Oxford was early in its history a prosperous industrial town. Chiefly due to the abundance of water-power which was available on the towns numerous streams and rivers.
    An early factor in the development of industry in Oxford was the importation of Merino sheep from Spain by General Humphreys who made his headquarters at the falls of the Naugatuck, and named the village Humphreysville. The area was later renamed Seymour.
   One of his early workingmen was a young Samuel Wire, who learned in the large woolen factory of Humphreys, and after set up his own mill on the Little River. He purchased from John W. Wooster, in 1814, half a factory, house, barn, dam and waterworks. The factory was apparently something of a clothier's shop and fulling mill at the time he purchased it.
    Wire carried on business at the site for about thirty years, using wool purchased from surrounding farms. Many residents would take wool to the mill to be carded and spun and then would bring it home to knit or weave at home.
    The mill's principal product was satinet, which was shopped to New York and also retailed in the local areas. Wire sold the place in 1846 to Clark Wooster and Hiram Osborn, with Wire relocating in New Haven, where he served as city Sheriff.
    There was a mill at Quaker Farms on the Eight Mile Brook, which was developed by Isaac Rowe, Sr.'s twin sons, Isaac Jr., and Frederick. It was established on the former estate of Squire David Tomlinson. The property was about a hundred rods northerly of Christ Church, and contained a dye shop and a small dwelling.
    Isaac Rowe died a few years later, and in 1831, the property was sold to Ira Sherman and Horace Candee, who in 1833 sold it to Benjamin Hawleyville of Maine and Mary Burritt of Southbury.
    Later owned by DeForest and Hine, the factory was closed about 1850.
Sharpe says of the site, "The writer remembers skating on the pond with the schoolboys in the winter of 1858-59, when he taught the Quaker Farms School. The conical nests of the muskrats, rising two or three feet above the surface of the pond, made convenient seats for the skaters while adjusting their skates..."