The city of Burlington in Chittenden County, Vermont is on the south bank and Winooski and Colchester on the north.

[3] In 1789, Ira Allen, one of the towns founders built a dam across the upper falls, and used it to power two saw mills to provide cut timber for the British market in Québec.

It was in 1835 that the water rights to the Colchester bank were secured and in 1835 the Burlington Woolen Mill was constructed beneath the lower falls.

Over the next decade, Hine documented child labor in American industry to aid the NCLC's lobbying efforts to end the practice.

These demonstrate the employment practices where children with French Canadian names are seen to be working in responsible posts, and equally they provide images of the machines in use at the time.

This five-story mill was built of local stone over a canal that drove its centrally placed waterwheel.

[2] As of 1921 the Burlington Mills employed 1,500 workers who produced items such as Kerseys, Friezes, Meltons, Thibets and worsted dress goods.

Its name tells us that this was a woolen mill built to spin the finest long staple merino wool.

It was powered by an internal waterwheel which exploited a sliceway from an earlier mill, and used the head provided by the timber dam at the lower falls.

The building was similar in design to the Merino Mill; the wood beams though were strengthened by metal tie rods.

Wool fibers would be spread into smooth open layers, cut into slices and cleared of large pieces of vegetative matter.

It would be sent for cleaning, or scouring in large vats containing a solution of water, soap and carbonate of potash, and then dried.

In a carbonizing process the wool passed through bowls or troughs containing a solution of sulfuric acid or aluminum chloride where the remaining burrs were burnt off.