The World Of Eli Whitney

92 6iaa 5E-39S58

MIrsky

The world of Eli Whitney .

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TENSION ENVELOPE CORP.

A ^JBL

"IP DE(J26"198&-

NOV 9

THE WORLD OF ELI WHITNEY

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK CHICAGO
DALLAS - ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
OF CANADA, LIMITED

TORONTO

To the great-granddaughters o Eli Whitney

Anne Farnam Whitney Debevoise
Henrietta Edwards Whitney Sanford
Elizabeth Fay Whitney
Susan Brews ter Whitney
Frances Pierrepont Whitney Knight

Without their understanding and generosity in permitting

the unrestricted use of their family papers, this book

could not have been written.

"That fast, that rapid: a commodity in the land now which until
now had dealt first in Indians: then in acres and sections and bound-
aries: an economy: Cotton: a king: omnipotent and omnipresent:
a destiny of which (obvious now) the plow and the axe had been
merely the tools; not plow and axe which had effaced the wilderness,
but Cotton: petty globules of Motion weightless and myriad even in
the hand of a child, incapable even of wadding a rifle, let alone of
charging it, yet potent enough to sever the very taproots of oak and
hickory and gum, leaving the arch-shading tops to wither and vanish
in one single season beneath that fierce and minted glare; not the
rifle nor the plow which drove at last the bear and deer and panther
into the last jungle fastnesses of the river bottoms, but Cotton; not
the soaring cupola of the courthouse drawing people into the country,
but the same white tide sweeping them in: that tender skim covering
the winter's brown earth, burgeoning through spring and summer
into September's white surf crashing against the flanks of gin and
warehouse and ringing like bells on the marble counters of the
banks: altering not just the face of the land, but the complexion of
the town too, creating its own parasitic aristocracy not only behind
the columned porticoes of the plantation houses, but in the counting-
rooms of merchant and bankers and the sanctums of lawyers, and
not only these last, but finally nadir complete: the county offices too:
of sheriff and tax-collector and bailiff and turnkey and clerk."

WILLIAM FAULKNER

. . . "If you will at a leisure hour tell me what the world may know
about your improvements of the steam-engine, or anything about
your experiments, or calculated facts about the power of your engines,
or any other ingenious stuff for a note, I shall with pleasure insert it
[in The Botanic Garden]. ... I wish the whole not to exceed 2 or
3 quarto pages, and to consist of such facts, or things, as may be rather
agreeable; I mean gentlemanlike facts, not abstruse calculations, only
fit for philosophers."

DR. ERASMUS DARWIN to MR. JAMES WATT

"Mass production is not merely quantity production; for this may
be had with none of the prerequisites of mass production. Nor is it
merely machine production, which may also exist without any re-
semblance to mass production. Mass production is the focussing
upon a manufacturing project of the principles of power, accuracy,
economy, system, continuity, and speed. And the normal result is a
productive organization that delivers in quantities a useful com-
modity of standard material, workmanship, and design at minimum
cost."

HENRY FORD

Authors' Note

EXACTLY one week before the surrender at Ap-
pomattox, Wendell Phillips wrote to Eli Whit-
ney, Jr.: "Did I thank you for the Life of your Father. I have made
lifelong search for some particular accounts of him: for he was
early one of my favorites. . . . What a revelation of the callousness
to right and wrong which 'the system' generates was his experience.
I think there should be some more detailed account, in a more perma-
nent form, of one whose hand was felt so forcibly on our nation's
history."

The "Life" Wendell Phillips received was the slim Memoir of Eli
Whitney, Esq., written by Olmsted (with Silliman's all toa brief
supplementary remarks), published in 1846. Except for some addi-
tional facts subsequently made available by Blake and Hammond,
Whitney's place in the nation's consciousness has rested on the
Memoir. To most Americans he has been reduced to an uncluttered
statement found, in one form or another, in every history book: "Eli
Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793." Our book tells his story as
completely as possible; it accords Whitney his place in the making of
modern America.

He was not just another clever Yankee mechanic. Whitney was
a man of ideas; his real life is the lif e of his mind. This book tries to
explore and explain it. Our main reliance, in telling the story of his
life and achievements, has been on Whitney's own words (or on
those of his family, close friends, or other firsthand sources). To
make his efforts intelligible, we have supplied the historical and
technological conditions within which he worked; we have also
presented personal details for they add color to Whitney's efforts.

ix

oc Authors 9 Note

When Whitney's work was comparatively new and its impact
fairly unfamiliar, it attracted many Weems-like stories they are
barnacles concealing the true surface to which they have accreted,
and so we have not included them. ( One of the most persistent, for
example, tells how Mrs. Nathanael Greene handed him a hearth-
brush, saying gaily, "La! Mr. Whitney, your gin needs this." It im-
plies that she instantly solved a mechanical problem that had baffled
Whitney. If the story has an element of truth, it would be that she
permitted the use of her hearth-brush when Whitney found it im-
possible to procure bristles to make the clearer for his model. )

Folklore such as this has its place and its uses. But Whitney, the
inventor of the cotton gin, and the proponent and creator of an in-
dustrial system of irresistible potency, needs no myths to make his
ideas more understandable. Now, when mass production is recog-
nized as the mighty factor dominating our century, we turn back to
Whitney for the genesis of our industrial might.

In preparing this study, the authors have incurred many obliga-
tions; to all who have helped, they wish to express their gratitude,
real and profound. We are indebted to Mrs. Elizabeth Vromen-
Snapper for her tireless and enthusiastic assistance in the research; to
Roger Burlingame for his generosity in making his notes available;
to Professors Joseph W. Roe and Harold A, Williamson, and Frank A.
Taylor, Curator of Engineering, Smithsonian Institution, for their
interest and their helpful discussions; to Dr. Alfred E. Mirsky for
his suggestion that we read Helmholtz' Popular Lectures on Scientific
Subjects; to Felicia J. Deyrup, Constance McL. Green, and Theodora
Abel for valuable information; to Marie F. Rodell and Eleanor
Daniels for beneficial criticism and editorial aid; to Sylvia Black for
her accurate copying of Whitney's correspondence, and Nancy Rey-
nolds for her skill and patience in typing the manuscript.

Miss Mirsky also wishes to thank Henry Allen Moe and the John
Simon Guggenheim Foundation for twice according her a fellow-
ship for this study.

We have relied heavily on the detailed knowledge of many special-
ists, and our major debts cannot be ignored. We wish to thank
Mr, James T. Babb and Mrs. Zara Jones Powers of the Yale Uni-

Authors* Note xi

versity Library; Mrs. Lilla Hawes of the Georgia Historical Society,
Savannah; Miss Bess Glenn, Mr. O. W. Holmes, and Miss Elizabeth
Drewry of the National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Mr. Thomp-
son R. Harlow of the Connecticut Historical Society, and Mr. James
Brewster, State Librarian, Connecticut State Library, both in Hart-
ford; Mr. Ralph W. Thomas, Curator and Librarian of the New
Haven Colony Historical Society in New Haven; Mrs. Helen Bullock
of the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress; Mr. Julian
Boyd and Mr. Alexander Clark of the Princeton University Library;
Mr. Sylvestre Vigilante and Mr. Igor D. Avellino of the American
History Division, Mrs. Helen B. Wodrada of the Local History and
Genealogy Division, and Mr. Edward B. Morrison of the Manuscript
Division all of the New York Public Library; and Mr. Penrose
Hoopes for his permission to use Whitney's letter, dated March 20th,
1823, to Secretary of War Calhoun.

We are indebted to Mr. Allan Wendt for the excellence of the
index.

Contents

Two Revolutionists at an Inn i

i Farm and Forge 3

ii The Emergence of the Machine 11

in The Village Schoolmaster 2,2,

iv The Yale Years 32

v Mulberry Grove 46

vi The Great Invention 61

vii Cotton and the Industrial Revolution 81

vin Will the Planters Pay? 92

ix The Battle -for the Patent 111

x Arms for the Government 128

xi Justice -from South Carolina 147

xn Judge Johnsons Decision 163

xii| The Birth of the Machine-Tool Industry 177

Ixfiv ; The Arms Manufactory at Mill Rock 190

xv Jefferson and a Practical Demonstration 206

xvi The Master Manufacturer 223

xvn The Feud with Irvine 244

xvin The Rise of a National Arms System 266

xix Catherine and Henrietta - * 275

xx Into "New Hands 286

The American Scene after Eli Whitney 298:

sew Contents

Appendix A WHITNEY'S SHORT DESCRIPTION OF

THE GIN 303

Appendix B LETTERS FROM ROBERT FULTON AND

OLIVER EVANS RELATING TO PATENT
LAWS 305

Appendix C STATEMENT OF THE REFEREES: MIL-
LER & WHITNEY FINAL SETTLEMENT 307

Appendix D REMARKS RELATING TO WHITNEY AND

THE NEW HAVEN BANK 310

Appendix E ESTATE, WILL, AND CODICIL OF ELI

WHITNEY 312

A Note on the Bibliography 317

Sources of Letters Quoted 333

Index 339

Illustrations

ELI WHITNEY (Courtesy Eli Whitney Debevoise) Frontispiece

Whitney's widow preferred this portrait by Chester B. King to
the more famous one painted by their neighbor's son, young
Samuel F. B. Morse, which now hangs in the Yale Gallery of
Fine Arts; she had an engraving made from it for Olmsted's
Memoir, The inventor sat for King in Washington in the sum-
mer of 1821; Morse painted him a year later when he was suf-
fering the first of the painful attacks that marked his last illness.
Comparing the two, one can see that Morse depicted a stricken
man, and the record of that agony was something the widow
chose not to remember.

PAGES FROM THE LITTLE "EXPENCE BOOK" Page 71

The "Log" kept during the critical months, June, 1793, to April,
1794, when Whitney struggled to find the satisfactory mechan-
ical form for his idea of the cotton gin.

A MODEL OF THE COTTON GIN OPEN Page 116

WHITNEY'S GUN MANUFACTORY ABOUT 1825 Facing Page 194
(Courtesy Mrs. Thomas M. Debevoise)

The manufactory became a favorite subject for local artists, (The
same scene painted by William Giles Munson, a New Haven
resident, can be seen in the Yale Gallery of Fine Arts.) To the
left of the idyllic setting of wooded hills and dam-tamed waters
was the large barn whose ingenious dairy contrivances earned
the admiration of President Monroe. Then came the orderly row
of stone houses built for the workmen the first mill village in
America and the boardinghouse where the bachelors lived. In
the center were the different shops the stocking shop, the ma-
chine and filing shop, the trip-hammer shop each served by a
flume for water power. Across Mill River, to reduce the fire haz-

xvi Illustrations

ard, was the forging shop with its cluster of storehouses, and to
the far right was Ithiel Town's first truss suspension bridge, a
notable improvement that speeded the traffic on the Hartford
Turnpike.

Here, gathered together, were the three elements that were
to make the characteristic New England scene: buildings de-
voted to industry, mill villages, and covered bridges.

DEBTOR, UNITED STATES, IN ACCOUNT WITH ELI WHIT-

NET, CREDITOR Pages 220-221

This ledger sheet, written by Whitney, here reduced to a quar-
ter its size, might well be called "The Birth Certificate of the
American System of Mass Production." The heavy initial ad-
vances made him by the Government were liquidated year by
year through the delivery of muskets until finally but a small
balance was due Whitney, an eloquent instance of Government
financing of an experiment.

THE WHITNEY MUSKET MADE ON THE CHARLEVILLE

MODEL . Page 266

TUMBLER MILL Page 297

"This sketch was made by Mr. Whitney but a few days before
his death, & is believed to be the last sketch ever made by
him." (Eli Whitney Blake)

THE WORLD OF ELI WHITNEY

Two Revolutionists at an Inn

r

rN November of 1802, two men faced each other
across the table of a Washington public house.
They had never met before; they were never to meet again.

"You have doubtless heard of the arrival of the notorious Tom
Paine in this country Being informed, previous to my arrival here,
that he was in this neighborhood I had some curiosity to see him
I stoped at the public house where I am now writing to spend one day
(it being in a central situation & convenient to the Public Offices
where I have to do business) I walked out for an hour & return'd
to dinner on entering the room to my great surprise I found that
T. Paine was there & a lodger in the house & in less than five minutes
we were seated opposite each other at table

"I was not disappointed in my expectation of his appearance I
found him the same filthy old sot that he has ever been repre-
sented"

Tom Paine has left no record of that meeting. The man Paine saw
was "a large man of rather full habit, slightly round shouldered, and
doubling himself forward as he sat. His face was large and slightly
oval; his nose long and hooked; his eyes deepset, black and keen; his
look penetrating and prolonged. His hair was black . . . his skin
smooth, sallow and pallid. Altogether his appearance was striking,
the expression of his face having a deep thoughtfulness about the
brow, tempered by a pleasant smile at the corners of the mouth. In
conversation he was slow but his thoughts were clear and weighty.
His knowledge seemed at once exact and diversified; he spoke more
of science than literature; he was not discursive, but logically pur-
sued trains of thought . . . though possessing a fine imagination,
and a keen inventive faculty, he had a perseverance in pursuing his

1

# The World of Eli Whitney

plans to completion, that nothing could arrest. He was at once ener-
getic and systematic; dignified, yet courteous; large in his views, yet
precise in detail, a profound thinker and scrutinizing nature and its
phenomena with amazing depth of thought/'

No one told Paine that this was Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton
gin and mass producer of muskets for the American government.
Whitney never knew that Paine had conceived a plan for construct-
ing iron bridges of four-hundred-foot span, so built that they might
be shipped, fabricated and ready, to be assembled "in any part of the
world/'

They failed utterly to appreciate each other. For a brief careless
moment the man who in his person and by his phrases tied together
the American and French revolutions and the man who founded the
American system of the Industrial Revolution met. In the intervening
stretch of years thought has focused sharply on the parts they played,
not on the externals they presented, and values both men as decisive
factors in making the modern world.

Eli Whitney was born on December 8, 1765, and died on January
8, 182.5. The sixty years of his life were crammed with violent up-
heaval and dislocation, with the accelerated breaking of old patterns
and the swift birth of new.

Those decades today are labeled by phrases that imply a perceived
relationship between a combination of events the American Revo-
lution, the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution phrases
that qualify changes in tempo and temper of processes that were
long in the making and still have a powerful urgency. But to the
American who lived through those decades the phrases resolved
themselves into long defiant war years when the habitual flow of
goods was stopped and people lived in an atmosphere of scarcity and
austerity, of ingenious makeshift and hopeful manufacture; peace
years when people were magnetized by the pull of the beckoning
continent or the lure of blossoming commerce; and years when people
shuttled between embargo and enterprise, profit and panic, specula-
tion and slump, hope and heartbreak and hope again. It was solo and
chorus, pioneer and community movement; it was colony, confedera-
tion, union.

For all letter sources, see page 333.

Farm and Forge

T

Massachusetts, peace came like a blight.
The Revolution was won, yet people were worse
off than they had been: the nation, the states, and individuals strug-
gled under debts; there was a wild longing for wealth; and specula-
tion, like a wanton, robbed people of hope and money. Dissatisfac-
tion flared into acrimonious interstate disputes over land; and within
the state disorder and discontent led to active rebellion, as farmers,
impatient of postponed reforms, again took up their muskets and
followed Captain Daniel Shays.

The war was over, and with the cessation of hostilities had come a
disastrous slump: hard times gripped the farms, commerce was de-
pressed, ships stood empty and at anchor, currency was depreciated.
A new nation had been declared, and yet the old social divisions per-
sisted a sharp line barbed with distrust and differences divided
"the better kind of people" from the poor and humble; in education,
speech, dress, and manners the divergence was marked. Speculation
and rebellion, acute symptoms of the magnitude of the social dislo-
cation, hastened the dissolution of the old order: the first drained off
capital, the second drained off the refractory and impoverished ele-
ments, who fled the state. Neither of these solutions answered the
longings of those who, like young Whitney, were ambitious and rest-
less and poor. For such, new academies were started; their number
was a measure of their need.

For in spite of rebellion and dissatisfaction, New England still
walked in fear of the Lord. Massachusetts from the sea to the Berk-
shire frontier was profoundly committed to Puritanism. Puritan so-
ciety required the outward bearing to express inner grace, just as

4 The World of Eli Whitney

later the business world reserved its highest praise for respectability.
Respectability, a word called into being for the industrial society
that was emerging,* inherited many attitudes from piety: it equated
sober deportment with strict probity, it transferred its mistrust from
"enthusiasm" to "impulsiveness," and the general term "sinner" splin-
tered into a variety of words "debtor," "drunkard," "beggar," "wast-
rel," "laggard" indicating kinds and degrees of asocial behavior.
The terms, still carrying the same full emotional charge of guilt, are
an indication of the way society shifted its.,attention and energy from
the godly life to the business life. By a slight but pointed adjustment
of social mores to a new economy, the Puritan yalues of the seven-
teenth century were gradually transformed into the Victorian values
of the nineteenth century; and as piety had had a long, absolute ten-
ure, so did respectability.

Westborough, the town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, '
where Eli Whitney was born in 1765, lies within the belt of sandy
soil, about forty miles inland from Boston. By horse or by wagon it
was remote from the coastal towns trading and commercial centers
that communicated easily with each other and distant ports. From
the settlements of western Massachusetts that crowded into the lush
bottom lands of the Connecticut Valley, Westborough was separated
by a tedious line of hills that then, as now, were too poor to invite
settlers. Economically and intellectually the seaboard towns looked
to Boston, while the valley villages, tied together by frontier perils
and frontier profits, found Hartford and New Haven more congenial,
more accessible.

Boston, a metropolis of twenty thousand, was an important name
among Empire ports, secure in her eminence. The hamlets that dotted
the valley hid the scars of Indian massacres under the bloom and
assurance of youth; theirs was an economy of plenty, theirs the ex-
citement of rushing, booming adventures. Between those two the
sea and the river, the coast and the valley lay Westborough. Here

* "The 'Candid Philosopher' was printed in 1778, without the name of the
author, who was R. Lewis, a corrector of the press. At vol. i, p. 189, he uses the
word [respectability], but adds in a parenthesis, If I may coin the word/ thus
claiming to be the originator of what has become one of the sacred words of the
British people." From the Manchester Guardian, Sept. 2, 1893.

Farm and Forge 5

farmers were content to make a living out of farms large enough to
support them, yet too small to hold promis.e for their children and
their children's children.

"Nathaniel Whitney," wrote Elizabeth Whitney Blake when she
was an old woman and her famous brother was dead, "was a descend-
ent of a family which came from England in the early settlement of
this country, and landed at Boston and settled eight or ten miles from
Boston, and Nathaniel removed from Newton to Westborough twenty
years before his Tenth child, Eli, was born. Who died in the same
room he was born in August 25th 1807 aged 66 years. Both Nathaniel
and Eli were among the most respected farmers in Worcester
County." As the Whitneys had pushed inland from the coast, so had
the Fays. Elizabeth Fay was the first-born child of Captain Benjamin
Fay, who was the son of Deacon John Fay who had purchased the
"large track in Westborough called the Fay Farms, . . . Eli Whitney
and Elizabeth Fay was married in January 1765 Eli Whitney [the
inventor *] the first born of Eli and Elizabeth Whitney, was born
December 8, 1765."

Reading her phrases with their biblical cadence, peering through
the small bright keyhole of her memory, one finds the record of her
brother's formative years is tantalizingly slim. Suggestive details
pour out without even the mild order imposed by chronology; traits
jostle talents, family gossip winds in and out in a haphazard way,
incidents that illuminate personalities are casually alluded to. And
yet from this careless jumble comes the authentic sound of a speaking
voice the picture of Eli as a boy and youth begins to take shape and
have content. "The elaps of years, cares of a family have so far oblit-
erated many anecdotes which would have been useful and interest-
ing, I must pass them by. What I can recollect I will communicate
with greatest pleasure . . . and I will write occurances of childhood
in the language of childhood/'

This letter, its cramped words packed into pages, is the only source
the historian can draw on with assurance. Elizabeth limited her re-
membrance, restricting herself to an intimate family chronicle. To
enter the world of her letter is much like following Jane Austen into

* Eli Whitney rightfully was Eli Whitney, Jr. Except for a few early letters
he never signed his letters, business or personal, other than "Eli Whitney/*

6 The World of Eli Whitney

her special world: not from the details that fill the pages would the
reader know that both writers record events set in times of great na-
tional activity; their quiet pages seem remote from the tremendous
drama of their times. Elizabeth's account hardly mentions the Revo-
lution, though Lexington and Concord were not too distant. It ig-
nores the decade that had preceded hostilities. Yet Whitney was born
in the year of the Stamp Act, a year made momentous by the vigorous
beginning of the Revolutionary movement, when, as John Adams
wrote, "That enormous engine, fabricated by the British Parliament,
for battering down the rights and liberties of America, I mean the
Stamp Act, has raised and spread through the whole continent a
spirit that will be recorded with honor to all future generations."

Whitney was close to ten when his ears, too young to have caught
the spacious, dedicated meaning of Adams's "unconquerable rage,"
could grasp the angry language loosed by the war against the loyal-
ists: "Sore eyes to all Tories and a chestnut burr for an eyestone."
His eyes excitedly followed minutemen drilling and volunteers hurry-
ing off to the not so distant siege of Boston. He might have heard his
father denounce speculators and monopolists (those "pestilential
mushrooms of trade, which have come up in the night of public
calamity," those "regrators, forestallers, engrossers, and higglers"),
for, like all farmers, his father was victimized by the merciless infla-
tion and a depreciated currency. The stories that filled Whitney's
boyhood must have been true stories the British raids on the Rhode
Island and Connecticut coastal towns, the American victory at Sara-
toga, the French fleet sailing into Newport, and the details, long in
coming from far-off Carolina, of how Nathanael Greene and his men
drove the British from the last base. In the sixteen years of Whitney's
boyhood and youth, by word and deed a profound change had been
effected; the American colonists won their independence, and peace
came.

"Our Father was a man who worked on a farm. Our Mother was
after the birth of my youngest Brother sick to the day of her death
[August 18, 1777] seven years and a half consequently we were in
greate measure deprived of a mothers care at a time in life when it is
most needed." X^

Very early Eli was inured to responsibility. The oldest qhild in the

Farm and Forge 7

family, he was but five when Josiah, the youngest brother, was born
Elizabeth and Benjamin s came in between and his mother was
left ailing and unable to carry the load of children and household
work. Those were strenuous, uncushioned times; for a mother and
housewife it was a hard and heroic age, for a sick woman i was
catastrophic. More than fifty years later, her daughter remembered
that the hired girl had "come out from mothers room and seemed
mad because mother had told her how to do said she would do as
she had a mind to," and in front of seven-year-old Eli had called his
mother vulgar names. Between the death of the mother and the
father's remarriage, a housekeeper, casually mentioned, looked after
the children.

For all his ponderous weight of nearly three hundred pounds ( a
serious handicap to an active farrier), Eli's father remains a shadowy
figure. He "was called a good writer and was a great admirer of
good [hand] writing," hardly a quality to define a man, but a phrase
that marks him as more literate than many neighbors. Westborough
esteemed him as a prominent citizen; he often held town office, and
was justice of the peace for years. From Elizabeth's narrative it is
clear that the father was their background and home, their energy
and ambitions; he was always consulted; he was always taken for
granted.

"Our Father had a work shop and sometimes made wheels of dif-
ferent discriptions. He had a lathe to turn chairposts and quite a
variety of tools. This gave my Brother an opportunity of learning the
use of tools very young. He lost no time, as soon as he could handle
tools he was always making something in the shop and seemed not
to relish working on the farm." A friend remembered Whitney's own
account of how from the age of eleven his daily chore in the winter
was to fodder and water sixty head of cattle; only when his chore
was done did he make his own path for three-quarters of a mile
across the fields, through the snow, to the schoolhouse.

