In 1850, Montgomery County raised 9,780 sheep, making wool an important resource in this agrarian area. At this site, Thomas Fawcett managed the Paint Branch Woolen Factory from 1833 to 1871, then after his death his sons Benjamin and Joseph continued operations until 1873, and within a decade the facility was in ruins. Born in Yorkshire, England, Fawcett brought woolen-manufacturing skills to the United States and, through apprenticeship, taught young white and black boys reading, writing, arithmetic, and weaving in exchange for their labor until age 21. Customers brought newly shorn wool to the mill, where Fawcett and his male and female employees carded, fulled, dyed, and wove it into finished goods on looms, receiving payment in cash or by barter with produce, grain, raw wool, or part of the completed goods. Family lore held that excess dye dumped into the nearby stream gave Paint Branch its name, and the colors likely came from local plants used as dyes. The mill contained jack billy and jenny spindles, water-powered looms, and carding machines, and produced carpets, blankets, flannel, broadcloths, and servant clothing used to dress locally enslaved people, possibly including those who labored on Fawcett's 270-acre farm. The account also connects this work to the spinning and weaving done by enslaved women, remembered in later recollections as part of the coarse clothing production that supported owners' self-sufficiency.