and the arch arm maple. The 14-inch doffer roller is made of chestnut.[17] The iron shafts are square and turned down at the bearings. The worker rollers are fitted with sprockets and turned by a hand-forged chain. The comb plate, stamped "Standring," is hand filed, and is undoubtedly one of those made before the "teeth-cutting machine" was smuggled from England, for although one-third of the plate is quite regular, the size and pitch of the teeth in the remaining two-thirds are irregular. Part of this irregularity might be explained as having been caused by the hand-sharpening of a plate originally cut by machine, but the teeth in one 2-inch span not only vary in size but have a pitch that would have been impossible to produce after the original plate had been made.