It is as expected that Eli Whitney should show an early gift and
preference for mechanical creativity as that Mozart at the age of
three should amuse himself by striking thirds on the clavier. But even
at a tender age Whitney was not merely dexterous with tools and
techniques; he was not merely another skillful Yankee mechanic. He

8 The World of Eli Whitney

was a born manufacturer, a fledgling entrepreneur (a word coined in
1755 to designate a special class of men and activities ) ; and in this
complex of aptitudes shrewd head, adventuresome spirit, and cun-
ning hand a clear continuity is traceable between his earliest efforts,
as Elizabeth recalled them, and his mature work.

"In the time of the revolutionary war, nails commanding a high
price, Eli proposed having a forge in the shop and making nails. Fa-
ther consented. The forge was put up and Eli made nails, did his
days work and gained time to make tools for his own use put in
penknife blades and do many little jobs for other people." Having
done that much, Whitney, still in his early teens, expanded his ven-
ture. "As near as I can recollect it was the second winter after he
began to make nails, he told me he had laid a plan to hire a man, pay
his board and have the profit of his work. He wished me to say noth-
ing about it. ... In the evening he pretended some kind of errand
at an adjoining town, asked leave of Father to take one of the horses.
He rose early and was gone three days. Father became quite uneasy
and inquired if I could imagine where Eli was gone. To relieve his
anxiety I told him I heard him say something about hireing a man,
that he was tired of working alone, that it would not consume any
more coal and that he thought it would be profitable."

Suddenly, the story is no longer a boy's adventure, it is a business
transaction with a mature ring. In this, his first manuf acturing effort,
Whitney was not playing at penny-lemonade production he had
weighed labor and overhead costs against prices and found his mar-
gin of gain. "At Eli's return he said he had traveled 40 miles out, had
been in many shops had gained information enough to pay for his
journey and had hired a man for a month by the name of Thayer. . . .
I do not recollect that Father disapproved of anything he had done
except his being absent so long without leave. Thayer come the next
week and was employed three months,"

Elizabeth concludes this small incident by saying, "At the end of
tlie war making nails was no longer an object worth attending to."
Since the profit had gone from nails, Eli cast about for something
that was profitable. Hatpins, for instance. Ladies no longer tied on
their bonnets; they "Find [them] on with three long pins." (This skill,
learned in drawing out steel into fine long pins, was used years later,

Farm and Forge g

in his own shop, to make the wire teeth of the cotton gin. ) At fifteen
he was already aware that he must be alert to produce for a lively
market. Why limit the forge to one product, even if it had been
bought for just such use? Of the many small household manufac-
tories of nails, a few lingered, unlucky and profitless; most died, as
with peace, England dumped shiploads of cheap nails on the Amer-
ican market and killed an industry that had been born during the
war years. To switch from nails to hatpins, from hatpins to "walking
canes"; to let the forge rest and use the lathe; to discount the energy
spent and the cost of equipment; to be able to change as conditions .
demand change this rare quality Whitney possessed even as a boy.
"Whatever he undertook he seemed to have the Sagacity to perceive
probable consequences."

This considered opinion, so rare for Elizabeth, is repeated with a
slight variation: "He was remarkable for thinking and acting for
himself at the age of ten or twelve years." Then she gives her author-
ity for her statement: *1 have heard it remarked that at the age of
twelve he had more general information than men considered of the
first standing in the country. And the number of boys produced in
Worcester county since the birth of EW, his Equil may be justly con-
sidered small." But she would not have it thought that her brother
was not just as remarkable in intellectual grasp, "I recollect hearing
my Parents observe that Eli did not learn to read so quick or easily
as some of the other children but understood figures very young. I
have more than once heard [Uncle] Capt. D. Fay> mention with ad-
miration being at school when he was studying arithmetic and Eli,
being a very little boy, with his Book in one hand and the other
tucked in by the side of his apron, come and looked over his Fays
Book and whispering to himself as if he understood or was trying to
find what it meant. Fay said, 'What are you here for, you dont know
one figure from another. Go sit down.' Eli sit down. Uncle Stephen
hearing, said to Fay 'You are Mistaken. He does know something of
figures. I guess he can enumerate nine figures as quick as any one/
Fay not thinking it possible set down nine figures on paper and asked
Eli what that meant. He answered redily and as correctly as the Mas-
ter could have done/'

It was June 12, 1779, when young Eli was fourteen, that his father

10 The World of Eli Whitney

remarried. The widowed Judith Hazeldon brought to her new home
two of her ten children: Hannah, the same age as her stepsister Eliza-
beth, and "one of the most hairbrained creatures ever known," and
Nancy, who shared birthdays with Josiah. Judith Whitney seems to
have had little love for her stepchildren. From her, Eli learned that
disbelief and callousness were aspects of the world he would en-
counter. When she was introduced into the family, she must have
heard how Eli only the year before had made a violin that "was made
in every part like a common fiddle and made tolerable good musick
it was examined by many all pronounced it remarkable work for
such a boy to perform/' Family pride and vanity, she might have
thought, puffing up the children: let them show me what he can do.
"Our step mother had a case of knives which she said were very
handsome. Eli would say I can make just such ones if I had tools and
I could make tools if I had tools to make them with. This was re-
peated, and seemed rather to tease her and she disdained him and
his sayings. It so happened she broke one of those knives a few
months after. Eli made one exactly like the others except the stem on
the blade was wanting. He said he could put on a stem but the tool
would be expensive and he should never want it again. She was well
pleased and I do not remember ever after hearing her deride him
when he told her what he could make." It hardly seems necessary for
Elizabeth to remark that "Brother Eli was when young of a mild dis-
position possessed a great share of affability."

This was his home, this his background. The child who was good
at figures beyond his years, the boy who mastered the workshop and
engaged in serious and profitable enterprises, the youth who by him-
self perfected his penmanship, was not to stay with the cattle and
end as a farmer. Of the three Whitney brothers, Josiah eventually
settled in Boston and became a merchant; the docile Benjamin re-
mained on the farm, possessed of his father's acres and heir to the
problems posed by a lean soil; Eli chose the Connecticut Valley, with
its growing industries, as the place that offered most to his talents.

II

The Emergence of the Machine

THE eighteenth century was a masterful century
and it is still with us by command and con-
tinuity. It began, it might be said, in July of 1687, with the publica-
tion of a quarto volume of about five hundred pages: $fewton's Prin-
cipia. Therein order and reason, arranged mathematically, explained
the mysteries of tides and firmament; motion itself was subject to the
laws of nature. No longer was the earth solely a testing ground for
heaven and hell; mathematics had proved it to be part of a cosmic
machine though Newton conceded that occasionally it required
divine regulation. This concept set the secular tone for the century.
Young men, John Aubrey noted at that time, were "in love with that
Studie. Before, the Mathematical Sciences were lock't up in the
Greek and latin tongues and there lay untoucht." From clerics to
courtiers, yotuig men of education sought to understand Newton;
they were intoxicated by the new worlds of thought that he had made
possible. Cotton Mather spoke for them when, to the Royal Society,
he wrote that Newton was "the perpetual Dictator of the learned
World/'

It was the Age of Reason, the Age of Enlightenment, the time
when men turned from a concentration on the lif e hereafter to an
alert interest in earthly living; when the human mind worked confi-
dently and with striking competence, when individual judgment
denied dogmatic authority and grew vigorous. Above all, men were
committed to the idea of human progress: the laws of nature would
reveal the bounties of nature if man would gradually adapt himself
and his institutions to these laws. Science and technology, offspring
of these dynamic attitudes, drew closer together. Science, technology,

11

1H The World of Eli Whitney

and art in this century the giants were in music and literature
should be seen as different aspects of a violent ferment, man's new-
found freedom to experiment and create. Whether the form it took
was useful or not whether it was expressed in cantatas, planets, or
canals; in periodicals, chronometers, or politics; in essays, operas,
gases, electricity, engines, orreries, gavottes, economics; in ideas or
events the exuberant impulse was common to all.

It became routine to experiment in fact as well as in ideas. Great
men were active in a variety of enterprises. Those who were con-
temporary knew each other's work whether they lived in Great Brit-
ain, on the Continent, or in the New World; they thought of them-
selves as the Literati, and by an intricate chain of personal communi-
cations it was an age of letter writing acquainted their confreres
with the new, the important. There was an awareness of the need
to collect, to systematize, to synthesize, to instruct and enlighten men;
wedded to this was a belief in progress and perfectibility. These
spreading beliefs fused and produced, as its monument to the Age of
Humanism, the French Encyclopedic ou Dictionnaire Raisonne des
Sciences., des Arts et des Metiers. Its twenty-one volumes of text were
published by 1765 to which later were added six volumes of plates
and two of tables.

As eighteenth century enlightenment evolved from Newton, so its
political liberalism flowed from the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and
John Locke. In England the beheading of one king and the forced
abdication of another had expressed popular dissatisfaction with the
theory of the "divine rights" of Icings. Locke justified the Revolution
philosophically, and his arguments, his very phrases, still animate
democratic theory. Using the heavy artillery of essay and treatise,
he defended individual liberty from attack by pope or king even as
he raked the ramparts where religious persecution and literary cen-
sorship lay entrenched. Where other political thinkers arrived step
by logical step at an extreme, impractical conclusion, Locke used
common sense to balance logic and theory with the urgency of exist-
ing facts. To him, the will of a people was sovereign; government was
an instrumentality created by men to secure certain ends, to imple-
ment a social contract; and should a government act improperly in

The Emergence of the Machine IS

its role as trustee, then the contract was voided and revolution was
a legitimate way of restoring the popular will.

An England politically insistent on tolerance and individual liberty
( a vigorous rising middle class, conscious of its growing power and
wealth, was impatient of restrictive authority), a people who had
accorded Newton a national hero's burial in Westminster Abbey
such was the England to which Voltaire came on a visit in 1726. Vol-
taire became a symbol of the age; both were aristocratic in taste and
tone, expression and background. Intellectually neither original nor
truly creative, Voltaire was alert, critical, multifaceted, enormously
articulate, and productive. Emotionally he was committed to reason-
ableness, a disgust with injustice because it is a crime against the
individual; but he did not understand nor care about the miseries of
the millions. Locke and Voltaire provided the atmosphere for the
goals and word-weapons of Adams and Jefferson, of Rousseau and
Condorcet. The revolutions in America and France were very differ-
ent in spirit the one essentially conservative, the other in the end so
wildly radical. But they were alike in this, that it was when they
moved out of the countinghouses and salons into the streets and as-
semblies that they gave tenacity and territory to the ideas forged by
Milton, Harrington, and Locke, by Montesquieu, Voltaire, and
Diderot.

The Encyclopedic is a monument. Here first were stated the prin-
ciples of the physiocratic school of political economists. A compact
cluster of influential landowners, irked by the crippling regulations of
guild and government, created a comprehensive theory of free trade.
Their immediate aim was to secure an unhampered flow of agricul-
tural produce laissez faire, laissez passer, was their slogan but
they quickly attracted to themselves men whose property interests
were in nascent industrial and commercial enterprises. Together they
by-passed the pitfall of carping at details and projected a complete
system that, as they believed, expressed a natural order in society.
They declared that this natural order, regulated by and responsive to
natural laws, had been damaged by the blundering intervention of
governments.

The history of the eighteenth century is dominated by the grand

14 The World of Eli Whitney

design and varied details of Anglo-French commercial and territorial
wars. To wrest control of the rich sugar-producing islands of the
Caribbean; to win the Spanish asiento, the exclusive right to profit
from the African slaves delivered yearly to the plantations of the
New World; to have dominion over North America, including Canada
and the valley of the Mississippi, and command its annual harvest of
fish and furs and tobacco, its virgin forests that provided vital naval
stores; to conquer India and drain its vast reservoir of accumulated
gold and silver; to govern world trade by binding its ever widening
parts into an intricate contrived pattern for this, and nothing less
than this, England and France struggled. And within each national
system trade was prescribed, administered, controlled. Freedom of
trade was thus no longer the cry of a particular segment of society
which felt frustrated by specific regulations; freedom to trade was
transformed into a noble general principle. Thenceforth it attracted
recruits. Because it channeled different needs and formless dissatis-
factions, it spread across narrow national lines to tie in sympathy, in
firm adherence, in obstinate defiance, men who shared a common
creed.

This revolution in economic theory can be discerned in the Ency-
clopedie. There are portents that minor manufacturing interests
might soon be made strong by the miracle of steam power and ma-
chinery. These budding industries knew that a world not just an
empire, great though it might be awaited their wares, and they
were sensible of the fact that restrictions were ill suited to their pur-
pose, Boulton, who carried Watt's steam engine into successful pro-
duction, said, in 1769: "It would not be worth my while to make for
three counties only, but I find it very worth my while to make for all
the world." Free trade likewise fitted the needs of New England
traders who, during the years when England and France had faced
each other in battle, had tasted the profits to be had by catering di-
rectly to the West Indian plantations French, Spanish, and Eng-
lish. With the signing of peace in 1763, these traders were reluctant
to return to their former position within the British colonial system.
They resented being excluded from the West Indian market; they
would not submit to a system that barred their products and ships

The Emergence of the Machine 15

from profitable ports. Nor could the colonial merchants accept as
their proper duty "to be immediately dependent on their original
parent and to make their interest subservient thereunto."

Geography and new enterprise promised these dissidents that they
had not long to wait, In 1776, only thirteen years after Great Britain
had her colonial and commercial supremacy acknowledged by the
Peace of Paris, spokesmen for an emerging economy that sought "not
to shake or plunder property, but to protect it," stated their case:
philosophically, Adam Smith documented its needs and blessed it in
The Wealth of Nations; politically, Jefferson sounded the call to battle
in the Declaration of Independence.

Of a wholly different order is the story of mechanical ideas and in-
ventions. Between idea and machine, specific problem and function-
ing answer, engineer and mechanic where to peg a date? Between
patent and guarded process, mechanic and promoter, between hand
and purse where to give credit for priority? Trying new techniques,
men in small scattered shops experimented for decades, seeking to
transform raw materials coal, iron ore, clay, cotton into goods that
would satisfy the boundless needs of men. And over it all was the
basic cry for power, a prime mover, that would be more dependable
than water or wind, stronger than beast or man. And so the Industrial
Revolution gathered momentum and seemed to burst upon a simple
world. It was a revolution that broke no political ties, severed no
allegiances; it revolutionized industry and thereby changed the
rhythm of work and life.

To understand the magnitude and pace of this revolution, turn to
the Encyclopedie, which stands like a museum wherein are to be
found antique theories, outmoded machines, obsolete methods. Com-
bustion is explained in terms of phlogiston, an element of negative
weight; gases "are still entirely unknown quantities"; modern chem-
istry had not yet been born. In this museum machines are made of
wood with but few metal parts; only firearms and precision instru-
ments clocks, watches, marine instruments used brass and iron.
Machines for knitting stockings and weaving ribbons existed, and the
flying shuttle had been invented; carding, spinning, and weaving
were otherwise much as they had been for hundreds of years. Bleach-

16 The World of Eli Whitney

ing, an important textile process, was still a primitive duet of sour
milk and sun. Lathes of all kinds were known, but they were essen-
tially devices for turning ornamental forms in wood, while in the
heavy metal trades the file was the supreme tool used to achieve pre-
cision. Of the prime movers, the Italian turret windmill, developed
about the time Columbus left Genoa for Spain, was the last impor-
tant innovation.

The Encyclopedic appeared on the eve of profound technological
changes. The statement that "a machine consists of craftsmanship and
invention, rather than of strength and solidity of materials/' clearly
expresses the values placed on the work of their greatest technicians.
This definition derives more from Jacques de Vaucanson's mechan-
ical duck, which fed and digested its food, than from his sustained
work on the ribbon loom and his decisive improvement of the draw-
loom action. Similarly, the writing boy that, by concealed machinery,
moved his hands and fingers to form letters brought more fame to
Pierre-Jacquet Droz than the pendulum he made out of two metals
of uneven expansibility, which remained regular because it was un-
affected by temperature changes. (It was this which made him the
founder of the Swiss watch industry.) Not that the exquisite toys
were more valued than useful inventions the Encyclopedic gave
space and prominence to inventions and industrial processes; the
definition reflects that period's underlying attitude toward mechan-
ical inventions.

Helmholtz has characterized how this differed from what fol-
lowed: "The object, therefore, which the inventive genius of the past
century [eighteenth] placed before it with the fullest earnestness,
and not as a price of amusement merely, was boldly chosen, and was
followed up with an expenditure of sagacity which has contributed
not a little to enrich the mechanical experience which a later time
knew how to take advantage of. We no longer seek to build machines
which shall fulfill the thousand services required of one man, but
desire, on the contrary, that a machine shall perform one service, and
shall occupy in doing it the place of a thousand men." That is, inven-
tion no longer sought to build mechanisms which represented a
whole system of acts, but instead concentrated on specialized func-
tion.

The Emergence of the Machine 17

Steam power, iron, and textile machinery gave new meaning to
the word machine; together they characterize the new era, the In-
dustrial Revolution.

As this century has seen the variety of skills and materials required
to resolve aeronautical problems, so the first half of the eighteenth
century witnessed the successful construction of navigational instru-
ments that reduced astronomy and physics to forms simple enough
to be commonly used in guiding ships across the oceans. The sextant
and the chronometer made clear the growing interdependence of
science and technology. Newton, it is true, had answered questions
raised by navigators since the time of Columbus and explained the
mysterious movements of earth and sky; but the needs of navigators
still pressed for solution. The demand was no longer for answers; it
was for instruments.

Even before Newton's day, men knew how to find latitude and
longitude; but what was still not known was how to make a good quad-
rant, how to construct a dependable, seagoing clock, Newton knew
of these needs, for among his papers, unrealized and forgotten, he
had tossed a completed sketch for a sextant. It was a sketch, not a
sextant. Thirty-three years passed before two master craftsmen
John Hadley of London and Thomas Godfrey, a Philadelphia glazier
and friend of Franklin independently satisfied the need and con-
structed sextants out of brass and wood (1731). Meanwhile, a clock-
maker, John Harrison, worked thirty years to perfect four chronom-
eters (necessary to establish longitude), and then another fifteen
years suing a reluctant Board of Longitude (it had been formed to
encourage just such work) for the 20,000 prize it had offered. Only
thus were the primary needs of a society of merchant sailors fulfilled.

The second half of the century focused on a new problem: the
production of a cheap and dependable prime mover. Thomas New-
comen had made an effective start as early as 1712. Considering the
kinds of tools and iron then available, his engine was a miracle of
skill; it embodied no new scientific principles but ingeniously com-
bined those that were simple and familiar. Newcomen's engine was a
glorified suction pump. His atmospheric engine was designed to
pump water out of deep coal mines and keep them from flooding,

18 The World of Eli Whitney

it was relatively safe and fairly effective, but its voracious appetite
limited its use. To harness a power greater than atmospheric pres-
sure, to make an efficient engine, meant that scientists and tech-
nologists had to pass outside the limits of theoretical mechanics and
explore the unknown territory of thermodynamics. This reflects the
change from a merchant age, in which trade dominated, to the new
economy of industry, whose chief concern was production. In its
turn, industry made demands on the whole society.

Out of clock and watch-maker shops came a noteworthy number
of master craftsmen. In these artisans skill and science were happily
wedded. Some started as apprentices; some began elsewhere as
simple weavers and only realized their inborn talents when they
gravitated to these shops where the work satisfied at once their in-
tellectual capacities and their manual adroitness. Some learned by
trial and error, while others solved problems after long, acute, and
original analysis. However arrived at, their contributions were bril-
liant. It was the mathematical-instrument makers who incorporated
known scientific principles in many kinds of tools, and this imple-
mentation, in turn, led to the formulation of new principles. The
terms within which they worked were those of accuracy, and played
a decisive role in establishing the quantitative basis of modern re-
search and industry. For they understood that precision is an ideal;
it manifests itself as a dynamic process to be pursued, and this pursuit
in itself forms an integral part of research. Precision is a goal; meas-
urement is a means.

Among these instrument makers, some names occur again and
again. John Graham, watchmaker and inventor, financed out of his
own private funds Harrison's first chronometer; he made the zenith
sector with which the Astronomer Royal, Bradley, discovered aber-
ration of light and the nutation of the earth's axis. The Dollonds
the father, John, the son, Peter whose genius expressed itself in
astronomy and optics, constructed the standard heliometer and con-
tributed to the invention of achromatic lenses which restored confi-
dence in the refractory telescope. There were Jesse Ramsden and
John Ellicott, who devised pyrometers to measure the thermal expan-
sion of metals, and recorded for use and study spectacularly minute
changes; and the versatile John Smeaton, best remembered for his

The Emergence of the Machine 19

plan for building the Eddy stone Lighthouse that outlived the rock
on which it was built. It is among these men that James Watt ( 1736-
1819) belongs men who combine the intellectual grasp of the sci-
entist with the manual creativity of the mechanic.

The story of Watt's discovery of the steam condenser has been told
many times that dramatic moment of solution as he himself re-
called it: "I had gone for a walk on a fine Sabbath afternoon. I had
entered the Green and passed the old washing house. I was thinking
of the engine at the time. I had gone as far^s the herd's house when
the idea came into my mind that as steam was an elastic body it
would rush into a vacuum aod if a connection were made between
the cylinder and an exhausting vessel, it might there be condensed
without cooling the cylinder. ... I had not walked farther than the
Golf -House when the whole thing was arranged in my mind."

Just two years before that afternoon. Watt had had his first contact
with a Newcomen engine; only then had he been introduced to the
whole problem of steam power. The year was 1763. He had been
called on to repair a model of the engine that belonged to the Uni-
versity of Glasgow, which he served as instrument maker. It was easy
enough to get the model to work, but Watt was appalled at the hope-
less waste of steam, of fuel. He talked the matter over with Dr. Jo-
seph Black, who, at that time, was engaged in experiments that led
to his formulation of latent heat (that is, the amount of heat in-
volved when a substance changes its form when water turns into
steam or, conversely, into ice ) . From Black, Watt understood the heart
of the problem: in the Newcomen engine the jet of water chilled the
cylinder as it condensed the steam, and thus much steam was used
just to reheat the cylinder. But it was two years before the idea of a
separate condenser flashed into Watt's mind. A few days later he had
contrived a test model, using a surgeon's large brass syringe for the
steam cylinder and piston; it worked beautifully. Here, in principle,
was the engine that would replace the hundreds of inefficient New-
comen pumps; here was the answer for which the coal and iron mas-
ters had been pressing. It only remained for Watt to make an engine,
a full-scale working engine.

That simple step lay beyond his power. Precision tools for large
and heavy work had not yet been invented he found it impossible

gO The World of Eli Whitney

to make something as simple as a cylinder two feet long and six inches
in diameter. He could not find mechanics who could follow his specifi-
cations; the cost of tools and materials became too much for him.
At this point Dr. Black introduced him to John Roebuck, a pioneer
large-scale manufacturer, whose Carron Ironworks were the first of
their kind in Scotland. For Roebuck, Watt's engine had become a
necessity; his Newcomen pumps were disastrously inadequate, the
coal mines that fed his great ironworks were seriously threatened.
Roebuck paid off the debts that Watt had incurred, and together
they took out the patent of 1769.

They expected to be able to produce Watt's engine by using a bor-
ing machine that John Smeaton, the outstanding engineer of that
day, had designed for the manufacture of cannon at the Carron Iron-
works; but although it made satisfactory cannon it did not give a
true cylinder. The piston could not be made tight, though it was
wrapped "around with cork, oiled rags, tow, old hats, paper, and
other things . . . still there were open spaces left, sufficient to let
the air in and the steam out." Smeaton frankly acknowledged to the
Society of Engineers that "neither the tools nor workmen existed that
could manufacture so complex a machine with sufficient precision."
Even Roebuck's resources of materials and skill and money were
unavailing; they were unable to make the engine. His coal pits re-
mained flooded, he was submerged in debt; in 1774 he sold his share
of the patent. Watt left Scotland taking the ill-fated model he had
tried to construct, and went to Soho, Birmingham, where a new part-
ner, Matthew Boulton, was waiting.

