At Left: Wide view, front-left side of loom. At Right: Rocker held in place with metal rocker straps. This loom was built by John Lamb. Lamb was born in Salisbury,NC, in 1760, of Scotch-Irish parents. He became an apprenticed weaver at the death of his father in 1774. He fought in the American Revolution and married his childhood sweetheart, Comfort Bellah, also of Scottish descent. In 1794 John took his growing family and migrated to Livingston Co., KY (now Crittenden Co.). He resided there until 1816, when he, Comfort, and most of their thirteen children moved across the Ohio River into what is now southern Illinois.

Only the eldest son, James, and his family remained behind and retained the Kentucky land holdings. Left behind was John Lamb's original log cabin, and this rocker beater loom. The loom remained within the James Lamb family until the 1950s, when it was donated to the Bob Wheeler Museum. Return to Loom Photograph Index