Boulton and Watt! They made engines to satisfy a steam-mad
world. The first, commercially built, was made in 1777 for the iron-
master John Wilkinson. And this was proper, for it was Wilkinson
who had hit upon the answer to the problem presented by the manu-
facture of a cylinder, the answer that neither Watt nor Smeaton had
found: he made the first metal-cutting tool able to perform large
work with tolerable accuracy. By his contribution he ended the
search that had led from Newcomen to Watt, from the atmospheric
engine to the steam engine; his solution was possible because during
the same long decades immense advances had been made in the coal
and iron industries.

The Emergence of the Machine 1

The first giant steps in the new order of production were made by
Watt, Wilkinson, and others like them. Not only did they open new
avenues of industry, but the story of their success touched the im-
agination of the poor man and the worker. Surely never before had
men of enterprise and intelligence and native worth passed so swiftly
from poverty to riches, from obscurity to fame.

The details of the peace that concluded the American Revolution
traveled no faster than did the notices of Boulton and Watt's new
patents granted the year before (1782) for the double-acting and
rotative engines. By this the engine's strength was no longer confined
to the raising of a pump rod; now it could turn a factory wheel, soon
it would turn a carriage wheel, For, as Jefferson described the engine
to friends at home, anything was possible now that a peck and a half
of coal performed as much work as a horse in a day.

An epoch, a society, a nation were newly born. Of the revolution
in industry, the social implications spread faster and reached further
than did the machines on which it was predicated. To many young
Americans the new order was a call for preparation.

Such a one was Eli Whitney*

His progenitors included precision-instrument mechanics like
Watt, Graham, Bird, the Dollonds, and Ramsden; inventors of indus-
trial tools Smeaton and Wilkinson, Bramah and Maudslay, Ben-
tham and Brunei; industrialists like the Darbys, Arkwright, Wedg-
wood, and Boulton. In this same sense a line of descent runs straight
from Whitney to Henry Ford, from mass production of muskets to
mass-produced automobiles. Whitney was what is today called an
engineer but at a time when that ancient word had not yet received
its modern definition. He was a contemporary of other American in-
ventors Oliver Evans, Thomas Blanchard, and Robert Fulton.

But more than those of any of his contemporaries, his inventions
changed forever the economy of his country.

Ill

The Village Schoolmaster

I

GAVE a phil. Lect Examd & admitted a Fresh-
man." Thus the Reverend Ezra Stiles, president
of Yale, summed up a day's activity in his diary. The importance of
the day lay elsewhere: "G. Wash, inaugurated & proclaimed at N
York." The date was April 30, 1789. The freshman was EH Whitney.
He had had his twenty-third birthday the previous December and
was, with one exception, the oldest member of the freshman class.

What the slow process of Whitney's awareness of his own capa-
bilities was, how the hidden ferment of his hopes took form and
direction, cannot be traced. At one moment in his sister's recollec-
tions he is busy with his chores and special undertakings on his
father's farm; then, of a sudden, there is mention of his firm resolve
to undergo years of schooling to prepare himself for Yale. He con-
fided to no diaries, and only the wildest surmise would presume to
retrace the lost outlines of a unique personality, maturing in another
age and a different society.

The known facts are few and bare of details. It was in the autumn
of 1783 the Revolution was over, peace had been signed that
Whitney, close to eighteen, announced his intention of studying
for college. He was not sucked into the cyclone of Shays' Rebellion
that three years later ripped through Worcester County. His nature
did not respond to what to him seemed bitter and excitable, rash and
improvident A college education was the one road that would lead
out of Westborough.

Today he would have driven straight for an institute of technol-
ogy. Ideas as ideas played no part in his world. Speculative think-
ing, excursions into the current writings on psychological and social

The Village Schoolmaster 23

problems, reading for curiosity's sake, did not detain him. His letters
to his lifelong friend Josiah Stebbins explained what he had done or
what he planned; they detailed the uneasy state of his health; be-
moaned the long hard hours of work, the endless business trips, the
lack of time for casual, friendly visiting; occasionally they revealed
his moods and demands on life; they always included some light,
graceful reference to his unattached heart, to town trivia.

"Brother Eli was I think nineteen before I heard him say anything
about having a liberal education. It was some months before he
could obtain Fathers consent that he might go to Leicester [Acad-
emy]. He went to Leicester early in the spring and if I mistake not
he was twenty years old the December before. About this time Eli
began to teach school with good success. He taught three winters
before he went to New Haven. . . . While he was at Leicester he
made an engagement with one of the schollars to try which would be
foremost in their studies at the end of the next quarter. When the
vacation commenced instead of coming home he went to Mendon
to study with Mr. Alexander, was there nearly four weeks before we
knew where he was. He applied himself so intensely to his studies
that it brought on the Hypo and he wrote wishing Father to send
one of the boys to bring him home. 'He staid at home one week and
then went to Leicester. At this time in addition to his other studies
he was striving to find something which would produce perpetual
motion. , . . When he was nearly fit for colledge he engaged some
of his friends to intercede with Father concerning his education. The
Preceptor told Father he did not acquire the languages with as much
ease as some did but he was an excellent schollar and ought by all
means to go to colledge. Our Step mother was determined to do
all that was in her power to prevent Father from giving his con-
sent. . . . From the commencement to the close of his education
he had trials to encounter which few would be able to surmount."

Was it the thousand dollars his stepmother knew would be spent
that was at the core of her opposition? That thousand dollars, if he
got it, would pay for his years at college he still had to provide for
the years of preparation. By accident he found the path that led
circuitously and leisurely to New Haven. The neighboring town of
Grafton advertised for a schoolmaster. The next day he went there

$4> The World of Eli Whitney

on a horse borrowed from his father, was accepted by the selectmen,
and returned home to announce triumphantly that he had been hired
and was to get $7 a month and his board. Many years later he re-
membered his father's astonishment at his presumption in supposing
himself qualified to teach. Why, he needed to go to school himself!
Whitney agreed, but assured his father that if he worked hard dur-
ing the three weeks before school opened, he would do very well.
A calm competence won his point. He was vindicated when at the
end of the year he was hired for the following winter. The money he
had earned paid his tuition for the summer term at the Leicester
Academy.

The scholastic level of the new academies that mushroomed into
life after the Revolution was not high. They lacked resources but not
ambitions. Manifestations of the lofty feeling for democratic, secular
education that swept the new nation, they were pitifully cramped
by the limited resources of trained men and money available.
Leicester, opened in June, 1784, by Ebenezer Crafts, a Yale graduate,
began with three pupils. (It is most likely that h influenced Whit-
ney to go to Yale rather than to Harvard, which was but half the
distance from his home. ) Ten years later the enrollment had grown,
but it was still so poor that the principal and associate preceptor
shared a bed in a small chamber over the Latin schoolroom. Stiles
remarked that the "spirit for Academy making is vigorous. In this
State are already erected [13] Academies. The Method is this, a
House 40 feet long, 20 wide & one story high is built by subscription
for one sometimes two Preceptors, who unite in teaching a Latin 6-
English School subjoyning Rehearsals, Dialogues, & Maps: a few
may learn a little Geometry."

Teacher and pupil, Whitney alternated with the seasons, always
studying, always learning, gaining assurance. From the ambitious,
audacious beginner who was but three weeks ahead of his pupils
to the aspiring freshman examined by Stiles, the steps can be meas-
ured as they rise. Among his papers he kept documents attesting his
right to teach school. The first, dated Graf ton, 1785 (the places in
which he taught were less than a day's ride from home), notes that
the selectmen approve him to be "a Suitable person to keep a Read-
ing an4 writing School as it appears that he is qualified therefor."

The Village Schoolmaster %5

How circumspect is the wording for as yet he had not proved him-
self; but he satisfied the gentlemen and kept their school the follow-
ing winter (1786). In January, 1787, the selectmen of Westborough
recommend him "to be a Person suitably qualified to instruct a pub-
lic school ... for the purpose of teaching Children and Youth to
read and write, and instructing them in Arithmetick." No longer
need caution temper their approbation and to his other teaching
qualifications, arithmetic has been added.

That summer he returned to Leicester Academy. He had not en-
gaged himself to teach the coming fall term; he stated the reason in
a letter to his friend Josiah Stebbins, written that September: "I am
for the most part desolate and pensive. ... I meant to have entered
N.H.C. [New Haven College Yale] this fall but the want of Money
stops the Mare." So the following October found him teaching at
Paxton, whose selectman described him as "a Person endowed with,
and possess'd of every Qualification and accomplishment requisite
for a School-Master. And ... do Recommend, Approbate and
Authorize him to keep a public School for the purpose of teaching
children & Youth to read and write & instructing them in the rules
of Arithmetic/' Hopkinston echoed this unstinting recommendation
the following year ( 1788), and at the same time the Reverend Ben-
jamin Conklin of Leicester advised that "Eli Whitney is a person of
good Sober lif e & conversation and well qualified to keep a Grammar
School having acquired a good acquaintance with the Latin &
Greek Languages, & also with the English Grammar at Leicester
Academy/'

Teacher or pupil, the life was arduous, the hours long, the work
unremitting. Rote was the only method known to educators; the rod
was the constant corrective. The young men and women teaching
country schools shared a commonplace experience, and the schools
themselves were of a pattern. The scene and the content were al-
ways the same. A small one-room schoolhouse, its design as crude
and standardized as a six-year child's drawing; the interior finished
with lath and plaster; a modicum of light provided by two or three
windows; the New England cold kept partially at bay by a huge
fireplace, where usually a blaze had been started before class be-
gan. A wooden shelf, set about three feet high, was nailed around

26 The World of Eli Whitney

three sides of the room and served as a desk. Under it were back-
less benches where thirty or forty boys and girls sat, their feet
dangling above the icy floor. This bleak abode was the temple of
the three R's.

Textbooks were few; slates did not exist, and the paper was dark
and coarse but was still preferred to birchbark, which occasionally
was used. For reading, Benjamin Harris's New England Primer was
widely known, but the Bible and the Psalter were basic and uni-
versal. Spelling came into the curriculum after Noah Webster pub-
lished his Speller in 1783, and spelling bees were as festive and
popular and exciting as are track meets today. Arithmetic limped
along without a real textbook, and most children were content to
stop when they had mastered the intricacies of long division; only a
few, the most gifted, were introduced to "vulgar" fractions. Nicholas
Pike's New and Complete System of Arithmetic, published in 1788,
answered an important need; it included algebra, trigonometry,
logarithms and conic sections. It also listed the dimensions and
tonnage of Noah's Ark! Endorsed by college presidents ' and pro-
fessors, it was blessed by George Washington himself; its' sale, a
patriotic promotion, was urged so that it "would save much money
in the country, which would otherwise be sent to Europe."

Writing, an everyday name for the fine art of penmanship, was
pursued with patience and artistic fervor. The style 1 the florid
letters embellished with coils and curves and streaked with the
rhythmic densities of upstroke and downstroke, swept along into a
flowing line matched the ornate rhetoric of the day. Pupils were
advised that the essential equipment for writing consisted of "a pen-
knife, quills, paper, good and free ink, likewise a flat ruler for sure-
ness; and a round one for dispatch; with a leden Plummet or Pencil
to rule lines; also gum sandrich powder with a little cotton dipped
therein; which rub gently over the paper to make it bear the ink
better."

In the teaching of writing, Whitney deviated from prescribed
routines in only one detail. But this small deviation has a specially
charged meaning. It was his sister, herself a teacher, who appreci-
ated its pedagogical usefulness and saw how it presaged the future.
"He kept a large quill cane," Elizabeth recorded, "in complete shape

The Village Schoolmaster %7

of a writing pen, for a pattern -for his pupils to copy and enjoin d
them to make their own pens" (Italics ours.) Here is Whitney's own
mark; his understanding that the success of a mechanical operation
rests on the quality of the tools used a well cut quill was the first
step in good writing; his perception that if each pen conformed to a
perfect model a uniform standard could be achieved and maintained
by every pupil; his experience that had taught him how by repetitive
copying of the model even the most unskilled would in time become
adept.

Nothing in Whitney's haphazard entries made while teaching at
Hopkinston reveals the teacher. They indicate that he had his share
of disobedient students and difficult parents and that for having kept
school there for seven weeks and four days the selectmen pkid him
$7 in cash and gave their note dated a fortnight ahead for 2
los. (Congress had recently changed the currency to dollars and
cents from British pounds and shillings and pence; it took time for
the new units to become acclimated.) Brief notations suggest the
ceremony that graced his last afternoon as teacher. He had invited
the parents. "We had a Spelling Match, Red &c &c^- After pro-
nouncing a benediction &c &c I bade farewell. It was rather a move-
ing scene not an Eye in House but was moisten'd."

A few days later, having raised enough money by subscription to
continue school another month, the selectmen asked Whitney to re-
turn. "But my circumstances being that I could not keep it [school]
even to oblige gave tr^em an answer in the negative non aliud."
The Latin phrase, so casually, used, is both, a clue to his next step
and proof that he was ready to take it.

The previous July, unexpectedly, there had heen a crisis in Whit-
ney's efforts to secure his father's consent. A crisis and an under-
standing. He had gone home "in order to arrange his affairs/' wrote
Elizabeth. "Our people were engaged in getting hay. One very warm
day Eli was at work among the hay when by a sudden change in the
weather he took a violent cold and was seized with pain in his limbs
all night and the next day. ... on the shin bone of one leg a small
puff was seen and soon became swoln. Eli was so much more com-
fortable in three or four days that he rode out to visit me I was at
this time a mile or two from home teaching a school and by this

28 The World of Eli Whitney

means he renewed his cold." His leg infection got rapidly worse,
"after some weeks it was opened the bone scraped . . . symptoms
were unfavorable. His countenance wore the appearance of a person
in deep consumption. ... I believe it was six or seven weeks we
were afeared he would study no more. My being absent the first
part of his illness, nursing devolved on Hannah [the silly stepsister] .
This with the ill humor of our Step mother was very trying to him
and he was some times grossly neglected. One instance I will men-
tion."

And then, without again resorting to adjectives, Elizabeth gives
the full mean measure of their stepmother. Eli was still very weak
and still in bed. "He felt the need of some refreshment. Directions
were left for him to take medicine once an hour. ... he knocked
and knocked again, became weary. ... All this time no one was
in the house but our Step mother and her daughters Hannah arid
Nancy. After being alone five hours and a half, he heard Father
come home. He knocked. Father went to his chamber. He "told
Father how he had been neglected and said he could not endure it."
Those last words she must have remembered as they came straight
out of her brother's heart. "Father gave them a close lecture and
commanded them to do better for the futer."

Elizabeth dismissed her school early; she had been told to come
home to nurse her brother so that he might be strong and fit to.^tart
college.

After all this, it seems almost unnatural that Eli would write in
every letter addressed to his father, "Please give my Duty to Mama
my compliments to my Brothers and Sisters [he placed Hannah
and Nancy side by side with his own Elizabeth]," or, "My respects
to Mama." Yet such words were expected and natural in the world
in which he grew up. In those days the family was patriarchal in
size and authority; it took its form and received its sanction frpm
the Old Testament. Eli understood the problem his father had faced:
he knew how well-nigh impossible it was for a man with four young
children and a sizable farm to carry on successfully without a wife.
The father's second marriage to a woman slightly older he was
but thirty-nine and she forty-two with a large brood of her own,
was dictated by motives far different from those that prompted his

The Village Schoolmaster 29

marriage to Elizabeth Fay, the neighbor's daughter with whom he
had grown up. Now choice and courtship were not involved; this
was a partnership. The measure of Eli's love for his father made it
possible for Eli to accept his stepmother and, by showing her respect,
to give his father the love he felt.

On March 4, 1789, he started from home early in the morning for
"Durham in Connecticut rode in the sligh with my Father we
arrived at Capt. Hitchcock's in Brookfield in the evening of the Same
Day where we stay'd over Night. The Slighing being poor he re-
turned back and left me to wait, for the stage payd all expense
left me the Dollars and bid me good by." The triumphant meaning of
the last phrase is clear^ at the very last moment, when the time had
come for Whitney to present himself for examination, his father had
given his promise and dollars to pay the college expenses.

Whitney had never been farther than a long day's ride from West-
borough, for all his schooling and teaching, until he said goodbye
to his father. JHe waited at Captain Hitchcock's tavern most inn-
keepers seem to have been officers in the Revolutionary Army for
the stage that was to carry him to Durham and, after a stay there, to
New Haven. The ridq he was to take carried him much farther than
those towns, it carried him to college and, later, to friendship with
the great and important in all states along the seaboard. He said good-
bye to the life and horizons of the village and to his family and
friends; for though he returned there once a year, he returned as
a visitor.

Behind him also was the teaching he had done to pay his tuition
at Leicester Academy; for the next years he" would be a student, de-
pendent on his father for his college fees. He had learned all that
Leicester could teach him; it was a beginning, adequate but ele-
mentary.

lyWhitney was one of the few who had learned a little geometry,
but evidently this little did not satisfy him. Before going to Yale, he
spent a short term at Durham with the Reverend Elizur Goodrich,
one of the country's outstanding mathematicians. A member of Yale
Corporation, Goodrich had tied Stiles for the college presidency in
1777 and had withdrawn in favor of Stiles. They remained close
friends. Goodrich was esteemed by Stiles to be "an excellent and

30 The World of Eli Whitney

great scholar, one of the greatest of American Literati," a man whose
outstanding attainments in diverse fields entitled him to fill "the
double office of Prof, of Divinity & Prof, of Mathematics. ... I
think his indifferent Elocution prevented his choice."

Elocution, as Stiles used the word, meant a facile, effective oral
communication. Stiles's own inaugural address, delivered in Latin
with great animation, was remembered by Chancellor Kent as "a
short but brilliant sketch of the entire circle of the arts and sciences."
Goodrich lacked the gift of free and easy words the gift that brings
kudos and the reward of high office to its possessor. Whitney himself
was not a man who spoke glibly. He spoke well a simple, persua-
sive manner, a well reasoned argument when he had something to
say and knew whereof he spoke. He did not need to be dazzled by
brilliant speeches to know the quality of Goodrich's mind, and it is
certain that Goodrich sensed his pupil's solid native intelligence;
intellectually and humanly they understood each other, and Good-
rich's son, Elizur, Jr., and Whitney, who were of an age, became life-
long friends.

Half the academic year was past when Whitney appeared for his
entrance examination. It was long and thorough it lasted, as was
customary, from nine in the morning till past two in the afternoon.
Stiles, "both a living polyglott and a living encyclopedia," probed to
see if Whitney had been well schooled in Latin and Greek. Eli had
to read, translate, and parse passages picked at random from the
classics and demonstrate his ability to write true Latin ( non aliud,
as Whitney might have said himself! ) ; he must show his mastery of
English grammar and his familiarity with "vulgar" arithmetic; he
must produce evidence of "a blameless life and conversation."

As important as the examination and his recommendations was
the fact that Whitney had had some preparation under two men for
whom Stiles had high regard. Any pupil whom Goodrich would
allow to present himself at such a late date must be well qualified,
and Whitney's previous work with the Reverend Caleb Alexander of
Mendon with whom Stiles often visited also spoke in his favor.
(Alexander became an outstanding educator, wrote Latin, Greek,
and English grammars, and was instrumental in founding Hamilton
College. ) Stiles also appreciated Whitney's age, and knew how much

The Village Schoolmaster SI

an additional year's delay would mean. Whitney was admitted, one
of forty-three men in the freshman class.

For this moment he had worked and studied five long years. Walk-
ing past the dormitories and churches, the shops and houses, he
could sense something of the urbanity and culture that made New
Haven delightful and different from anything he had known. The
physical aspects were soon seen and judged; the intangibles would
disclose themselves much later his great fortune in having Stiles
as his intellectual guide, the enduring friendships he was to make at
Yale, friendships that would serve him well at decisive moments in
his career.

Had Whitney remained the sturdy farmer, his special gifts might
have died for want of a chance. His college degree made it impos-
sible to dismiss him as a clever mechanic the word "engineer" had
not yet received status and his Yale education was invariably men-
tioned in the introductions he carried from influential friends to im-
portant personages. Not being a minister, lawyer, politician, or
merchant, unwilling to be placed in a category that disparaged his
vision and slighted his capabilities, Whitney created his own classi-
fication and dressed it in commanding apparel

iv The Yale Years

N'

"EW HAVEN in 1785 unanimously conferred the
freedom of the city on "ten French Personages
at Paris." Among them were the Due de la Rochefoucauld, the
eminent lawyer Target, and the Marquis de Condorcet. Three years
later Condorcet wrote his Lettres dun Bourgeois de New-Heaven.
This was no claim to celestial citizenship, nor a plea for Utopia it
was a case of bad spelling.

The happy temper of New Haven was noted by many travelers.
Though its population was under four thousand, it was not a small
town, remote and provincial. Its harbor was filled with ships of
shallow draft that poked into every trading inlet along the coast;
packets sailed weekly to New York, and passage could be had for
$2.50. Trade carried enterprising New Haven men to Spanish ports
and Chinese cities, to the Canadian wilderness and far-off Batavia
the horizons of New Haven were as wide as its commerce. Lying
between New York and Boston, just where the roads forked to Hart-
ford and New London, the town entertained many distinguished
visitors. Jefferson passed through to his post as American ambassa-
dor to France; Franklin received an honorary degree from Yale;
Washington stopped on his tour of the eastern states; John Adams,
newly elected Vice President, was escorted into town by a cavalcade
of chaises, and presented with the freedom of the city.

Settled in the heart of the town, the college attracted bright, am-
bitious young men from every state; their diverse backgrounds gave
the town a national flavor as their studies and interests brought
worlds removed in time and space into daily conversation. The rich
curriculum seeped out into community activities and gave them an

The Yale Years 83

intellectual piquancy. In New Haven the seasons were underscored
by the ceremonies and rituals, the semesters and vacations, of the
college calendar. A cordial town, it was always ready for the unex-
pected. The unusual mixture of carnival and college, of science,
patriotism, and religion, has been wonderfully preserved in the great
diary of Ezra Stiles.

"A spherical air Balloon, eleven feet in Diam, was let off from
Chapel Street in this City. It took fire in its ascent, and being con-
verted into a great Pyramid of flame at it greatest height, exhibited a
grand & pleasant object to the Spectators, who had only to regret that
the same spectacle was not shown in the night. It was decorated
with the figure of an Angel flying, in one hand bearing a Trumpet, &
with the other displaying the flag of the United States, and the motto
Nil Intentatum nostri liqueje was affixed to it in seven different lan-
guages viz Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, Arabic, French & Ger-
man & I think in English." Such a population had every right to
expect great learning from their ministers and teachers.

In those days Nature itself put on marvels almost as fantastic. Ben-
jamin Silliman, whose name is synonymous with the early teaching
of science, remembered that when he was a student ( 1795 ) the sky
would be filled with "flocks of pigeons which screen the sun's light
and darken the air; [they] fly continuously hour after hour, their
number being beyond estimation, and when they alight for the night
by their weight break down the branches of large forest trees, strew
the ground with the ruins and fill the air with the sound of their coo-
ing, and their various notes and the rustling of their wings sounding
like thunder. . . . I once saw when in college a flight of pigeons pass-
ing over New Haven so dense and continuous for many hours . , .
[that] as I stood in the gallery of the steeple of the chapel, I could
almost seize them by their feet as they brushed along by the build-
ings, apparently fearless of men/*

A modern, looking at New Haven as Whitney first saw it, would
be prepared for most of the physical differences the compactness
of the little city, the houses wherein a man lived and carried on his
business, the absence of paved sidewalks and streets, of sewers, run-
ning water, and street lights. Only 'the Green, that seems to have
been rolled out of the great forest, would cause astonishment and

34 The World of Eli Whitney

dismay. In those days it was half level, half sloping, cluttered with
tombstones and naked of trees. It was not until 1796 that James Hill-
house gave the Green its present beauty; he plowed it level, girdled it
with elms, and removed the burial grounds to the northeast corner of
town. A casual visitor of Whitney's time, Henry Wansey, described
New Haven as a "very neat pleasant town . . . [that] has a large
area or market place in the centre, one hundred yards square. Three
wide streets, parallel to each other lead from it on each of the four
sides. There are four churches of the Presbyterian persuasion, one
Episcopalian chapel, and a Methodist meeting. Many handsome well-
looking houses, though chiefly built of wood, and separated by a
court or garden from its neighbour; a very sandy soil, the situation
low and flat The society of the town is particularly agreeable and
pleasant; many men of liberal education residing there . . . Pier-
point Edwards, Mr. Hillhouse. ... I went over to College, which
stands in the market place." Wansey's shrewd eye noted that the
best houses in the state belonged to lawyers surely a loud invita-
tion to the most ambitious to enter the law.

Yale, as Whitney knew it, consisted of five buildings along the
West side of the Green: the hundred-foot three-story severe, barrack-
like dormitory, Connecticut Hall, built in 1752; the president's house
and the house for the professor of divinity; the chapel, which later as
the Atheneum sheltered in two upper rooms the library and the mu-
seum containing the scientific equipment, or "philosophical appara-
tus"; and the dining hall and kitchen, new but dingy, and already
badly in need of repairs.

Around the buildings ran "a close fence of panneled boards,
painted red and relieved by cross strips of white." This fence en-
closed the college square, which was filled with a "grotesque group,
generally of undesirable establishments, among which was a barn, a
barber's shop, several coarse taverns or boarding houses, a poorhouse
and a house of correction, and the public jail with its prison yard;
the jail being used alike for criminals, for maniacs and debtors. Being
very near the college, the moans of the innocent prisoners, the curses
of the felons, and the shrill screams and wild laughter of the insane
were sometimes mingled with the sacred songs and with the voice of
prayer, rising from the academic edifices."

The Yale Years

library had about 2,700 volumes about the size of John
Adams's private collection but almost a third of the books were
obsolete, having been given by Dean Berkeley in 1733; the rest were
in deplorable condition. But the library could boast that its copy of
the Principia had been presented by Sir Isaac Newton himself. The
charge for use of the books varied from nine cents a month for a
folio to a penny for a pamphlet; it was double for all books which
were "recited."

For the museum Stiles had purchased several important items a
three-foot telescope, a micrometer, and an orrery which arrived
from England during Whitney's sophomore year. They took their
place beside an air pump, a whirling table, an electrical machine, a
quadrant, a theodolite, the mechanical powers, a spouting fountain,
and a collection of miscellaneous articles. Such instruments, as Silli-
man recalled them, "were sufficient to excite our wonder and procure
some reputation for the College, especially in pneumatics, me-
chanics and electricity." "Mechanical powers" include those funda-
mental mechanical contrivances based on the principles of the lever
or the inclined plane. To the first belong the lever, the wheel and
axle, cord and pulley, and toothed wheels; to the latter, the inclined
plane, the wedge, and the screw. Visitors came to see these marvels
and have them explained. Especially popular were the "miscellaneous
articles," which included Indian helmets curiously woven with feath-
ers, two large mammoth "teeth," twenty-two inches in diameter,
that had been found along the Ohio River, beautifully spotted South
American snake-skins eighteen feet long, an Indian calumet, a young
alligator preserved in spirits, weapons and fishing gear from Nootka
Sound, bark cloth from Tahiti, several pieces of asbestos found in
the neighborhood, and other oddities gathered from all over the
world.

To Whitney the library and the museum were banquet tables
spread with new and nourishing foods on which his special talents
fed. One of the items he always treasured was the Catalogue of
Books in the Library of Yale-College in which is inscribed, "The Au-
thority of the College induced by the esteem and regard which they
have for Mr. Eli Whitney, Junior Sophister, present this valuable
pamphlet for the trifling consideration of nine pence lawful money."

36 The World of Eli Whitney

This was written and signed by Ezra Stiles, Praeses, to which were
added the signatures of the tutors Ebenezer Fitch, Amos Bassett, and
Ebenezer Gay. The copy would indicate that Whitney had already
been marked as unusual and that he had been noteworthy in his use
of the library.

Veneration and solemn awe gripped the Yale students at the mere
sight of the Reverend Ezra Stiles. Silliman recalled that "no matter
whether in rain or snow, in winter's cold or in hot sunbeams ... we
always approached the presidential presence uncovered, and with a
distinct and guarded reverence . . . which ill accorded, however,
with the peculiarly kind and cordial feelings of one of the mildest
and best of men/' These emotions are shared by any modern who
visits him day after day in the volumes of his Diary. His portrait with
its white full-bottomed wig and black clerical frock bears the uni-
form minted look of New England divines of that period. It is not his
face that attracts the reader, nor his manner that special blend of
the worldly man who is at once polite and aloof, hospitable and
formal, instructive and charming, rarely personal, and always quick
to garb his emotions in quiet dress. It is with his mind, his ranging,
avid curiosity, that admiration comes. It is with his spacious inter-
ests, his continuous peregrinations, his prodigious correspondence,
that admiration yields to wonder.

Stiles is not a man to live with easily, in spite of an engaging man-
ner and an entertaining speech. He is too active, too energetic, too
unrelenting in his intellectual pursuits. Yet he is human. IJis daugh-
ters, Betsy, Polly, and Ruthy, and his seafaring son Isaac, wander in
and out of the pages in an aura of parental solicitude. He had.hesi-
tated to accept the presidency because "a hundred and fifty or 180
Young Gentlemen students, is a bundle of Wild Fire not easily con-
trolled and governed and at best the Diadem of a president is a
Crown of Thorns." He was a cleric, head of a denominational college,
yet he appointed Josiah Meigs, the first layman to enter the Yale fac-
ulty, to the professorship of mathematics and natural philosophy.
This might have been expected of a clergyman who could record:
"Good Friday, Reading Cavallo on Electricity/' A member of the
American Philosophical Society, he was friendly with the great in
America: he corresponded with Franklin on electricity and faith;

The Yale Years 37

Rittenhouse immediately informed him of Herschel's discovery of the
planet Uranus; and Jefferson received for Stiles, as for Franklin and
Madison, the volumes of the Encyclopedic as they appeared.

Temperamentally, Stiles had no sympathy for the mass hysteria
produced by revivalists; his contempt for the famous Reverend Jo-
seph Bellamy was based on a considered opinion that the latter "had
not arrived to the first Eminence for real Erudition. His numerous
noisy Writings have blazed their day, & one Generation will put them
to sleep." Stiles used the word "erudition" with authority. Meigs lists
his linguistic attainments: "He had a thorough knowledge of the
Hebrew, Greek and Latin languages," and had made great progress
"in the knowledge of the Samaritan, Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic. On
the Persic and Coptic he bestowed some attention. The French he
read with facility." A man of many parts, he had noble standards; he
was a stern humanitarian who tried to lift the yokes fastened by
ignorance and intolerance, by greed and superstition, by blind ortho-
doxy and savage guilt.

Ezra Stiles was a finished product of the eighteenth century, its
enlightenment and humanism; he also reflected the tolerance and
elegance of the wealthy Newport trading community. In his person
he summed up the erudition and ethics of his day and world; he was
the funnel through which the newest ideas and most noteworthy work
being done in Europe and America found its way into Whitney's
mind and gave body and authority to his way of thinking.

There is something essentially modern about the demands Whit-
ney made on a college education. In part and most acutely realized
college was a social gesture. He aimed to learn there the language of
the gentry, to become acquainted with the cultural baggage to which
casual reference is made in polite conversation, and to gain the social
ease conferred by such familiarity. He conformed eagerly in the tell-
ing details of dress and deportment, and cultivated an elegant hand-
writing. This nice attention to externals was retained all his life; his
letters to his nephews reveal the man who has labored consciously to
better himself. In larger part, he went to college to learn facts system-
atically grouped into scientific disciplines that have practical ap-
plicability. He thought he was preparing himself for a lawyers
career, but he offered that information tentatively, without enthusi-

38 The World of Eli Whitney

asm; for still unknown to himself, his ambitions and his talents were
preparing themselves for another future.

Of Whitney's student activities a few scattered references remain.
Soon after his admission he was "scribe" for the Linonian Society,
which, with the other academic society, the Brothers in Unity, was
open to all students. These were essentially book-buying clubs, and
members had access to the library of each; they also had meetings at
which "dramatical Exhibitions," orations, disputations, and other
entertainments took place. Membership was open to all; but to be :
long to the Phi Beta Kappa was a matter of election by the society,
and a measure of a student's popularity. In those days Phi Beta
Kappa, the oldest of the Greek-letter societies, was merely a social
fraternity; it had not yet become the non-secret group selected for
scholarship. Whitney was elected on November 28th and initiated
on December 8, 1791.

The following year Stiles asked Whitney to pronounce the public
"Funeral Oration upon his classmate Grant, who died in Georgia.
... He was the fourth that has died. out of that Class." Stiles found
"the Oration was well delivered." The Oration on the Death of Mr.
Robert Grant, Member of the Senior Class in Yale-College, Connecti-
cut, Who died on the fourth of April 1792, Aetat. XXIII, by Eli Whit-
ney, A Classmate of the Deceased, was published at the request of
the class to whom it was affectionately inscribed. It is Whitney's .only
published writing; its overblown, pious phrases and rhetorical pastil-
lage reveal nothing about Whitney, except to show that he had mas-
tered that idiom of oratory and was considered a leader in his class.

Money, a desperate need for money, is the theme that fills Whit-
ney's letters during his stay at Yale. "I am, Sir," he writes his father,
"in the most streightened circumstances. Depending on your sending
me some money, long ago I made engagements which ought, long

since to have been fulfilled, & must be fulfilled immediately I

was determined to come home if I did not hear from you, before, but
those to whom I am indebted say they cannot & will not wait till then,
... I am now preparing for examination and it will lay me under
great disadvantage to come home this spring. ... I have succeeded
very well in my studies, & meet with no other difficulties but the

The Yale Years 39

want of money, which indeed is very great. But I conclude that my
Father will do everything for me that lies in his power."

And his father did. Not only did he send him money "I have de-
posited the sum of twenty-five pounds to be forwarded the first Safe
Conveyance" but he tried to help him save every possible expense:
"I want you should Send Back by the Same man a letter wheather
you Shall com horn at Commencement [that was for the long six
weeks' vacation] and wheather you want I Should com up and flch
you a horse or what you think will be Cheapest or the best way to
do." The father was harassed by the pressure to raise funds. "You
wrote me you are in want of money I Cant Send any at present.
... I wish you to write and let me know how littel money you can
do with. I have Laid out to have Sum money by the first of September
for you, but you must do with as little as you can between now and
then." He was apprehensive and skeptical about additional outlays:
"As to your profession my advice is to look forward and count the
Cost before you plan on bilding and Consider your Surcomstances for
I shall not be able to help you much after you are through College."

The father's misgivings about his son's college venture found still
another outlet he had qualms lest his son subscribe to the current
"infidelity and atheism which were then piously proclaimed/' a lapse
which the leading clergymen blamed on the French Revolution.
"Godless atheist" was the indiscriminate charge hurled at those who
questioned the existing order and defended the right of the French
people to have their own revolution. "You say in Your letter," his
father cautioned Whitney, "that among the Clarge their is a grate
many Hypocrites. We must not, whatever our Ocupation is, excuse
our Selvs and have no religon at all because others mak a bad Use of
it but we ought to Esteem it the higher."

To farmers who lived comfortably but to whom cash was scarce,
the college expenses were high. They were figured on a basis of four
ten-week periods. The necessary items alone totaled $130 to $140 a
year, and bills had to be paid within a fortnight; otherwise, interest
charges were added. Instruction was $33, to which were added class-
room charges of $2.40 for "ordinary repairs and contingencies," $1.30
for wood to heat the recitation rooms, and about $10 for the use of

40 The World of Eli Whitney

books and stationery. The living costs included $5 for a room in Con-
necticut Hall, $3 for sweeping up, making the beds, and general dam-
ages (broken windows, torn bedding), $8 for light and fuel (candles
and wood), and another $5 for the use of bed and bedding. (The
pupils bought their own chairs, mirror, washbasin, andirons, and
bellows New Haven always had a brisk trade in secondhand fur-
nishings.) Board in the Commons cost $1.60 a week, and laundry
might run as high as $3 a quarter; the treasurer's bill was about $50
and class taxes another $5. These were the fixed sums that had to be
met; to these were added: Linonian or Brothers in Unity Society dues;
traveling expenses, pocket money, commencement expenses, and a
minimum expenditure for clothes. College men were expected to
dress well. A wardrobe must include a pair of pantaloons made of
mixed cotton and wool, linsey-woolsey, very fashionable, cheap, and
well adapted to the season ($8); shoes ($2), and a waistcoat and a
pair of cambric handkerchiefs ($5).

To meet these expenses, Whitney had the $1,000 promised him by
his father not in a lump sum, but when he could spare the cash; the
remainder he tried to earn "by his own industry and ingenuity." A
friend who knew him at this period remembers how "he received a
dollar from many young men who had more money and less industry
than himself for coloring the outlines and divisions in the maps of
Guthry's Geography (the Geog'y then studied in College). At the
close of the College term those Geographies which were thus colored
commanded a higher price than others." Unable to bridge the entire
spread between income and outgo, Whitney "still had pecuniary em-
barrassments to struggle with after paying the College bills with the
last remittance made by his Father. He gave Notes for his debts in
the town and reserved the remainder to enable him to go to South
Carolina to engage in the duties of Private Tutor in a gentleman's
family with a salary of Eighty guineas a year."

It is not difficult to present a fairly accurate financial schedule of
Whitney's college education; what is difficult is to see where he found
enough time for the extracurricular work that brought in the needed
dollars. The day's activities were long and the hours rigidly allocated.
In winter the wakening bell sounded at five-thirty, in spring and sum-
mer a half-hour earlier. The students had to light their fires, run

The Yale Years 41

downstairs to the pump (perhaps through the snow), wash, get
dressed, and be in the chapel by six for prayers. After an hour's serv-
ice they recited prepared lessons and only at eight breakfasted on
toast, coffee and, generally, oyster stew. From nine to eleven they
studied in their rooms for the second recitation. Then came dinner
and after that a lone hour to relax "playtime" it was called more
study in their rooms for the third recitation period at four; evening
prayers, supper, and further study for the prebreakfast recitation.
All study in the rooms was closely supervised by the tutors, who
constantly made rounds to see that students were busy.

Strenuous as was the students' routine, that of the teaching staff was
heroic; the teaching load for- about 125 students was borne by the
president, one professor, and three tutors. The last coached the stu-
dents in Greek, Latin, and English grammar; the elements of "chro-
nology and history"; geography, composition, and public speaking;
"syllogistic disputation"; and Vincent's Explanation of the Catechism.
Stiles himself carried the major lecturing assignment.

A few notations from the Diary haphazardly chosen during Whit-
ney's student years give the preparation he received in science and
law. "Senior Class finished reciting Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws.
... A Latin Oration, a forensic Disputation whether Authors ought
to be invested with Copy Right? . . . Lecture on the 3 learned Pro-
fessions [ministry, law, and medicine] . . . Lecture on Laws: i.
Laws of Nature & Nations; 2. Jus Civile or ancient Roman Law, Pan-
dects [complete digests] Imperatorial Edicts, & Eccl. or Canon Law;
3. Laws of Englnd; Common Law, statutes, Courts of Westminster,
Reports; 4. Laws of the United States." Both the legal principles and
his training in debating were to be used by Whitney in his fight for
the patent rights of his cotton gin.

Science was systematically surveyed. "I gave a public lecture in
Chapel, beginning a Description of the Encyclopedia or Circle of the
Sciences. Beginning with Language or Philology ... I delivered a
Philosophical Lecture upon the structure of the Eye & the Nature of
Vision . . . Lecture on Mathematics, particularly Arithmetic, Geom-
etry & Conic Sections ... I gave a Lecture on the Astronomy of
Comets. . . . Lecture on Natural Philosophy different kinds of at-
traction, Mechanical Powers, Laws of simple & compound motion.

4$ The World of Eli Whitney

Hydrostatics & Hydraulics, Central Forces, Optics, Electricity, Chem-
istry especially Priestley's Expt. on fixt air, Impregnating water
with it & thereby making artificial Spa water." ( Carbonated water
was a recent scientific accomplishment Priestley thought it might
cure scurvy. )

Whitney went home for the long vacation before graduation, and
his sister remembers that "Father gave him money to pay his last
bills. He gave [Father] his note of hand for the Bills and made use of
the money to furnish himself for his future employment." Whitney
faced special needs for commencement. He had to buy the- proper
clothes a coat, a waistcoat, pantaloons and cotton shirt, slippers and
silk stockings; he had to pay for his diploma and the parchment with
its official blue silk ribbon; and he had to meet the class tax levied to
pay for the commencement music, catalogue, and dinner. Always
prudent, he had consulted President Stiles about work; he knew be-
fore he went home that he had secured a teaching position:

Commencement then was not part of the college term. It was held
late in the summer vacation, when the close of harvest gave the rural
state some leisure. In 1792 it was scheduled for the second Wednes-
day in September. Commencement was a brilliant drama, richly
texted, built up out of separate acts and sideshows, presented with a
profusion of prayers, processions, and solemn excitement. From the
governor to the chorus of New Haven citizenry, from President Stiles
to the youngest freshman, each had -a role, with no line dividing ac-
tors from spectators.

On the Sunday prior to the Wednesday, the annual baccalaureate
sermon was preached an impressive service for an impressive audi-
ence that caught subtle allusions and followed involved theological
argumentation whether given in English, Latin, or Greek. Early the
following Tuesday afternoon the Phi Beta Kappa Whitney among
them marched from the Court House to the Brick Church, where
they listened to an oration; immediately afterward, picked students
from each class delivered orations in English and Latin before a
brilliant assemblage. That evening, Silliman remembers, "crowds of
people assembled to view the illumination of the college windows
and the dazzling pyrotechnics of mounting rockets and burning

The Yale Years 43

wheels, revolving with blazing coruscations, and fiery serpents flying
through the air with comet trains, along the front line of the College
yard." He recalls the forgotten prerogatives permitted different aca-
demic classes the freshmen who previously "were not allowed to
wear gowns nor to carry canes," now assumed their sophomoric
rights and "ostentatiously paraded the College yard in close phalanx;"
while the seniors walked singly, proudly, as befitted heroes, recog-
nized by their "triangular hats, cocked in military style/' the peculiar
badge of the faculty.

To Whitney his commencement was a noble adieu to his sustained
effort. To Stiles the commencement of 1792 was also significant. After
protracted, delicate negotiations the State of Connecticut and Yale
Corporation had reached an agreement: Yale was to have tax arrears
of over $40,000 canceled; and for granting this pecuniary relief, as
well as additional sums for a new building, designated members of
the state government were made ex-officio members of the corpora-
tion. This commencement thus was not merely the traditional per-
formance; it was the ushering in of a new regime, and had, as Stiles's
program implies, a momentous excitement.

Special color graced the procession as State and Church marched
side by side, pomp matching circumstance. The order of the proces-
sion had been meticulously arranged to assure that "due honor was
accorded to each group." The column formed at nine in the morn-
ing and made its way from the Chapel to the Brick Meeting House,
accompanied by a band of six musicians (imported from New York)
with clarinets, French horns, and other instruments. The exercises in-
cluded an anthem, an English oration, a forensic disputation, a He-
brew oration, an English dialogue, an English oration, a Greek dia-
logue, an English oration. A formal dinner was served in College
Hall at which 140 were present. The afternoon was filled with "An
English Oration by Mr. Tutor Basset on The great and happy Event
of a Union of Civilians & Ecclesiastics in the Govt of the University,
A Latin Oration on the same subject by the President, An English
Oration by Mr. [Pierpont] Edwards, A Latin Valedictory Oration,
Anthem & Musick." Prayer concluded the ceremonies, and at sunset
the procession returned to the chapel. The great day was over.

44 The World of Eli Whitney

It was when he returned to college for commencement that Whit-
ney was told of a radical change that had to be made. He was not to
go to New York; he was to go South.

The original teaching position had been too ephemeral for Eliza-
beth to remember rightly; what stayed in her memory was the final
pressing need for money and the subsequent melancholy of unspoken
farewells. Certainly she shared the anxieties which Whitney poured
out in a letter to his brother Josiah, penned on September 25th, after
he had agreed to go to South Carolina. "In four days I shall set out
for South Carolina. . . . The climate is unhealthy and perhaps I
shall lose my health and perhaps my life, but I hope to return to you
again some time or other. Be a good Boy and do as you ought. . . .
Long life, prosperity and happiness attend you for ever and ever
Amen."

The following day, less dramatically, he wrote to his father: "I
failed of the school, which I mentioned, in N. York As soon as I ar-
rived at New Haven the President told me that a Gentleman from S.
Carolina had applied to him to recommend a suitable person for a
Private Tutor in a family, that he had recommended me, that he
thought it a good offer on the whole, I had better accept it. After
mature consideration I have concluded to go. I shall go from here to
N. York next Monday, from there I shall go to Savannah in Georgia,
from there to the place of my destination, the name of which partic-
ular village I do not know. The climate of the Southern States is some-
thing unhealthy but I hope by temperance and Prudence to with-
stand it. If I should find my health declining, I shall return, if possible
before it is too late. I shall live in a particular family where I am to
have everything found me. I hope to save fifty Guineas Pr. Year be-
sides my expenses, which is more than I can make in New England.
If I should have good success I shall make something handsome, but
I may have bad luck and loose all. The world is a Lottery in which
many draw Blanks, one of which may fall to my share. . . , Going so
great a distance is attended with many inconveniences and many
advantages. I shall have the opportunity of seeing the Country, which
is a consideration of some consequence. I can tell better when I get
there how I shall succeed. Tho I by no means set out upon uncer-

The Yale Years 45

tainties. I have agreed with Mr. P. Miller, a Gentleman from Connecti-
cut, a man of reputation and abilities."

Why does self-pity streak wildly through one letter while the other
presents the same facts in reasonable words? They are dated a day
apart, yet nothing had intervened to cause the change. Events alone
could not explain the difference; events are precipitants that reveal
but do not explain the emotional chemistry. Whitney had achieved
his college education, and his rich talents lay unused, awaiting an-
other goal. On Josiah, the brother from whose birth his mother had
never rallied, he fastened the anxiety the motherless boys shared, the
anxiety suddenly given power by the idea of Georgia. Georgia had
become to Whitney less a state than a graveyard. There his first Yale
tutor, Denison, and there just recently his close friend Grant, had
died. He did not stop to remember that both had left Yale mortally
ill and hopefully had traveled southward to a warmer climate.

His father, on the other hand, called forth his capacity for circum-
spect evaluation, for determination, for orderly, scheduled proce-
dures; with his father were associated the realities of financial returns
and the obvious advantages of social connections. So much is clear.
What is not clear is Whitney's obvious failure to mention that "Mr.
P. Miller, a Gentleman from Connecticut," managed the estate of
the late General Nathanael Greene a name needing no adjectives
of recommendation.

Mr. Miller had engaged Whitney, on behalf of a neighboring
South Carolinian planter, a Major Dupont, to tutor the Dupont chil-
dren. Young Whitney could travel to the South with Mr. Miller,
Mrs. Greene, and her family, whom he would meet in New York.

Mulberry Grove

r mTNEY ? s career immediately after graduation
seems shadowed by the pathos of hopes
vainly spent. He was almost twenty-eight, and for ten years had
struggled for a college education. He had lifted himself out of West-
borough and wrenched himself away from family, friends, and an
habitual way of life and now, like any youngster, he was irreso-
lutely drifting into a teaching job. The prospect of being a tutor in
a wealthy southern household did not attract him, but he had a living
to make and hard times to face. "Col. Duer's failure for One Million
Dollars or some high amount," the largest bankruptcy the country
had as yet experienced, had precipitated a short, intense depression.

At the same time the prospect did not discourage him. Had he
been really committed to the idea of studying law as the best way
to realize his potentialities, his tenacity would have held him to that
purpose. It was not the business slump that forced him into teach-
ing, it was his own indecision; it was his way of marking time, of
digesting what he had learned, of finding his own landmarks.

He boarded the New York packet with quiet resignation, and the
trip lived up to his worst expectations. In later years, when he had
made the journey many times, he must have remembered that initial
voyage as a most bedevilled series of misadventures.

"I was very sea-sick after I left you on Tuesday/' he wrote Steb-
bins from New York in the beginning of October, 1792. "At 2 o Clock
next morning our vessel ran on the rocks just below Hell-Gate. This
I think was owing to the carelessness of our Capt. The tide was ebb-
ing when we struck and at sunrise we were almost on our beam's
end at which time five of the passengers, including myself, went
46

Mulberry Grove Jj,7

on shore and procured a waggon to carry us to N. York, six miles
from where we landed." A superstitious person might have seen in
this mishap a warning, but Whitney sensed nothing ominous and
walked straight into trouble. "Had been in the City but an hour or
two," he continued, "before I met Sturges in the street and shook his
hand, then perceived he was broke out full with the small-Pox. Saw
several Stamford People, found it much less convenient and more
expensive for me to take the infection at that Place, than I expected.
After advising with Mr. Miller concluded to be enochulated here.
. . . This is the fourth day since I was enoculated by Doct. Gogge-
well who is famous here; he tells me it has taken tho' I feel no incon-
venience from it yet."

The "Place" suggested by the "Stamford People" was probably
one of the luxurious smallpox resorts. For a flat fee a person received
inoculation and the proper medicaments basilic powders and
barley water acidulated with tamarinds and, while waiting for the
serum to work, the ladies and gentlemen enjoyed hunting, boating,
and fishing, with dancing and singing in the evenings. It might have
been Daniel Lee's elegant establishment on Ram Island or that on
Duck Island run by John and Elisha Ely, who boasted they had not
suffered a single loss in twenty-seven years. So fast had the treatment
of smallpox progressed that efforts to control the scourge did not
wait on Jenner's historic experiment with cowpox inoculation in
1796. Validation (inoculating with serum obtained from a mildly
infected human patient), though not as safe and simple as vaccina-
tion, had come into practice early in the eighteenth century. Gone
were the days when the public had participated in pro- and anti-
inoculation riots and men suspected of being carriers were tarred
and feathered. Variolation became fashionable, a business of which
it was said there were "millions in it."

Whitney, having decided against the Stamford establishment, was
spending his time "partly in Mrs. Greene's family and the rest in
viewing the City." He assured Stebbins, "I am more and more
pleased with Mr. Miller and have reason to believe him one of the
best of men." He might also have added that Mrs. Greene was the
most understanding and generous of women. For in answer to a
request from Whitney, now lost, she had directed Miller to promise

48 The World of Eli Whitney

either to advance him "the money for your passage, or become re-
sponsible for its payment after our arrival. So you will be able to
proceed in the same packet with us/'

When he finally, on October ijth, boarded the ship for Savannah,
he had recovered from an extremely light case with "only a dozen
pock and they will not all fill." Still fearful of "committing myself
to the boisterous ocian," he exhorted Stebbins to pray that "God Al-
mighty bless you and Land me safe in Georgia/'

Nothing Whitney had studied at Yale would have prepared him
for Catherine Greene. He had had friends: there was Josiah Steb-
bins "from distant towns he and I first met as students at [Leices-
ter] Academy" to whom, down the years, he remained attached
with loyal affection; there were his friends at Westborough, his com-
panions at Yale, and his close association with New Haven families.
Friendship, as Whitney knew it, was shaded by reserve; it had al-
ways been born of a community of interests that gradually devel-
oped an atmosphere of mutual trust and liking; it had been confined
to men.

And now suddenly he met Catherine Greene, sociable, engag-
ing, entertaining; a woman of the graceful, cosmopolitan world of
Newport, Charleston, and Savannah. She possessed to a rare degree
the instinct for friendship, given directly and without reservation to
those she chose; and such was her witchery that the recipient re-
turned it on her terms. She never thought to distinguish between
love and friendship it was enough that in both one gave one's heart.
Her friendships moved quickly into intimacy. Gossips, measuring
her by ordinary standards, interpreted her gift for familiarity in
hackneyed physical terms; her friends valued the warm world she
created and knew the artlessness of her gestures. The portrait of
her now in the Telfair Academy, Savannah, shows quiet eyes set in
a soft round face. Demure and middle-aged, it conveys none of the
animation that breathes in her letters, none of the colorful aura
through which she moved.

Catherine was born on Block Island in 1753 and reared in her
aunt's fine home in Warwick. Rhode Island had been founded by
men and women who would not surrender their spirits to pious con-

Mulberry Grove 1^9

formity; singly or in small groups they had rejected the theocratic
climate of Massachusetts. Their settlements, dedicated to religious
tolerance, attracted others seeking asylum, and soon, side by side,
Anabaptists, Jews, Quakers, and Episcopalians lived pleasantly to-
gether; without prejudice members of all beliefs rose to positions of
importance.

As the colony grew rich, the colonists found that they had also
reserved the right to enjoy the leisure wealth brought the spirit
had not been hobbled by guilt or crippled by sin; they had never
subscribed to the Puritan idea that leisure was Satan's invention.
The first learned society in America, the Literary and Philosophical
Society, was started in Rhode Island in 1730, its members meeting
regularly to discuss news and exchange ideas. Abraham Redwood,
a mercantile Maecenas, gave generously to buy books in London,
and organized a botanical garden his own ship captains brought
him seedlings and plants from all their ports of call. Interest in ideas
grew, and Newport shared with Philadelphia a preoccupation with
science and belles-lettres.

Wealth flowed into the colony, largely from trade on the high seas.
Newport was the center of a lively lucrative commerce. Dozens of
ships made fancy profits in the triangular traffic of rum, molasses,
and slaves; other ships went north after whales; still others carried
Rhode Island manufactures rum and refined sugar, sperm oil and
spermaceti candles, pig iron, hatchets, axes, hoes, plows, hammers,
and shovels to coastal settlements, to West Indian plantations, to
foreign ports.

The aristocratic tone was introduced when, in the 17505, wealthy
planters from Charleston, Savannah, and the West Indies, who had
close business ties with Newport merchants, came to set up summer
residences. They brought their mastery of the lighter art of living,
the gracious sociability of tea parties and corn-husking festivities,
and the assemblies where minuets and. reels w.ere danced. Is it any
wonder that Stiles, who for years had been the pride of Newport
and had had charge of the Redwood Library, should see nothing
amiss in allowing Yale students to take ballroom-dancing lessons?
The people of Newport cultivated an elegance in manners, an ex-
travagance in dress; for their patronage ships were stocked with

50 The World of Eli Whitney

luxuries from Europe and the East: fine silks, gossamer cottons, laces,
porcelains, tea, sandalwood boxes, Turkish carpets, and Indian
shawls. Men and women sitting to Robert Feke or Gilbert Stuart
presented themselves in coats of brocade and scarlet, lace ruffles,
high-heeled shoes with golden buckles; their hands seem to be fragile
ornaments holding delicate fans and jeweled swords; solemnly their
children clutch pet monkeys and parrots.

This was Catherine's world; it breathes in all her letters. Whatever
the main burden of her letters financial and legal crises, family dis-
locations, concerns of health they always convey the bustle of con-
viviality, of chatter and music, of constant visiting, and of long, un-
comfortable journeys made agreeable by friends and funds. "My
house is full of company all in high spirits and I have retired to
Scribble nonsense to my friend. ... I have just come from the Play
and according to promis left the gay throng to sup while I devote
myself [to answering you]. . . . Last evening I arrived safe here
[Newport] we had the pleasure of the Company of Mrs and Mr
Amory. . . . They came merely to be three days longer with us, and
three days of real delight they have been; so stoped on the road to
see everything that was curious, in short, devoted ourselves to pleas-
ure."

In Jefferson's second administration, forced by the Embargo
("Smuggling goes on here [New York] like the duce almost every
night vessels go out") to make the long trip south by land, Catherine
bought a coach and hired a driver recommended for character as
well as skill: "We are up early in the morning as to ride 15 miles
before Breakfast which we do in three houres. Our afternoon jour-
ney is accomplished with equal ease. . . . The Driver is everything I
could wish. He certainly is at the head of his Profession as a driver
and I have the notion to dub him Doctr. Why not? as well as Doctr
of Music? . . . One of my Carriage Horses got lame the second day
after I left Phila which detained us two days at Baltimore where we
received every species of kind and friendly attention from the Hol-
ingsworth family, who we took letters to/' Still later she wrote Whit-
ney: "Come here and let me teach you by My example, how to enjoy
the few fleeting years which any can calculate upon. . . , We are as
gay as larks and really pass our time delightfully. Company enough

Mulberry Grove 51

you know we always have. . . . We have a party of Eighteen to
eat turtle with us tomorrow. I wish you were the nineteenth/*

From her first invitation to have him join her party, Catherine was
to be Whitney's cicerone in genteel company. The education Whit-
ney had received at Yale made him familiar with contemporary in-
tellectual and scientific activity; it was Catherine who prepared him
to feel at home in the great world. From Boston to Savannah, as the
years extended the boundaries of her experience, she came to know
nearly everyone worth knowing.

Catherine showed discernment when she chose her husband. Na-
thanael, though a distant cousin, did not belong to the gentry. His
father, one of the local leaders in the Society of Friends, had a suc-
cessful foundry and desired nothing more for his seven sons than that
they operate the family forges and foundries profitably, live peace-
fully, honestly, simply, frugally, and abide with the Quaker teach-
ings. Catherine described the six Greene brothers many years later,
when they were in their sixties. They were "Just coming out of Their
forge or Mill. . . . They are plain Country people with very good
sense tho but little Education, live in the Most plentiful, but plain
Manner and are celebrated for their hospitality. They are opulent
(Nay Rich) but [work] just as hard as if they were poor and feel a
kind of vanity in doing so."

All but Nathanael lived according to the father's precepts. A
chance encounter with Stiles in a bookshop enlisted him as friend
and mentor; and with only this informal guidance Nathanael Greene,,
by his own marked aptitude for study, acquired a good education^
especially in- mathematics and the sciences of his day. When the
Revolution came, Greene was prepared his campaigns are monu-
ments to his brilliance and leadership; it took the war and his ap-
pointment by Washington as quartermaster general to reveal his
unexpected genius for organization. Stiles, who followed closely his
career, noted in 1777 that "Greene" is the General whom Washington
most relies upon in the whole Arnly and I believe the Congress have
their Eye upon him as a Successor to G. Wash, in Case of Accident
altho' both Schuyler, Lee & Putnam are before him."

Catherine was not just the wife of a great man; in her own way she-
earned fame and respect. She joined the general when the army went

58 The World of Eli Whitney

into winter quarters. She was one of the devoted group that had
.shared with Washington and his men the misery, cold, hunger, and
sense o abandonment at Valley Forge; the next year the severest
of all the war winters undaunted, she was with her husband at
Morristown, where her fourth child was born; she was with him
when, in that protracted anticlimax of the war, he besieged the Brit-
ish until they left Charleston. Of the twelve years of their marriage,
more than half were consumed by the war. Had she only endured
those grim experiences, she would have won the devotion of her hus-
band's close friends; it was her lightness of spirit under such condi-
tions that brought her the admiration of Washington, Lafayette, von
Steuben, Wayne, and Kosciusko, while the soldiers took consolation
from the knowledge that she was one with them during their black
days.

From the moment when he accepted Washington's appointment
to command the Southern armies, Greene stepped into trouble. Corn-
wallis's surrender at Yorktown (October, 1781) did not end the war
for him; not until a year later, in December, 1782, did Greene, at the
head of his victorious army, enter Charleston. His starved soldiers
plundered the food shops. "In this critical situation, I had but the
choice of difficulties; to turn the army loose upon the country, or take
the risk upon me of supporting the contractors. I chose the latter as
the least evil." Greene personally endorsed notes to obtain food and
clothing for his troops.

From that time on, the vast sums for which he had made himself
liable left him no peace. Heroically, Greene threw himself into his
last campaign to salvage something for his family's protection. He
hurried back to Rhode Island, where again he started up the foundry
he had left when he marched off to war; he hurried to Princeton, where
Congress was meeting, and implored them, fruitlessly, to assume the
ruinous debts that rightfully were the nation's obligation. Meanwhile,
South Carolina had gratefully presented him with Boone's Barony, a
valuable confiscated estate. But even this handsome gift it included
some slaves attached to the land and a grant of credit to enable
Greene to purchase additional slaves for the plantation could not
save him.

Seventeen hundred and eighty-four was a terrible year. The bank-

Mulberry Grove 53

ruptcy of the contractor who held his endorsed notes added intoler-
ably to his burden. But, as if to help him parry the blow, the people
of Georgia, in March, 1785, having confiscated the estate of the Loy-
alist Lieutenant Governor, John Graham, deeded it to General
Greene. This was Mulberry Grove.

By name, Mulberry Grove recalled the hopeful labors of its
founder, who set out a mulberry nursery one argument advanced
for establishing Georgia was that it might supply England with raw
silk and was so successful that five years later he sold Oglethorpe
some six thousand trees. To Greene it presented problems. For ten
years it had been deserted, its great fields neglected; floods had wiped
out the drainage system that had converted swamp acreage into rich
rice fields. "We found the house," Greene wrote to a Newport friend,
"situation and outbuildings more convenient and pleasing than we
expected. The prospect is delightful, and the house magnificent. We
have a coach house and stables, a large out kitchen, and a poultry
house nearly 50 feet long and 20 wide, parted for different kinds of
poultry, with a pigeon house on the top, which will contain not less
than a thousand pigeons. Besides these are several other buildings
convenient for a family, and among the rest, a fine smoke-house. The
garden is in ruins, but there are still a great variety of shrubs and
flowers in it."

Such a property was well worth laboring over to restore, and
Greene, with his customary vigor, lost no time in erasing the signs of
neglect and getting the. fields back to their former productivity. "We
are planting," he wrote some time later to his Newport friend. "We
have got upwards of sixty acres of corn planted, and expect to plant
one hundred and thirty of rice. The garden is delightful. JThe fruit
trees and flowering shrubs form a pleasing variety. We have green
peas almost fit to eat, and as fine lettuce as ever you saw. The mock-
ing birds surround us evening and^jnorning. The weather is mild,,
and the vegetable kingdom progressing to perfection. . . . We have
in the same orchard apples, pears, peaches, apricots, nectarines,
plums of different kinds, figs, pomegranates, and oranges. And we
have strawberries which measure three inches around. All these are
clever, but the v^trit of our friends to enjoy them with us renders them
less interesting."

51f The World of Eli Whitney

"Gen. Greene died of a Coup du Soleil, Stroke of the sun," Stiles
noted the tragic event of June 19, 1786. "He walked about freely in
his Rice-Grounds in the heat of the sun, to over-see his Negroes of
which he had about 130." Those were the facts as communicated to
him by the governor of Georgia; but the statement that Greene died
of a sunstroke should be put down as an eighteenth century conceit.
That a man whose greatest campaigns had been fought in the South,
who had directed a mobile policy which had dislodged the British
and who had then besieged them for a year until they had evacuated
Charleston that such a man now should be mortally stricken by the
sun does small justice to Greene's vitality and intelligence. It is much
more likely that he suffered a fatal heart attack. Worry, tension, a
desperate drive to succeed before ruin should engulf him these
were enough to break a heart as hopeful as Greene's.

Less than a year before his death, Greene had engaged as tutor
for his children a young protege of Stiles, Phineas Miller. A year
older than Whitney, he came from Middlefield, Connecticut; his
family were prosperous enough to send him to Yale. Stiles mentions
that he "Dismissed . . . Miller, a Sophimore," and that the following
April he "Examined and readmitted Phineas Miller into the Sophi-
more Class. He was dismissed 15 Nov. last on account of illness." On
September 20, 1785, "Sir Miller" "Sir" was the title bestowed on
Bachelors of Art, the equivalent of the Latin Dominus as Stiles
called him, was "offered 5 per month & Board at Barrington, but
will prefer General Greene's offer of 3 Sterling & Board &c if the
Gen. agrees/' Miller might have chosen the general's offer to favor
his delicate health by wintering in the South, or he might have gladly
sacrificed the higher stipend to become associated with a man of
Greene's standing. Miller accompanied the family when they took
possession of their new home, Mulberry Grove.

No portrait of Miller exists. From the things he did, from the letters
he wrote, a picture slowly takes form; not of his appearance was he
tall, was he thin? but of the inner man. When General Greene died
at forty-four, it was to Miller that Catherine Greene turned for help
and counsel. It was Miller who over the next seventeen years strug-
gled to untangle the debts that Greene had left behind him.

Mulberry Grove 55

At once Miller's role was changed. He was part of the menage.
Friends poured in on Catherine, to mourn with her and pity the five
little fatherless children the oldest was barely eleven and when
the friends returned to their far-flung homes and the house was
emptied of them, Catherine had only Miller to talk to, to worry with,
to rely on for the day-to-day decisions required on a great plantation,
to carry on the enormous correspondence demanded by Greene's af-
fairs. He was no ordinary humble retainer. He was a college graduate
and had been recommended by Stiles; and to serve the Greenes,
whom he held in highest esteem, Stiles would have been most par-
ticular in his selection. Miller, as Stiles judged him, was cultivated,
serious, conscientious, honorable, gentle. Time would add to those
qualities constancy and integrity, but it was residence permanence
and continuity that first .gave Miller his. unique position in the
household of the late General Greene.

"I am now at Mulberry Grove with Mrs. Greene's family. I arrived
here eight days ago but let me begin at New York." Whitney was in
good spirit. He whose world had hitherto been bounded by West-
borough on the north and New Haven on the south poured out to
Stebbins (November i, 1792) the crowded impressions of his first
great adventure. "The first two days after we left N. York, the wind
being contrary, we did nothing more than beat out of the harbour.
After that we had a better wind and in five days and half arrived at
Savannah. We made what they call a five day's passage; for they
count only from N. York lighthouse to Tibe lighthouse, which stands
at the mouth of the river Savannah. The six first days after I left N.
York I was very seasick indeed eat nothing but what I puked up
immediately since that I have been in good health. Nothing hap-
pened on the passage worth relating. I will remark, however, that we
were out of sight of land four days of the five and therefore I can
give no account of the coast. ...

"Most of the productions of nature here are entirely new to me I
could much easier enumerate those which are common in New Eng-
land than those which are peculiar to this country Oranges, Pome-
granates, figgs, Olives &c all grow within ten rods of the place where

56 The World of Eli Whitney

I now sit. There are several fruits which grow spontaneously in the
fields that are quite agreeable but as yet I am quite unacquainted
with the production of the country.

"The town of Savannah did by no means equal my expectations
it stands on the river Savannah fifteen miles from the Ocean and is
about two thirds as large as N. Haven the houses are mostly of
wood and not well built the town is laid out in squares much like
N. Haven and the streets are excessively sandy the buildings in
general appear very much weatherbeaten which I believe is owing
to the great degree of moisture in the air. The river Savannah is
rather more than half a mile wide at its mouth, it gradually decreases
as far as I have ascended it opposite the town it is not more than
fifty rods wide and at this place, which is 12 miles above, not more
than 20 rods the tide rises about 35 miles up the river. The Country
is low and the banks of the river are very little above the surface of
the water, indeed the water o'er flows its banks, every tide, where
the land is uncultivated but to what extent I am not able to say. I
should have remarked that the town of Savannah stands on a sandy
Bluff about thirty feet above the water in the river, which is said to
be the highest land in this part of the country.

"Rice, corn and potatoes are the principal things which are culti-
vated as far as my observations have yet extended, all which are
different in^their species from those of New England but stop! there
is no rice in N. Eng. The most I know about the corn is that it is much
whiter and makes good homine. The Potatoes are excellent very
sweet and mealy and of an enormous size. The cultivation of rice
requires much more labour than I supposed before I saw the manner
in which it is done. But I am teaching you that which I know nothing
about myself so I believe I had better be Easy.

"I have spent my time very agreeably since I left N. Haven in the
family of Mrs. Greene. I slept in Savannah one night after my arrival
and the next day went to Mrs. Greene's Plantation. Tomorrow I ex-
pect to cross the river into Carolina and enter on the tutorship."

Nowhere in Whitney's long account is the word "cotton" men-
tioned.

On the same day, he wrote to his father, and then all letters for

Mulberry Grove 57

five and a half months stop. He communicated neither with his fam-
ily nor friends. This silence is significant, as is the tone and content
of his letters when he writes again. He is evasive, enigmatic, mystify-
ing; he fills pages with generalities; the hints which stud his sen-
tences could only have muddled the recipient. "It is so long since I
have written to you that I fear you begin to be very anxious to hear
from me." So, on April 11; 1793, he breaks the long silence in a letter
to his father.

"I have the pleasure to inform you that I never enjoyed a better
and more confirmed state of health, in any part of my life than since
I arrived in this Country. This is certainly a very pleasant country in
the winter and spring. Vegetation is as far advanced here as it is in
the last of May in Massachusetts. I shall return to N. England sooner
than I expected when I left it. I have been disappointed in the salary
I expected and fear I shall return as poor as I came. I, however, do not
repent coming here. I shall at least enlarge my acquaintance with
men & things and gain some experience, which is the best kind of
knowledge."

To Stebbins, on the same date, he restates the same facts and adds
a little: "I must omit apologies of every land and come immediately
to the point. There was a misunderstanding between Mr. Miller and
Maj. Dupont concerning the wages to be given to an Instructor. In-
stead of Eighty Guineas Pr. year, I found, on my arrival at Mr. Du-
pont's, that Forty was the most I could expect. ... I wish you not
to ask any questions, because you might ask some which I cannot
answer. ... I can give no good account of myself; Ergo IH be silent.
You know I always considered this a damM land of world, and to say
the truth, I have no great reason to change my opinion since I saw
you. I find some, however, among the human species in this part of
the world as well as N. England who are not unworthy, among whom
Mr. Miller ranked. He has really treated me very much like a Gentle-
man. I have a great deal to say to you but must omit it all, till the
Fates permit me again to ramble with you in the suburbs of N. Haven
where you may expect to see me in June, at farthest. ... I have not
yet repented coming to this part of the U. States tho* perhaps I may.
Fortune has stood with her back towards me ever since I have been

58 The World of Eli Whitney

here and when she turns around whether she will frown or smile is
quite uncertain; but let the capricious Dame put on what appear-
ance she pleases/' Whitney will ever esteem his friend.

It was not disappointment in the arrangements at Major Dupont's
that caused Whitney to remain at Mulberry Grove. The real reason?
He dared not even mention it in a letter; the need for secrecy was too
great. But his intense preoccupation with something momentous can
be felt when, less than one month after his letter to Stebbins report-
ing the failure of his tutorship, he writes, "Dame fortune has turned
about, and, for the first time, her Ladyship deigns to look upon me
with a smiling face.'*

So starts his letter of May i, 1793, to Stebbins. The upsurge of suc-
cess races the need for silence through his sentences, turning sense
into nonsense; he seems likely to burst with the news he dare not tell.
"You must know, Brother Stebbins, I have become very expert in the
Hocus-Pocus line. I already rank among the higher order of the
conjurers. I have only two grades more to rise before I can be chief of
all the Magicians, or Magi. My salary is now half a Guinea Pr. Day.
I have a fair prospect of being advanced in about two weeks, when
my salary will be doubled, and shall undoubtedly rise the other
grade within six months; then my salary is to be five Guineas Pr. Day.
My first business will be to pay all my honest debts and do as I please
with the rest. I am very sorry that I have neither the time nor talents
to give you either a geographical description or the natural history
of the Country the figg-tree puteth forth its figgs, the pomegranate
its blossoms, Indian Corn its tassel and we have peas and Salad all
winter. ... I hear of wars and rumors of wars; but very little of the
news of the Day. I have not seen a News Paper these three months.
Lest you should be out of patience with my nonsense I will stop here."
He writes no more from Georgia.

He arrived in New Haven during the first week of July. Three let-
ters to his father from that place continue the story the first two
add a little to Whitney's state of mind and health. On July 22, 1793,
he writes: "I am very anxious to hear from you, not having heard
anything of your welfare since I left you in August last. ... I have
not as yet realized much property, but have the prospect of securing
to myself a comfortable living. ... I shall reside in this place during

Mulberry Grove 59

the summer in the course of which I shall if possible make you a short
visit and give you a particular history of my life since I left you."

On August 5, 1793, he complains that "I have been a little out of
health for ten days past, which I believe is owing to having over-
heated my self in Philadelphia during the extreme hot weather in
June. ... I shall continue in this town, I believe till Oct when I
think it is probable I shall return again to the Southward." This note,
though it is carried as far as "to Northboro' by Mr. Trask a young
Gentleman belonging to Cambridge College," still says nothing of
moment.

Only when he received a letter from his father brought by a West-
borough neighbor who promised to take one back to him, was Whit-
ney confident that now he could entrust his idea to writing and feel
safe that what he put on paper would not surrender its secret to pry-
ing eyes. Moreover, his father's letter made an answer imperative.

"After my tenderest Regards to you" thus the father began his
note. He continued, his bare words urgent, solicitous: "The Grate
Distance which You have been from us and the Unhealthy Climate
hath made me Anxiously Consarned for Your welfare. ... I have
nothing Very Remarkable to inform You of but I would intreat of you
not to Returne to the Sothard till You Come home for I want to See
you very much and to Know what fortain You have had and the
Biziness You have been in. We Rote to You while You was at the
Sothard thow I suppose You Never Received the Letters."

Whitney's answer (the third letter to his father, dated September
11, 1793) raises the curtaia on his place in history: "I went from N.
York with the family of the late, Major General Greene to Georgia. I
went immediately with the family to their Plantation about twelve
miles from Savannah with an expectation of spending four or. five
days and then proceed into Carolina to take the school as I have
mentioned in former letters. During this time I heard much said of
extreme difficulty of ginning Cotton, that is, separating it from its
seed. There were a number of very respectable Gentlemen at Mrs.
Greene's who all agreed that if a machine could be invented which
would clean the Cotton with expedition, it would be a great thing
both to the Country and to the inventor."

Instantly upon his arrival in the South, Whitney's talents were

60 The World of Eli Whitney

drafted. Within a few days he had found a way whereby the short-
staple, the green-seed, the upland cotton call it by any of its names
cousin to the showy hibiscus and marshmallow, the hollyhock, the
mucilaginous gumbo, could be freed from its seeds. His invention,
addressed to cleaning the woolly plant, carried the South to wealth
and vast dominion; it gave to the world the fiber whose threads, as
Faulkner has said, were "frail as truth and impalpable as equators yet
cable-strong to bind for life them who made the cotton to the land
their sweat fell on."

The Great Invention

A"'

LMONG the college debates that Whitney wrote are
the perennial favorites: "Ought Capital Punish-
ment ever be ^inflicted," "Does the Mind always Think," and "Is a
Savage State preferable to a Civilized"; but subjects of topical inter-
est are also included: "Ought Religious Tests be required of Civil
Officers," "Is Privateering Justifiable," and, particularly, "Ought the
U States develop Manufactures," and "Does the National Security
depend on fostering Domestic Industries." In preparing his argument
CHI domestic manufactures at different times he argued both pro
and con Whitney's .immediate reference was to Lord Sheffield's Ob-
servations on the Commerce of the American States with Europe and
the West Indies.

Lord Sheffield's book had appeared in 1783, almost with national
independence. A disturbing book that quickly ran into six printings,
it aimed to prove that political freedom must spell economic ruin,
since the United States now lay outside the Navigation System, "the
guardian of the prosperity of Britain." The British Empire, Sheffield
asserted, should close up the wound occasioned by the loss of the
thirteen colonies and, self-sufficient, reduce her trade with America
to the minimum. The American States, he argued with a certain mor-
bid satisfaction, faced a hopeless future: they lacked an adequate
labor supply; they lacked textile fibers to satisfy their needs; they
lacked machinery such as England had and, therefore, he predicted,
America could never establish extensive manufactures.

One of Whitney's arguments must have been written after Decem-
ber, 1791; it contains the essence of Hamilton's Report on Manufac-
tures, a document that pointed the way to meet Lord Sheffield's ter-

61

68 The World of Eli Whitney

rible truths. The great Report, communicated to the House of Repre-
sentatives, was widely read; Hamilton said nothing new when he
stated that "the defect of hands constitutes the greatest obstacle to
success." To effect "an increase in hands, an accession of strength/' he
suggested water-powered machinery tended chiefly by women and
children a method marvelously productive in the cotton manufac-
tories of Great Britain. Such machinery would increase the labor
supply, since it makes women "more useful, and the [children] more
early useful."

Hamilton, with his copy of Adam Smith's book before him, made it
clear that Sheffield was predicating the future in terms of a static
present, and countered with a prophecy of economic freedom to
match the political freedom to be won as the latter had been won,
after time and great effort. The labor shortage would be overcome,
for there was "in the genius of the people of this country, a peculiar
aptitude for mechanical improvements."

The new United States, like the separate colonies earlier, faced a
shortage in textile fibers; each colony had a record of legislation, pre-
miums, prescriptions, bounties bounties more numerous and impor-
tant than for any other raw materials to increase the cultivation of
flax, hemp, wool, silk, and cotton. And yet America had always de-
pended on imports to satisfy her full needs. Flax was the fiber best
established "Spinning of flax is the general employment in private
families in the evening" and flaxseed was a sizable export item, but
the finest linen cloth came from abroad* Wool was unprofitable and
unpopular (farmers keeping just enough sheep to satisfy their own
needs) until Colonel David Humphreys, the American minister to
Spain, sent home some merino sheep in 1801.

Silk, which seemed so easy of cultivation and was so elegant a fab-
ric, exceeded flax in its demands ,f or patient, skillful, cheap labor a
factor lacking in America. Yet vigorous efforts were made to promote
silkworms in colonial America. Stiles investigated, recorded, and
promoted silk culture and manufacture in Connecticut. Silkworms
could be raised in the north, and as early as 1734 Connecticut had
offered bounties on sewing silk, silk stockings,^ and silk stuff. When
fifty years later another bounty included raw silk and mulberry trees,
the response was immediate.

The Great Invention 63

While still a student, Whitney saw hundreds of mulberry trees
being hopefully planted along New Haven streets. Stiles, whose Diary
treats economic needs and national problems in the language of local
enterprises, mentions them: "The Spirit for raising Silk worms is great
in this town ... & some other places in Connecticut. Mr. Aspinwal
has it is judged one hundred thousand worms. I visited them yester-
day/' Or: "I rode round town to visit the Silkworms, the most of
which are cocooned. Cocoons taking down & reeling. I found twenty-
three Families within this City, which raised this season from five to
seventy thousand worms. . . . Last year & this I have distributed
Mulberry Seeds chiefly in this State, some up Mohawk R., & Vermont
Towns on L. Champlain." (Every Mulberry Street in towns along the
Atlantic seaboard is a memento of this widespread activity. ) He adds
up the number of nurseries and notes their swift increase 94 in
1789, 267 in 1790. More significantly, he records that in 1791 Mr.
Aspinwal "has succeeded in N York in his silk Culture, having ob-
tained from the Assembly of that State an Act promising a Praemium
of three Dollars per hundred tylulberry/Trees growing and in good
State at the End of Three years after setting out/'

Silk was not the only textile fiber to which the people of Connecti-
cut paid serious attention. Tantalizing' reports of the British textile
machinery had reached America, but precise information was lack-
ing. Cotton was the fiber fed into these machines; cotton imported
from the West Indies, Surinam, Brazil, Cayenne; long-staple cotton,
easily cleansed of its black seeds, poured out in a river of yard goods.
Hargreaves, Crompton, and Arkwright, the giants who led the un-
paralleled progress of cotton manufacture, were known; but their
machines, their methods were closely guarded secrets. Though New
Englanders could not grow cotton, they were eager to emulate old
England's prosperity, and immediately after the Revolution attempts
were made to establish cotton manufactories. States gave public aid,
and societies were formed to encourage this industrial art; it was a
period of experimentation, of failures, of limited success. Independ-
ently, Americans could not achieve the advances made in techniques,
in machinery, in organization, which gave the British industry its
commanding lead.

Stiles's attention to this manufacturing gives a partial measure of

64 The World of EU Whitney

the skill and capital concentrated in the local factories and the inter-
est they aroused. "Visited the Cotton Manufactury newly erected
[June, 1794] in West Rock two miles from Town. Saw the carding
machine compleat and working and also two Jennies going for spin-
ning cotton. About half a dozen Jennies finished from fourty to
Eighty Threads. The Manufacturing House about half as big as new
College, 100 feet long & four stories." (Perhaps Whitney visited such
a factory, as he passed through Worcester on his way home. ) These
jenny mills run by hand or horse power were not the mighty Ark-
wright warp-spinning mills geared to water power. In these mills cot-
ton was only spun into weft; the warps still required the strength of
flax, and the cloths so woven were heavy coarse denims and ducks;
in patterns, texture, and finish they were vastly inferior to the British
all-cotton textiles bought by Americans.

The American cotton industry began in 1789, only four years be-
fore Whitney's momentous letter to his father, when Samuel Slater,
with twenty years' experience in Arkwright and Strutt's mill, slipped
away from home, eluded vigilant British authorities, and sailed for
America. To Moses Brown in Rhode Island he brought his training
in practical mechanics learned from working on the machines them-
selves; he implemented this knowledge with skilled fingers that, bit
by bit, from memory and according to principle, duplicated the ma-
chines that had been perfected by the British master craftsmen. With
Slater's arrival a complicated skill slowly perfected in Europe was
successfully transplanted to America. News of the event spread in a
matter of months, and Hamilton, with pride, referred to it in his
Report. "The Manufactory at Providence has the merit of being the
first in introducing into the United States the celebrated cotton mill
which not only furnishes materials for the manufactory itself, but for
the supply of private families, for household manufactures.''

To obtain cotton for his mill, Moses Brown paid an impost of
three cents a pound on the fine long-staple black-seed cotton. True,,
there was some cotton grown in the southern states, but in the inte-
rior it was the green-seed cotton, grown as a garden plant or, if cul-
tivated for house use, doomed by its tenacious seeds to be woveji
into the coarsest goods. A small amount of black-seed cotton, newly
being grown along the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia, was

The Great Invention 65

available; but it was almost a different fiber, and more prized than
silk. Moses Brown brusquely dismissed the cheaper southern-grown
green-seed cotton: "The unripe, short and dusty part being so envel-
oped with that which would be good, if separated properly at first,
so spoils the whole as to discourage the use of it in machines." Yet it
was to this very fiber that -Hamilton had paid attention. He urged
cotton cultivation because it was peculiarly adapted to machines.
And because it promised to grow abundantly in the southern states
"an additional and very cogent inducement to [its] vigorous pur-
suit" its quality, he believed, could be in time "carried by a more
experienced culture to much greater perfection."

Even before the news of Slater's accomplishment at Moses Brown's
mill, some southern planters were aroused to the need to produce a
staple the mills could use. In 1789 a member from South Carolina
stated in the House of Representatives that southern farmers in-
tended to take up the cultivation of cotton, but their success, he
added, depended on their procuring good seed. It was still hoped to
find a long-fiber cotton that would grow in the interior. English
travelers of that day, riding through the empty southern states, re-
marked that "the staple of America at present consists of Land;" they
were impressed with "the appearance everywhere of a vast outline,
with much to fill up." Something would rush into this vacuum.

Southern agriculture till then had produced rice and indigo, tur-
pentine, tobacco, and corn. Vast plantations were still largely wilder-
ness. The great fortunes of the South were yet to be made. Tobacco
had not only exhausted the planters' soil, it;s market was glutted; rice
and indigo brought no profit; the price of slaves had dropped, inflict-
ing a severe loss in capital; sea-island cotton was promising but se-
verely handicapped because it was limited to a small region; the
green-seed cotton alone adapted itself to the variety of conditions im-
posed by the vast hinterland. Only that crop could lift the South out
of its depression, make the capital investment in slaves profitable,
and bring rich returns on the world market. Was not England hungry
for the staple? She could not get enough for her new machines. One
can almost see the eager, serious, worried planters sitting around
Catherine Greene's table, sipping port and Madeira, talking always of
what was uppermost in their minds: A method 'to clean the green-

66 The World of Eli Whitney

seed cotton quickly and properly was all that stood between them
and wealth.

From the moment he arrived at Mulberry Grove, Whitney heard
much of this. He had never seen the cotton plant before; he examined
its boll carefully, remarking that the seed was "covered with a kind
of green coat resembling velvet." He tugged at the fiber, trying to
separate it from the seeds.

Only a few days after reaching Mulberry Grove (Whitney was
sketching in the significant details in the long letter he wrote to his
father on September 11, 1793), he "involuntarily happened to be
thinking on the subject and struck out a plan of a Machine in my
mind, which I communicated to Miller. . . . JHe was pleased with the
Plan and said that if I would pursue it and Jtry and experiment to see
if it would answer, he would be at the whole expense, I should lose
nothing but my time, and if I succeeded we should share the profits.
Previous to this I found I was like to be disappointed in my school,
that is, instead of a hundred, I found I could get only fifty Guineas a
Year.* I however held the refusal of the school untill I tried some ex-
periments. In about ten Days I made a little model, for which I was
offered, if I would give up all right and title to it, a Hundred Guin-
eas . I concluded to relinquish my school and turn my attention to
perfecting this Machine. I made one before I came away [June i,
1793] which required the labour of one man to turn it and with which
one man will clean ten times as much cotton as he can in any other way
before known and also clean it much better than in the usual mode.
This machine may be turned by water or with a horse, with the great-
est ease, and one man and a horse will do more than fifty men with
the old machines. It makes the labour fifty times less, without throw-
ing any class of People out of business/*

The old machines, to which Whitney referred, were roller gins*
similar to the ancient, primitive Indian charka, whence, they de-
rived, the selfsame gins pictured and described in- the Encyclopedie.
In appearance they resembled a clothes-wringer, their two rollers
coming into close contact, and set in motion by a single crank. Fric-
tion alone was sufficient to disengage the long fibers of the sea-island

* And yet Whitney himself in another letter mentions eighty and forty guineas
as the sum.

The Great Invention g7

cotton from its smooth black seeds, aptly called "bald-headed seeds";
the rollers were fluted, and fine grooves running lengthwise caught
the lint but did not admit the seeds. But the frictional power of the
roller gin, whether a single unit or a multiple variation, was power-
less to detach the cotton from the seed of the upland variety: its fiber
was too short and adhered too firmly to its green seeds it seemed to
grow out of the seed as wool does from a sheep's back.

"I returned to the Northward for the purposes of having a machine
made on a large scale and obtaining a Patent for the invention. I
went to Philadelphia soon after I arrived, made myself acquainted
with the steps necessary to obtain a Patent, took several of the steps
and the Secretary of State, Mr. Jefferson, agreed to send the Patent
to me as soon as it could be made out so that I apprehend no diffi-
culty in obtaining the Patent. Since I have been here I have em-
ployed several workmen in making machines and as soon as my busi-
ness is so that I can leave it for a few days, I shall come to Westboro'
. . . I am certain I can obtain a Patent in England. . . . How advan-
tageous this business will eventually prove to me, I cannot say. Tis
generally said by those who know anything about it, that I shall make
a Fortune by it. I have no expectations that I shall make an independ-
ent fortune by it, out think I had better pursue it than any other
business into which I can enter.

"Something which cannot be foreseen may frustrate my expecta-
tions and defeat my Plan; but I am now so sure of success that ten
thousand dollars, if I saw the money counted out to me, would not
tempt me to give up my right and relinquish the object.*' His words
announce that he had come into a world that had meaning for him;
his drifting had stopped; his feet had felt a path, and he would follow
it where his talents and the needs of his society led.

He then repeated the importance of continued caution, underlin-
ing words: "I wish you, Sir, not to show this letter nor communicate
anything of its contents to any body except My Brothers & Sister;
unjoining it on them to keep the whole a profound secret. Mr. Rob-
binson came into town yesterday and goes out tomorrow, this has
been such a bustling time that I have not had the opportunity to say
six words to him. I have told him nothing of my business perhaps he
will hear something about it from somebody else in town but only

68 The World of Eli Whitney

two or three of my friends know what I am about tho' there are many
surmises in town if Mr. Robinson says anything about it, you can
tell him I wrote you concerning it but wished not to have it men-
tioned." This was not the admonition of an unduly Decretive man;
caution was necessary until the issuance of the patent.

Obtaining the patent was not a single act to be finished in a day.
From June 20, 1793, when Whitney first addressed himself to the
Secretary of State, until the patent was granted and signed by Presi-
dent Washington on March 14, 1794, a series of requirements was to
be met, each of which took time. November 6, 1793, the date on which
the patent was officially acknowledged to have commenced, ter-
minated the months of imperative secrecy.

The summer and fall of 1793 were a period of arduous toil for
Whitney; for while taking the series of steps necessary to gain his
patent, he had to equip and man his workshop in New Haven, where
he first produced his patent model, and then make ready to manu-
facture his full-sized gins. To retrace the legal and business intricacies
is like assembling a jigsaw puzzle where, though sizable pieces are
missing, the pattern can be ascertained. The letters Whitney wrote
to Miller and Catherine have disappeared; disastrous fires one in
Whitney's workshop in 1795 that destroyed his papers, and another
in the United States Patent Office in 1836 that consumed the original
model and drawings add to the magnitude of the loss. But fortu-
nately, from existing papers, ledgers, preliminary drafts in copy-
books, letterbooks, letters, and legal documents, enough of the pic-
ture can be reassembled for its design to emerge clearly.

Before Whitney left Mulberry Grove on May 27, 1793, he had
agreed with Miller that if he could make a machine that would work
like the model, "the profits and advantages arising therefrom, as well
as all privileges and emoluments to be derived from patenting, mak-
ing, vending, and working the same, should be mutually and equally
shared between them." For this half -interest Miller financed the pre-
liminary expenses.

That he might have an exact record of all sums disbursed, Whit-
ney kept a little "Expence Book." The entries cover the ten months
from his departure from Georgia in June, 1793, to April 15, 1794,
when he booked passage back; phrased in dollars and days, it is al-

The Great Invention (g|

most a diary of his activities during that first busy preliminary year.
June is filled with movement. On the tenth he pays $36.25 for "Pas-
sage and Freight from Savannah to New York"; on the fourteenth he
engages "Passage in the Stage from NYork to Philadelphia" ($4.00),
and spends another dollar for "Expenses on the Road to Philad.";
on the eighteenth he buys the Laws of Congress for thirty-three cents.
With this to guide him the original Patent Act of 1790 had just been
substantially changed by the Act of February 21, 1793 Whitney
paid the required fee of $30 and accompanied it with a letter to "The
Honorable Thomas Jefferson Esquire Secretary of State for the
United States of America/' who was empowered to receive all patent
applications:

"The Petition of Eli Whitney of the County of Worcester and
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, humbly showeth: That having in-
vented a Machine for the Purpose of ginning Cotton, he is desirous
of obtaining an exclusive Property in the same. Concerning which
invention, Petitioner alledges as follows (viz) first.

"That it is entirely new & constructed in a different manner and
upon different principles from any other Cotton Ginn or Machine
heretofore known or used for that purpose.

"2nd. That with the Ginn, if turned with horses or by water, two
persons will clean as much cotton in one day, as a hundred persons
could cleane in the same time with the ginns now in common use.

"3rd. That the Cotton which is cleaned in his Ginn contains fewer
broken seeds and impurities, and is said to be more valuable than
Cotton, which is cleaned in the usual way

"Your Petitioner, therefore, Prays your Honor to Grant him the sd.
Whitney a Patent for the sd Invention or Improvement, and that your
Honour cause Letters Patent to be made out, in the name of the
United States, granting to him your sd. Petitioner, his heirs, Adminis-
trators & assigns, for the term of fourteen years the length of time
stipulated by the Act the full and exclusive right & liberty of making,
constructing, using and vending to others to be used, the sd. Inven-
tion or Improvement"

The next day, the twenty-first, he paid $3 for "5 Days Board at No.
5 Fourth St.," and took the stage to New York, where he paid $12.75
"to Mr. Anthony for Boarding 2 weeks & 3 days." He spent his time

70 The World of Eli Whitney

shopping for available materials and hired a horse to ride out to the
"cotton-works at Turtle Bay." On July 8th he paid $4.50 "For Passage,
freight &c from NYork to N. Haven." Stebbins must certainly have
been on hand when his packet landed to hear, as they strolled hap-
pily together, the tremendous secret Whitney had not dared put into
writing.

The "Expence Book" is also invaluable as a guide to the simple
tools and mechanical techniques of that time. Vividly it presents a
workshop where most of the tools today considered indispensable are
absent; where the mechanic relied on a saw, hammer, chisels and
reamers, and files of different shapes and textures; where cutting
pliers, pincers, and knives, beeswax and rosin for lubrication, glue,,
varnish, emery, and sandpaper completed his inventory. The ancient
arts of brass casting and iron forging were carried on with skill; but
screws were still cut out by hand, individually. So basic a machine
as the lathe had to be assembled part by part: "Screw for Lathe" and
"Pin for lathe screw," the rails and gudgeon, "i side of leather for
Bands, Irons for the treddle of the lathe, i Turning Wheel," and "Axis
& crank for turning wheel" item by item they were bought and
fitted together. He designed a special turning tool; though the price
for making it is noted, its design is not mentioned. This lathe, made
for work on wood, was operated by the mechanic, though it could be
powered by water or a pair of stout oxen.

Primitive as was this level, it was still beyond the resources of the
South, for it was to secure suitable supplies and competent skills that
Whitney had been forced to return to New Haven, where he could be
certain of creating the model and manufacturing the gins. While in
New York he had bought equipment not easily found in smaller towns;
"7 Polishing files, 2 Pair Cutting pliers, i Do. spring Compasses,,
2 Do. Pliers" and to Nicholas van Antwerp he gave $20 for "96 Ibs.
Iron Wire." Artisans, in those days, relied on imports for the little-
wire they needed. Usually it came from France, where men who
made uniforms resplendent with gold embroidery had learned to draw-
metal into fine threads. There wire drawing had developed into an
art; in America it was an exacting skill, rarely practiced. But in Whit-
ney's gin, wire of a required fineness was essential; that he still had 1
to draw the wire to suit him is evidenced by his buying "timber for

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7% The World of Eli Whitney

Drawing-wire Block, Hooks for wire work, i Pint of Whale oil to
draw wire," and the expenditure of twelve and a half cents "for mak-
ing wire plate/'

The items give a fuller picture of this initial manufacturing. For
the shop he bought a "Brass Key" and a broom; to present his specifi-
cations for the patent properly, he supplied himself with fine hair
pencils, sheets of fish skin, "a Drawing Board and drawing square";
he experimented with different kinds of wood white pine boards,
birch planks, "sundry pieces of timber," mahogany and lignum vitae.
For special tasks he paid fifty cents to "Mr. Brown for sawing half
day; J. Smith for forging a pair of gudgeons $2.00; Mr. Houghton
for putting Cylinders together &o--$7.5O; $5.00 for Brass Castings;
Mrs, Wales for Board and Lodgings from 10 Oct. to the 7th of Nov.
$5.50." Items, prices, dates are carefully noted. When, in August, he
mentioned to his father that he had been ill, his book confirms this by
several purchases of "i oz. Sal Ammoniack." Summer passed, and as
the days got cold and dark he regularly bought rum, candles, and
firewood.

By the middle of October he was certain enough of the excellence
of his model and his ability to translate it into a full-size working ma-
chine; he took the next important step to secure his patent. Now
he was willing to entrust his drawings with their accompanying de-
scription to the mail; his covering letter to Jefferson is dated New
Haven, October 15, 1793:

"It was my intention to have lodged in the Office of State a descrip-
tion of my machine for ginning Cotton, immediately after presenting
my petition for an exclusive property in the same; but ill health un-
fortunately prevented me from completing the description until about
the time of the breaking out of the malignant fever in Philadelphia."
Early in August, 1793, the dreaded pest, yellow fever, made its ter-
rible appearance in Philadelphia and raged with violence and un-
precedented mortality. Stiles took from Mathew Carey's report the
frightening figures of the calamity that began in August and lasted
until the middle of November 4,000 deaths and some 17,000 who
fled the city. He added that the capital was "supposed usually to, con-
tain 50 Thousand souls but I judge about 35 or 40 Thousand." The
disaster, Whitney wrote, "so interrupted communication and de-

The Great Invention 73

ranged business of every kind, that I thought it best not to send my
description till the disorder had in some measure subsided. But as the
sickness, which I hoped would be of short continuance, still prevails,
and as I am unwilling to delay any longer, I herewith enclose and
forward it, together with a short description designed to form the
schedule annexed to the Patent.

"It has been my endeavor to give a precise idea of every part of
the machine, and if I have failed in elegance, I hope I have not been
deficient in point of accuracy. If I should be entitled to an exclusive
privilege, may I ask the favour of you, Sir, to inform me when I may
come forward with my model and receive my patent."

Accuracy was not Whitney's only concern. As he had been cautious
about maintaining secrecy, so he was careful that his patent rights
did not depend on the existence of just one statement. And so, though
the description he sent along with his letter to Jefferson was lost in
the Patent Office fire, he had among his papers two additional copies,
each written in a bound paper copybook. One, lengthy, detailed and
explanatory, has his affidavit affixed to it. Before Elizur Goodrich,
his friend, the son of his tutor, and now alderman of New Haven and
notary public, on October 28, 1793, Whitney "made solemn Oath . * .
that he is the true Inventor and discoverer of the Machine for ginning
Cotton . . . [and] that a machine of similar construction hath never
before been known or used." The drawings, to which reference is
made, are missing.

The other, a condensed version, might be a first draft of the ab-
breviated description sent to Jefferson. It is untidily written, with
deletions and corrections; yet Whitney himself had labeled it "The
True Copy/' dated it "Phi. 8 March 94" he was there to receive the
official patent and secured what seems to be unofficial recognition
of its importance, for, in another's handwriting, this identifying sen-
tence is added parenthetically: "The schedule is written on parch-
ment which is separate from the Patent and connected with the Patent
by a ribbon the ends of which are brought under the seal." *

This short description made his approach to the problem of ginning
the green-seed cotton quite clear. Instead of the fluted rollers of the
existing gins, Whitney's machine had a revolving cylinder and a sta-

* See Appendix A.

The World of Eli Whitney

tionary breastwork. The cylinder bristled with hundreds of short
sharp wire hooks set at a studied angle and in such ordered arrange-
ment that in effect they formed closely set circular saws separated
from each other only by a narrow disc; opposing this was the breast-
work whose finely spaced grooves corresponded with each line of
hooks and whose function, like that of a fork, was to hold back the
seed while the cotton, impaled on the wire hooks, flowed through.
(The shortest description, and the most graphic, was that current
among the boys of Augusta, who tersely reduced the new invention
to its essential features: it "had teeth which worked thro' slats and
a brush.") Whitney's brief summary preserved in his writing in the
"true copy" shows how his machine literally tore the cotton from
its velvety seeds, the brush whisking the fiber away from the teeth
while the seeds fell into a hopper.

Jefferson's answer quickly disposed of the official routines involved
in securing the patent: "Your favour of October i$th inclosing a draw-
ing of your cotton gin was received on the 6th inst," he wrote from his
home in Germantown, November 16, 1793. All through the dreadful
months of the plague, Jefferson had daily visited his office in Philadel-
phia, and it was probably because he wished to shorten the time spent
in the stricken city that an official communication was answered from
his residence. "The only requisite of the law now remaining un-
complied with is the forwarding a model, which being received
your patent may be made out & delivered to your order imme-
diately."

The letter continues with questions that are less characteristic of his
personality than of the region whence he came, and the planter econ-
omy of which he was so distinguished a member. For he was always
a Virginia planter, rooted in, and committed to, the society which had
formed him. In the decades since the Stamp Act he had shared in
the militancy that had rejected British manufactures and created a
preference for domestic goods. The Revolution had seriously dis-
rupted the southern economy in the flow of exports; those states
geared to the raising of rice and tobacco for export were so gravely
affected that they were forced to supply tKeir own wants by home-
spun industries. Jenny mills and manuf actories x sprang up in the South
as well as the North. While their methods and products were the

The Great Invention 75

same, those in the South were primarily oversized plantation loom
houses where, under the watchful eye of skilled supervisors, slaves
spun and wove the coarse heavy materials that clothed them. South-
ern household manufacture of textiles was a necessary part of the
plantation system, and it is this that prompted Jefferson's queries.* He
wrote:

"As the state of Virginia, of which I am, carries on household manu-
factures of cotton to a great extent, as I also do myself, and one of
our great embarrassments is the cleaning of the cotton of the seed,
I feel a considerable interest in the success of your invention for
family use. Permit me therefore to ask information from you on these
points, has the machine been thoroughly tried in the ginning of cot-
ton, or is it as yet but a machine in theory? What quantity of cotton
has it cleaned on an average of several days, & worked by hand, & by
how many hands? What will be the cost of one of them made to be
worked by hand? favorable answers to these questions would induce
me to engage one of them to be forwarded to Richmond for me/' And
then, he adds a postscript: "Is this the machine advertised the last
year by Pearce at the Paterson manufactory?"

In his most elegant penmanship, Whitney, on November 24, 1793,
replied and added a few more facts~to the meager outline given to
his father:

"It is about a year since I first turned my attention to constructing
this machine, at which time I was in the State of Georgia. Within
about ten days after my first conception of the plan, I made a small,
though imperfect model. Experiments with this encouraged me .to
make one on a large scale. But the extreme difficulty of procuring
workmen and proper materials in Georgia, prevented my completing
the larger one, untill some time in April last. This though much larger
than my first attempt, is not above one third so large as the Machines

* The plantation system resisted the introduction of English machinery and
the imitation of the English factory system, the characteristics of the early
New England textile manufacture. In 1809, when northern cotton manufactories
were establishing industry on a par with agriculture and commerce, Jefferson
discussed the advisability of promoting the sale of spinning machines in Virginia:
**I must inform you we have no large manufactories in Virginia. This state tho
without any comparison manufacturing more clothing than any other in the
union, does it all in private families, each for its own use & no more, no home-
spun is ever to be bought scarcely in our stores/*

76 The World of Eli Whitney

may be made, with convenience. The cylinder is only two feet two
inches in length and six inches in diameter. It is turned by hand and
requires the strength of one man to keep it in constant motion.

"It is the stated task of one negro to clean fifty Wt (I mean fifty
pounds after it is separated from the seed) of the greenseed cotton
pr. Day. This task he usually completes by one oClock in the after-
noon. He is paid so much Pr. Ib. for all he cleans over and above his
task, and for ten or fifteen Days successively he had cleaned from
sixty to Eighty Wt. Pr. Day and left work every day before sunset.
The machine cleaned fifteen hundred weight in about four weeks,
which cotton was examined in N. York [which explains why he drove
out from New York to the cotton factory at Turtle Bay], the quality
declared good and sold in the market at the highest price. ... I
have not had much experience in cleaning the Blackseed cotton. I
only know that it will clean this kind considerably faster than it will
the green seeded, but how much I cannot say* After the workmen are
acquainted with the business, I should judge, the real expence of
one, which will clean a hundred Wt. Pr. Day, would not exceed the
price of ten of those in common use.

"I shall have another person concerned with me in carrying on the
business. . . . We have not yet determined at what price we shall
sell the machines, it will however be so low as to induce the Purchaser
to give them a preference to any other. We are now erecting one on
a large scale, to be turned by horses, for our own use [at Mulberry
Grove] and I do not think it will be in our power to make any for
sale this winter.

"This, sir, is not the machine advertised by Pearce at the Patterson
Manufactory. [Jefferson's postscript was being answered fully and
positively.] I never saw a machine of any kind whatever for ginning
cotton, untill several months after I invented this. . . . Some time
last spring, I saw it mentioned in a Savannah News-Paper that Mr.
Pearce of New Jersey had invented a machine for ginning cotton but
there was no mention made of the construction. I have since under-
stood that his improvement was only a multiplication of the small
rollers used in the common gins. This is everything I know concerning
the machine to which I suppose you allude/*

Whitney wanted it understood that his machine was not just an-

The Great Invention 77

other variant of the roller gin; his invention was the first to propose
a new principle.

From his sojourn in the South, Whitney was acquainted with the
importance of plantation manufactures. Not only was this a market
where he and Miller would sell their gins, this was a market that
could use special attachments to expedite home industries. His way
of thinking, in terms of continuous processing to facilitate and in-
crease production, can be seen in his answer to Jefferson's question
about the gin's applicability to "family use."

"I think the machine is well calculated for family use. It may be
made on a very small scale and yet perform in proportion to its size.
I believe one might be made within the compass of two cubic feet,
that would cleanse all the cotton which any one family manufactures
for its own use. The machine itself does considerable towards carding
the cotton, and I have no doubt [here is the hallmark of Whitney's
acute perception of technical possibilities] but by leaving out the
clearer and adding three or four cylinders with card-teeth, it would
deliver the cotton completely prepared. for spinning. 1 " Having thus
indicated the versatility of his gin, Whitney closes his long letter:
"It is my intention to come to Philadelphia within a few weeks and
bring the model myself/' From the^model, Jefferson will be able "to
form a more perfect idea of the machine."

But the weeks passed. The model he had been so certain of finish-
ing still presented problems in construction: "I make very little
progress in my preparations for the Southward," he wrote to Stebbins
a few days before Christmas. A month had passed, a month of mishap
and vain labor: "One of my best Cylinders have failed I mean one
of the pierced ones but I lament the misfortune less.since (I think)
I have found a remedy for the general evil. I am convinced that it is
impossible to procure any wood which will not spring if the wires
are driven into it after the manner I have heretofore used. I now drive
them across the grain of the wood, .that is, the flat point of the wire,
the edge of which went parallel with the grain is now driven across
the grain so that it cuts its way and does not strain the timber." This
change, with his reasons for revising his method of fixing the wire in
the cylinder, is clearly explained; unfortunately he merely alludes
to the special machine he devised "for cutting wire, on the plan which

78 The World of Eli Whitney

I mentioned to you." How this was built, the principle on which it
worked, is never stated. He only adds that "it answers very well, cuts
equally on both sides, feeds itself and goes remarkably easy/'

It is likely that his boyhood experience in manufacturing nails now
stood him in good stead, for nail making was a pioneering step in
mechanically producing uniform metal objects. It is quite possible
that while he was still at college he heard about the new machinery
that automatically cut the wire for card teeth, bent it according to
specification, and set it into its leather backing. What is so extraordi-
nary is that Whitney, without a lengthy apprenticeship in practical
shop routine, intuitively approached the problem of producing cotton
gins by analyzing the various processes into those elementary opera-
tions that could be easily performed by machinery. Whether he in-
vented his wire-cutting machine or adapted another's invention to.his
special needs is of far less significance than that from the very first
he tooled his shop in industrial, not handicraft, terms. In Whitney's
case there is no sharp transition from one method of production to
another; his initial attempt, though small and limited, has a modern
quality all his work was an improvement, an extension, an intensi-
fication of this basic pattern.

Finally, in February, having solved the cylinder construction, he
finished his model the last requirement for the formal issuance of
his patent. Before he left for Philadelphia, he showed it to Stiles, for
had not Stiles introduced him to Catherine Greene and Phineas
Miller, the two friends who dominated the background of his signal
achievement? "Mr. Whitney brot to my house & showed us his Ma-
chine, by him invented for cleaning Cotton of its seeds," Stiles records
for February 22, 1794. "He shewed us the model which he has finished
to lodge at Philadelphia in the Secretary of States Office, when he
takes out his patent. This miniature model is perfect & will clean
about a dozen pounds a day, or about 40 Ibs. before cleaning. He has
completed six large ones, Barrel perhaps five feet long to carry to
Georgia. In one of these I saw about a dozen pounds of Cotton with
seeds cleaned by one person in about twenty minutes, from which
was delivered about three pounds of Cotton purely cleansed of seed.
It will clean 100 cwt. a day. A curious & very ingenious piece of
mechanism."

The Great Invention 79

When he arrived at the seat of government in March, Whitney did
not have the pleasure of demonstrating the actual working of the
cotton gin to Jefferson, who had resigned and left for Monticello. But
he undoubtedly showed it to Oliver Wolcott, Comptroller of the
Treasury, who was known to be "strongly interested in the inven-
tions of this country." Whitney's old tutor, Elizur Goodrich, gave
him a letter of introduction. Wolcott, as a Yale graduate (1778), re-
spected the opinion of the formidable mathematician, who personally
recommended "Mr, Eli Whitney, a young gentleman [but five years
Wolcotfs junior] who has occasionally resided in my family for some
time past." Then Goodrich, respected for his guarded words and
discerning, discriminating mind, evaluated Whitney's qualities
qualities which his invention disclosed. Whitney, he wrote, "sustained
a very fair reputation in the academic studies and is perhaps inferior
to none in an acquaintance with the mechanic powers, and thpse of
the branches of natural philosophy which are applicable to the manu-
factures and commerce of our country. To thpory he happily unites
talents to reduce it to practice; a circumstance which is rarely found
in our young men of collegiate education. Surpassing the exactest
workmen of my acquaintance in wood, brass, and iron, he is his own
master workman in, these respective branches, and resorts to himself
to reduce his theories to experiment and practice."

Not a cloud marred Whitney's triumph as he proved the worth of
his invention and received official recognition. The letter he wrote to
his father on March 30, 1794, on his return to New Haven, shows that
his debut on the world stage was all that he could have wished.

"It is with no small satisfaction that I have it in my power to inform
you I am in good health. I have just returned from Philadelphia. My
business there was to lodge a Model of my machine and receive a
Patent for it. I accomplished everything agreeable to my wishes. I
had the satisfaction to hear it declared by a number of the first men
in America that my machine is the most perfect & the most valuable
invention that has ever appeared in this Country. I have received my
Patent I have also obtained a passport from the Secretary of State
to go into foreign Countries & also a particular letter of introduction
from Mr. Randolph, Sect, of State, to Mr. Pinkney Minister Plenipo-
tentiary for the U.S. at the Court of London.

80 The World of Eli Whitney

"I have long been doting on making you a visit before I left New
England again and have been waiting for an opportunity when I
could leave my business, but having been detained a fortnight longer
in Philadelphia than I expected, I find it impossible for me to come
to Massachusetts before I go to Georgia. I must therefore desire you
to come and see me before I leave this Place. I think the Roads are so
much settled that it will not be a tedious journey. I expect to go di-
rectly from Georgia to England and it is uncertain when I shall return.
I wish very much to see you before I go. But should I come to West-
boro' now I must neglect my business so much as to lose several
Hundred Dollars. If you come I shall be able to show you my ma-
chine. I have six of them nearly complete which I expect to carry to
the Southward with me. I shall leave this place for Georgia in about
twelve or fourteen days at farthest. I shall pay the Postage of this
letter and desire the Postmaster to send it forward immediately. If
it should so happen that you cannot come yourself, I wish Benjamin
or Josiah or both to come it will be a clever jorney for them & give
them an opportunity of seeing the country. I am extremely sorry I
cannot come and see all my friends, but as I have a fair prospect of
making a handsome property and as I am so much in need of it y J
think I ought not to neglect the opportunity. Though I have as yet
expended much more money than the profits of the machine have
been heretofore, and am at present a little pressed for money, I am
by no means in the least discouraged. And I shall probably gain some
honour as well as profit by the Invention. It was said by one of the
most respectable Gentlemen in N. Haven that he would rather be the
author of the invention than to be prime minister of England. But I
mean not to be elated by my success so much as to be vain.

"I have a fair character and am in good Credit, as far as I am ac-
quainted with myself.

"My Respects to Mama & love to Brothers & Sisters
"Hoping to see you here in a few Days I subscribe
"myself your most ob*. & most
"Affectionate Son

"ELI WHITNEY
"Mr. EH Whitney"

vii Cotton and

The Industrial Revolution

N'

[EVER did an American invention meet a more
urgent need than Whitney's. Never was one
hailed with more instant, widespread rejoicing. Its appearance could
have been predicted with reasonable accuracy: the gin to clean the
green-seed cotton could not have been invented before 1786, and
its invention could not have been delayed long after. For the progress
of the British cotton-textile industry was not confused nor capricious;
it had its own order of development in which the production of raw
cotton was the last of the imperative solutions.

A short-spaced series of inventions created the British cotton-textile
industry, inventions that discarded skills unchanged since ancient
days for processes of linked steps in which no skill was needed; inven-
tions that made it profitable to bring the raw stuff across the Atlantic
to Liverpool and thence distribute finished goods halfway round the
world in India and China; inventions that drew families from the
village and crowded them into slums, that transformed the farm
laborer into a town worker, that denied the spinner his dexterity and
the weaver his art, replacing them both with children just old enough
to tend the simple wants of a machine, A vast literature documents
how the great mass of the people lived through those momentous
decades. Of a sudden new mountain ranges were lifted up, old land-
marks wiped out. The change was abrupt, bewildering, harsh; the
rhythm of work was torn loose from the seasons; its motions were new,
monotonous, impersonal, without obvious meaning. A nation was
quickly broken to industrial harness.

Today it is sometimes assumed that the words "Industrial Revolu-
tion" describe the shift from man power to steam power, that Watt's

81

S% The World of Eli Whitney

inventions overshadowed all others; whereas those who lived at that
time knew that before there was a revolution in the prime mover,
there had been one in production. In 1785, before engines were turn-
ing factory wheels, Arkwright's counsel, while arguing his client's
patent rights, declared that the most useful discoveries had been
made "by ingenious mechanics, conversant in the practises in use in
their time, and practically acquainted with the subject-matter of their
discoveries."

The machines constructed by the great mechanic-inventors did
not add to the processes by which the vegetable wool was converted
into cloth; these had been inherent in the seemingly simplest skill.
The inventor reduced each action of the artisan s hands into its com-
ponent parts, analyzed their function, and reproduced the function
mechanically the sum and sequence of separate acts giving an
equivalent result. Baines in 1835 wrote lyrically of wonders still con-
sidered new: "It is by iron fingers, teeth, and wheels, moving with
exhaustless energy and devouring speed, that the cotton is opened,
cleaned, spread, carded, drawn, roved, spun, wound, warped,
dressed, and woven. The various machines are proportioned to each
other in regard to their capability of work . . . all are moving at once
the operations chasing each other; and all derive their motion's from
the mighty engine, which . . . toils through the day with the strength
of perhaps a hundred horses . . . each workman jperf orming, or
rather superintending, as much work as could have been done by
two or three hundred men sixty years ago/*

"Sixty years ago" his words hurry back to the decisive decade
when a succession of inventions changed the very face of Britain.
Already the period prior had been relegated to old wives' tales
when the manufacture of cotton goods in England was on the same
simple level as in India, and all textile techniques, save for the intro-
duction of the fulling mill and the Italian silk-reeling process, per-
sisted as they had been in the days of Constantine. True,, tie genius
of John Kay had revealed itself significantly in weaving. His fly
shuttle, for which he was granted a patent in 1733, immeasurably
lightened the weaver's task and doubled his production. Ignored by
the woolen weavers, his invention was appropriated by the weavers
of cotton cloths. Soon the yarn they required taxed the cotton

Cotton and the Industrial Revolution 83

spinners beyond their capacity. The one-thread wheel turning from
morning till night in thousands of cottages could not keep pace with
the demand created by the weaver's shuttle; men thought on how
to improve spinning methods that they might augment the supply,
for yearly yarn grew scarcer as more and more weavers adopted
Kay's fly shuttle. The improvements in weaving necessitated im-
provements in spinning.

Silk spinning had been done on machines in Italy since late in
the thirteenth century, but the secret technique had been so closely
guarded that not until the eighteenth century was it introduced into
England. But even then the devices used to' spin silk yarn could not
be adapted to wool, flax, or cotton; silk needs only to be doubled
and twisted, the drawing-out process is not a prerequisite. The prin-
ciple of spinning by rollers was first thought out by Lewis Paul, the
son of a Huguenot refugee, and John Wyatt; the patent issued to
them in 1738 clearly presents the basic idea: "The wool or cotton
being prepared, one end of the roving is put between a pair of rollers,
which by their motion draw in the cotton to be spun, and a suction
of other rollers moving proportionately faster than the first draws the
roving into any degree of fineness which may be required." Their
concept was sound, and the mill they erected at Birmingham for the
manufacture of yarn was decidedly modern the rollers were oper-
ated by "power from a capstan with two asses"; notwithstanding,
their venture failed. Spinning continued to be the bottleneck in the
textile industry until Hargreaves, Arkwright, and Crompton righted
the balance and provided yam enough to feed the looms.

James Hargreaves, by trade a weaver and carpenter, by ability a
man of original talent, is said literally to have stumbled on the germ
of his invention. He noticed how often competence has revealed it-
self as the capacity to notice that when a spinning wheel was over-
turned, its spindle, now upright, continued to revolve even as its
wheel continued to turn. For three years he worked to give form to
the idea, and by about 1764 had perfected it; he named it, for his
wife or daughter, the spinning jenny. (It was not patented until
June, 1770. ) In his original Jenny, eight bobbins stood side by side
in a row with an equal number of spindles in another. It increased
production eightfold within very short order a jenny would have a

84 The World of Eli Whitney

hundred spindles; but tihe jenny was robbed of some of its efficiency
because its action was discontinuous. The machine was so simple that
a child could operate it, and thus young children made their pitiful
entry early in the textile industry.

Even as Hargreaves was bringing out his spindled jenny, Richard
Arkwright he was knighted Sir Richard before he died was
patenting his throstle, or, as it came to be known when harnessed
to water power, the water frame ( 1769) . How much of this machine
Arkwright stole from Thomas Highs, a mechanic, how much he
adopted from Wyatt and Paul's roller invention, is almost of less
moment than that he brought their ideas to perfection and intro-
duced them successfully. Neither mechanic nor inventor, Arkwright
was by trade a barber; in part his genius lay in his quick unerring
ability to sense what was needed, to get others to make it, and to
combine separate parts into a functioning whole. Not the first to
organize machines in factories, he was the first to make factories pay
and to establish the factory system as the characteristic economic
unit in the textile industry.* Other men might have been ingenious
enough to find a way to spin cotton yarns strong enough for warps,
but it was Arkwright who was smart enough to get Parliament to re-
voke its strenuous laws prohibiting the use of pure, unmixed cotton
cloth. (The Act, passed in 1736, was framed to protect the woolen
industry against the importation of Indian cottons.)

Kay, Hargreaves, and Crompton worked -alone and died in pov-
erty, but Arkwright confidently secured the backing of bankers, en-
listed the technical advice of Strutt, the knitting-machine maker, and,
when his patents were overthrown, showed his rivals that he needed
no patent to secure him his preeminence. Carlyle savagely referred

* The factory system invited as many bizarre, ingenious ideas as any of man's
inventions. There was, for instance, a Mr. Hatton of Dumf erline, Scotland, who
announced about 1820 that he had 'Icept two mice constantly employed in spin-
ning sewing thread, by means of a machine similar to the tread mills. Each^ of
the little animals spins every day from 100 to 120 threads, in performing which
they have to move about ten and a half miles. The expense of maintaining each
mouse is a half-penny for five weeks, & comparing this, with the quantity of the
work done, it appears that each mouse earns about six shillings sterling per
annum. Mr. Hatton proposes to hire an old edifice 100 feet long and 50 feet
wide, in which he may employ 10,000 mice machines. If this enterprise should
succeed, it is estimated that the annual gain wiU be about 2,300 sterling, clear
of all expense & interest/'

Cotton and the Industrial Revolution 85

to him as "the bag-cheeked, pot-bellied barber," and seemed to relish
describing "his fat, vulgar face, his goggling, heavy-lidded eyes."
Arkwright's contemporaries begrudgingly acknowledged his capa-
bilities but deplored his mind that was as coarse as it was bold and
active. But the picture of the illiterate millionaire has a wistful air
he stole from his own scant sleeping hours to study spelling and
grammar and improve his handwriting. Arkwright was the prototype
of the captains of the new industries. Strong-willed and ruthless,
ignorant of everything save their own ambitions and capacity for
power, these men were in the strictest sense self-made; a bleak
childhood deprived them of the cultured standards of their society,
and taught them only the stark, mundane essentials required to keep
alive.

Arkwright's invention did not conflict with Hargreaves': the water
frame could spin strong warps, but it could not make fine threads;
the jenny's finer, more fragile threads were ideal for filling. That
these machines should have arrived on the scene simultaneously is
remarkable; it is almost miraculous that an independent synthesis
of the two should shortly have developed a third machine that bor-
rowed from both and practically superseded both. Samuel Cromp-
ton ? s mule so nicknamed because it was a cross between the water
frame and the jenny was finished in 1779. (It was never patented.)
Its distinguishing feature its spindles placed on a movable carriage
was an ingenious arrangement which permitted the roving to be
stretched gently and evenly to make a yarn fine and strong.

Crompton was the very opposite of Arkwright. Ill at ease with him-
self and the world, he could riot have found a more suitable place
to live and work than Jus patched-up rooms in the decaying tenement
that had been carved out of a former 5 mansion, HaU-in-the-Wood.
To Mantoux his portrait suggested "the features of Bonaparte in his
younger days with the expression of a Methodist preacher," but
Crompton was pathologically shy; his only reaction was to regret the
fuss that prevented his enjoying "his little invention to himself in his
garret"

Alas, for Crompton! The very existence of the machine he had
called into being would make it impossible for spinners and weavers
to remain isolated and independent in their garrets and cottages. A

86 The World of Eli Whitney

machine so complex was too expensive for workmen to own; a ma-
chine that could be enlarged to accommodate a multiplication of
spindles would soon have burst their small houses asunder. Sixty
years later Baines described a single factory room, containing a few
massive mechanized mules whose "several thousand spindles may
be seen . . . revolving with inconceivable rapidity, with no hand
to urge their progress or guide their operations drawing out, twist-
ing, and winding up as many thousand threads." Crompton's mule
carried cotton manufacture to a perfection it had not otherwise been
able to attain. Inevitably, it strained the supplies of raw cotton to
fill the whirling spindles.

In Whitney's day no one knew how fabulous a future awaited raw
cotton. A plant that provides clothing, shelter, and even food, it is
grown in sixty countries; somewhere in the world, every day in the
year, cotton is being planted and picked. The boll contains, in ad-
dition to the textile fiber, the seeds two-thirds of its weight and
the cotton linters, the short fuzz that adheres to the seed after the
cotton has been ginned. Originally only the fiber was used; today
the seeds and linters are no longer waste products. Cottonseed is
rich in oil; it is transformed into vegetable shortenings, oleomar-
garine, and salad dressings, face creams, soaps, and automobile
greases; its crushed hulls are an ingredient in the manufacture of
plastics; its pressed kernels furnish fertilizer for other crops, and
hulls and kernels, ground together, are an important food for live-
stock. The linters, removed in the cottonseed-oil processing, are
even more mutable: chemistry gives them dozens of disguises as
rayon, as photographic and movie film, shatter-proof glass, plastics,
writing paper, liquid cement, varnishes and lacquers, dynamite.

Subtract cotton in all its forms from the world as it is; strike out
the thousand-odd widespread uses to which cotton has lent itself, and
the answer will reveal modern man's dependence on this valuable
staple; it will also make worth remembering when and how cotton
as a textile became a giant serving England's economy.

Cotton is the cheapest, most plentiful, most versatile, and whitest
of textile fibers, and a thread of cotton is stronger tljan an iron wire
drawn out to the same diameter. Cotton can be washed and boiled
and sterilized and starched; a pound of cotton carrbe spun into a

Cotton and the Industrial Revolution 87

thread so fine it will reach more than 150 miles, or twisted into a
coarse cord of but a few hundred yards; it can be woven into tex-
tiles delicate and sheer, or those sufficiently tough to wear down
metal surfaces, into cool fabrics or fabrics quilted to retain heat; its
softness makes it ideal for clothing, and its durability and stamina
give it industrial importance. It has been called "white gold." With
steel and oil it is one of the titans of the present-day world; yet on
the earliest horizons of history it was already known that cotton
could be spun, woven, and dyed.

India is the home of its cultivation, and the processes devised by
the ancient Hindus have not been changed: the machine has in-
creased production astronomically even as it has sought to ap-
proximate the fineness,. softness,. and strength achieved by the un-
rivaled skill of those master craftsmen who used only primitive tools.
Baines, a sober historian, writes lyrically of the "incredible perfec-
tion" of the sheer muslins that "might be thought the work of fairies,
or of insectjs, rather than of men." In India the raising of cotton was
as universal as the growing of food; every woman spent part of her
time spinning, and in each village weavers furnished the cloth locally
needed. After the cotton was picked, it was separated from its seeds
by a rude roller gin, the charkha, turned by women. Then it was
bowed, or teased, to cleanse it of dirt and knots.

Directly after, without carding, it was spun by women whose
learned, marvelously acute touch produced yarns finer and more
tenacious than any a machine could make;! Reeled and arranged
for the warp beam, the yarn went to the weaver, who, having sized
the warp threads with starch, set up his rudimentary loom as in
Guzerat under the "shade of tamarind and mango trees," and wove
cloths so incredibly transparent that Baines agreed that their being^
called "webs of woven wind" was less" poetic license than, it was truly
descriptive.

Each kind of cloth, specific for texture, weave, or patterning, cele-
brated the region of itsjbirth; its distinctive manufacture was per-
fected over the centuries asjts style w^s carefully transmitted from
father to son. Bengal was famous for exquisite Dacca muslins, the
Coromandel coast for chintzes and calicoes (that most American of
words comes almost unchanged from the great city of Calicut) bril-

88 The World of Eli Whitney

liantly dyed and printed; Surat, the port whence baftas, dhotis, puli-
cats strong cheap goods were shipped, became a generic word
for coarse cloths as Madras did for ginghams and patterned weaves;
Raioxary and Baroche specialized in the dazzling art of bleaching
"because of the large meadows and plenty of lemons that grow there-
abouts, for they are never so white as they should be till dipped in
lemonwater."

Herodotus first wrote about it for Europeans. His word "tree-wool"
Baum-wolle is the German for cotton was enough to give birth
to a mythical zoophyte, the "vegetable lamb," a strange kind of fruit
"much resembling a sheep, having head, feet and tail. Its skin is cov-
ered with down, very white and as soft as silk. It grows upon a low
stalk, about two and a half feet high, some higher, and is supported
just at the navel. The head hangs down as if it pastured or fed on the
grass/*

Qutun, whence the English word, derives, was the name used by
the Arab traders who imported the cloth into Italy and Spain, and
it was from the Moors that England probably first bought cotton.
The Wardrobe Act of 1212 mentions "twelve pence as the price of a
pound of cotton for stuffing the acton of King John" the acton was a
quilted tunic worn under armor to prevent chafing. Soon Cotton
found a steady use as candlewicks, and from that time on, in in-
creasing amounts, it was imported from Italy and the Levant. But
cotton, even as late as the middle of the eighteenth century, was a
minor auxiliary fiber of little commercial consequence.

For England, as for all Europe, wool, since the Stone Age, had
been the staple yarn, and after the Norman Conquest Flemish weav-
ers supplied a large part of England's needs, since, as it was bitterly
said, the English had known no better what to do with their wool
than the sheep that wore it. From a country that imported both raw
wool and all but the crudest cloths, England in the time and under
the leadership of Edward III ( 1327-1377) took the first step that was
to secure for her the monopoly of this valuable commodity. Agents
of the king went among Flemish workers urging advantages for them
if they would move to England; about seventy farriilies, bringing
their trades and their tools, were dispersed throughout the land;
gradually these and later arrivals established the mystery, as a skilled

Cotton and the Industrial Revolution 89

trade was called, of fine weaving. A time came when "English" was
synonymous with the best in woolens and worsteds. Wool became
"the flower and the strength, the revenue and blood" of the kingdom;
England came of age knowing that her woolens were like gold, a com-
modity of exchange always needed, accepted everywhere. On this
rested her monopoly that, like a talisman, outweighed the gold
and silver treasure of Spain and multiplied faster than did the wealth
made by the great trading fleet of Holland.

Manchester was a thriving town devoted to the weaving of woolens;
but in 1641 the London merchant Lewis Roberts already noted that
"neither doth the industry rest here." His Treasury of Trafficke, or a
Discourse of Forraigne Trade, makes the first definite mention of its
cotton manufacture. "They .buy Cotton Wooll in London, that comes
first from Cyprus, and Smyrna, and at home worke the same into
Fustians, VermiUions, Dymities, and other such stuffes; and then re-
turn it to London, where the same is vented and sold/' Manchester
and cotton had not come together accidentally. Climate was a factor:
an unpleasant dampness rolling in from the Irish Sea provided the
moisture needed to keep cotton fibers supple as they were being
processed, and the local farmers found it congenial to spend their
time making yarn or cloth, only working outdoors during the short
harvest season. Because English spinners could not make cotton
strong enough for warps (until the spinning, machines were in-
vented), English weavers strung linen warps and only used cotton
for fill; this limited them to the manufacture of heavy weaves which
did not compete with the elegant domestic woolens nor with the
fashionable calicoes and muslins imported from India. Cotton ad-
vanced slowly: no Hindu craftsmen were lured to England to estab-
lish there their inherited skills and techniques.

It was an infant industry perhaps a lusty infant, but one that
scarcely gave intimations of its future giant size. Defoe, in his tour
of Great Britain (1727) had noted how Manchester had "extended
in a surprising manner, being almost double to what it was a few
years ago," and explained that "the grand manufacture which has so
much raised this town is that of cotton in all its varieties," Yet despite
finis impressive expansion and activity, the cotton industry forty years
later was still so negligible a factor in the national economy that

90 The World of Eli Whitney

neither cotton spinners nor weavers were represented in the proces-
sion of trades that marked Manchester's celebration of the coronation
of George III (1763). How different was the coronation procession
of George IV in 1820! On that occasion the cotton magnates were
accorded places of honor and preferment. They walked slowly, im-
portantly, conscious of their power. Cotton was now king, and Man-
chester, the heart of the new empire, was Cottonopolis.

Thus it was explicitly acknowledged that cotton, the newest of the
fibers to be manufactured in Britain, had preempted the place of the
first, wool. The woolen industry had a long-established tradition;
techniques and practices had become as sacred as the standards they
had maintained. Over the centuries the woolen manufacture had
neither to worry about supplies of raw wool nor compete with
superior foreign-made cloths. It was secure. It rejected any innova-
tion, any deviation from the prescribed rituals. The woolen weavers
had not disregarded Kay's fly shuttle out of stupidity; the demands
on them were for a faithful performance of customary practices, not
for invention^. The mechanics working in cotton manufacture were
not smarter nor more flexible; it was simply that they were in a new,
growing industry whose arteries had not hardened with investments
and habits. It was their good fortune that they were free to create
their entire plant within a relatively short period and at a later, more
technically advanced time.

"Cotton, cotton, cotton was become almost the universal material
for employment"; a vast change had swept over Lancashire as cot-
ton replaced wool. This booming, determined, accelerating industry
made the large-scale production of raw cotton inevitable. And those
who had seen the upsurge of fruitful inventions that, following their
own laws of progression solved th^problems of production, strength,
and fineness of yarn, doubted not that an adequate supply of raw
cotton would be forthcoming. When was the only question asked.

Whitney, like most Americans, received from Hamilton's Report
his first concrete knowledge of the textile machines that had been
invented during the long war years and the troubled decade that
had anticipated hostilities. In December, 1791, the Secretary of the
Treasury, assured that Slater's efforts had succeeded, had proudly

Cotton and the Industrial Revolution 91

announced that the Arkwright machines had crossed the Atlantic
and were already operating in Rhode Island, The Report also made
the southern planters acutely aware of the vast amounts of cotton
annually required by the British millowners, and of the potential
worth of cotton as a crop in their own economy.

Statistics printed in newspapers reinforced the meaning of gen-
eralized statements and gave a measure of the magnitude of British
raw cotton needs: in seven years (1783 to 1790) cotton imports had
climbed from 9,000,000 pounds to 28,000,000. These amounts must
have seemed fantastic to the Southern planters, for in 1791 their
total cotton crop amounted to less than 190,000 pounds, and the ex-
ports but a few hundred bags. Extreme ^.s the figures appeared, they
would be trifling compared with the cotton-consumption figures soon
to be reached and the percentage which the South would contribute.
When in 1812 Whitney petitioned Congress to extend his patent
rights in the gin, of the 63,000,000 pounds imported by England, close
to half was grown and ginned in the southern states. In 1825, the
year of Whitney's death, the United States had raised three-quarters
of the 228,00,0,000 pounds imported by Great Britain! (The cotton
raised in the South far exceeded these amounts; the figures do not
include the cotton used domestically.) These figures tell the dramatic
shift in British dependence on the American South for her raw
cotton; conversely, they imply that the powerful British cotton-textile
manufacturers accorded a dominant position to the leaders of south-
ern agriculture, and sustained them in their unshakable belief in their
economy the crop, the method of cultivation, the necessity for slave
labor.

It is a striking fact that the answer to the planter's hopes came
as speedily as it did. With but a brief preamble, Whitney invented
the gin designed to clean the only kind of cotton that could be grown
in the interior; his invention made possible the crop that paced the
growing production of the powered machines.

VIII

Will the Planters Pay?

FROM the very first, Miller and Whitney's business
was circled by pitfalls. To know simply that
they did not realize their great expectations is not enough Tolstoi
begins his tragic story of Anna Karenina with the observation that
"happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in
its own way/' So an examination of the sad ? worrisome welter of de-
tail that filled the short life of the partnership makes clear the devas-
tating mistake on which their business was predicated; it also gives
insight into that society. Then the gin becomes, not a machine with
an unusual name, but the wonderful and useful creation of a partic-
ular person; and Miller & Whitney is no longer a business partner-
ship, but two men Miller and Whitney united by respect and af-
fection and a common cause.

Together they fought a series of protracted, shifting encounters,
grappled with credit stringencies anol legal loopholes, contended
against the Georgia planters and farmers, who were resentful and
covetous, straitened and accustomed to direct action; together they
patiently dispelled the uncertainties and suspicions of the power-
ful British spinners. During their lifetimes they had a partial suc-
cess. The final thundering triumph of the cotton gin reduced them
to anonymity; by fostering southern cotton cultivation, the forces
they evoked were too mighty, too removed in time and complexity,
to be tied to the memory of their ginning business. Because the cotton
gin shaped the South as it is today, it is well to turn a high-powered
microscope on that first fruitful moment.

Miller & Whitney was formed to exploit a patent, and a patent had
become an unstable fulcrum on which it was hoped to balance pri-

Witt the Planters Pay? 93

vate right and public good. It has been cynically noted that a patent
does not protect, it merely gives its owner the right to sue. Since a
patent is concerned with an intangible property a technological
idea its ultimate strength as a legal instrument rests, paradoxically,
more on the social climate than on statutory provisions.

Its ancestry goes back to the exclusive privilege, or monopoly,
granted court favorites by the king; in England the abuses that at-
tached themselves to these privileges were pruned during the reign
of James I by the Statute of Monopolies (1623). At that time the
ambivalence of the institution was recognized and its elements
separated into the socially useful and the politically offensive. No
longer was a patent a royal gift arbitrarily bestowed; it became a
right open to anyone who satisfied stated routine requirements. Only
new inventions of proven worth were to be rewarded with favorable
privileges; the protection granted a patentee was limited in time to
a definite period. Historically, a patent has always had to fight for
its privileges: from Spitsbergen to China the trading companies
monopolies operating under'a royal charter were plagued by inter-
lopers just as later trespassers infringed on the right of those who
lawfully held patents.

In the United States the first patent bill (1790) defined as its sub-
ject matter "any useful art, manufacture, engine, machine, or device,
or any instrument thereon not before known or used"; it created
a board, composed of three cabinet members, to grant a patent "if
they shall deem the invention or discovery sufficiently useful and
important," and it set the patent's duration at fourteen years. In 1793
these provisions were substantially changed. The board was discon-
tinued, and instead the. Secretary of State was empowered to issue
a patent to anyone who paid the application fee and presented work*
ing drawings and a model. Thus an administrative right to evaluate
deteriorated into a clerical function that merely recorded anything
properly submitted;' the Executive" branch of the government, as li-
censing agent, was relieved of the responsibility for sifting priority
and settling technological principles. It was under this amended
act of February 2.1, 1793, that Whitney obtained his patent.

Who in the United States before Miller & Whitney had tried to
create a new kind of business and one of considerable magnitude?

94 The World of Eli Whitney

Until that time most of the forms of economic activity, like the tools
and the skilled workmen who used them, came from Europe or pre-
served European practices. The notable creative thought in America
had been directed into political channels Franklin is not re-
membered primarily for his electrical experiments nor Jefferson for
his plough. What had Miller & Whitney to take as an example, as they
detailed the nature of their business? Today, they could choose
whether they would manufacture or license the manufacture of gins
for sale to individuals, rent gins to planters, set up ginneries and
charge for cleaning the cotton, or buy the cotton, clean it, and sell it
to the mills. In those days, when trading was synonymous with busi-
ness, they could have thought only in trading terms. The size of their
undertaking might have suggested the structure of the great land
companies that profitably opened the trans-Allegheny country to
settlers; but even though the partners knew that they were offering
planters the means of exploiting the upland country (how vast a cot-
ton empire, no one could have imagined) their patent did not con-
vey the same property rights as a land grant. The gin, like a mill, a
forge, a furnace, processed raw material; but while these catered to
limited local markets, demanded capital to start and considerable
skill to run, the gin cost little to make, no skill to operate, and was
designed for a rapidly expanding world market. (Almost from the
first, efforts were made to sell the gin rights outside the United States;
as far as can be judged, these efforts all failed.) The partners might
have considered the strictly legal aspects of their patent and equated
them with those of a franchise for a turnpike, a bridge, a canal, or a
ferry, where tolls were allowed to reward the promoters' initiative
and compensate them for expenditures. This idea came to them later,
almost as an afterthought.

What had they to learn from other inventors? Could they be
guided by the example of Joseph Jenks ( Jenckes), one of the earliest
American mechanics and one of the very few to be granted a patent
(1646) in colonial Massachusetts? , He gave the scythe its modern
shape; true, he perfected an agricultural tool, .but his invention did
not give dominion to a crop. Or could they profit by the experience
of Oliver Evans, the self-taught, brilliant engineer whom, perhaps,
Whitney had met when in Philadelphia? His recently acquired patent

Will the Planters Pay? 95

(1790) revolutionized flour milling, for in his machinery were em-
bodied and utilized modern techniques for the movement of materials
during processing. Evans was even then making trips throughout
the central states trying vainly to find a millowner who would accept
his machinery as a gift in return for acting as his agent. Perhaps the
apathy of the millowners who clung to their established work pat-
terns even when confronted with money-saving, time-saving, labor-
saving devices impelled Miller & Whitney to feel they must arouse
interest in their machine.

The possibilities they had reviewed were those that presented
themselves at that time; no other. They had tied their fortunes and
their futures to promoting a "jaunty devise," as Thomas Hobbes,
in the heyday of a mercantile economy, would have called Whitney's
invention. They were guided in their decisions by the traditions of an
economy where enterprise was secured by a monopoly; but the busi-
ness they launched served the textile industry, the industry that in
men's minds was equated with the vigorous, victorious new order
where enterprise sought to be free.

^j, Jr o

S^t that moment of triumph, in that year of discovery, when models
were being built and plans projected and a wholly new business
shaped,. who could have said whether the invention needed promo-
tion or protection? Certainly Whitney, Miller, and Catherine Greene
must have weighed the question and felt satisfied with the solution
they reached: the machine Whitney had put together was shown
to friendly, influential visitors but withheld from public view. This
compromise originated from their worry that the gins might lack
enough cotton to process; it blinded them to a greater danger the
appetite of planters starving for want of a marketable crop.

The first notice of Whitney's invention to the community at large
appeared on March 6, 1794, in the Gazette of the State of Georgia:

"The subscriber will engage to gin, in a manner equal to picking
by hand, any quantity of the green seed cotton, on the following
terms: viz. for every five pounds delivered him in the seed he will
return one pound of clean cotton for the market

"For the encouragement of cotton planters he will also mention
that ginning machines to clean the green seed cotton on the above

96 The World of Eli Whitney

terms will actually be erected in different parts of the country before
the harvest of the ensuing crop.

"Phineas Miller
"Mulberry Grove near Savannah, March i,

The date is important; it attests to the partner's feeling the need
for quick action. For Miller rushed into print before Whitney had
received the formal patent, before they had signed their partnership
papers. Whitney sold a half -interest in his patent rights to Miller
on June 21, 1794, for $1,000, and they then signed their copartnership
agreement Their haste to advertise may have been due to their de-
sire to notify the planters to be ready for the April planting; it may
have been a reassurance given the planters that no matter how large
their crop, it would be cleaned of its seed. The partners remembered
the frenzied laments of but a year and a half earlier, when Whitney
had first come to the South and "the culture of the Green seed cotton
had then just commenced as a crop in the upper country, & two or
three Million pounds of this article in the seed, had been raised &
picked in from the field, but for want of a suitable Gin but a small
part of it had been prepared for the Market" Finally and this was
not incidental they were serving notice that the commission ap-
pointed by the State of Georgia to secure the invention of just such a
machine need look no further.

The terms offered by the partners are revealing. They show the
nature of the structure of the completely new enterprise of which
Whitney's invention was the keystone. They were not offering the
gin for sale. They knew, on the one hand, that they could not manu-
facture enough machines to satisfy the market were every planter
to want one and, on the other hand, that few of the men who would
turn to the growing of cotton had the price of a gin one of Whit-
ney's elaborately finished machines would have had to sell at from
$400 to $500. Prudence suggested their solution: the advantages of
a business that confined itself to processing the cotton for the plant-
ers, the fee to be paid in cotton, not cash. Yet the terms also make
clear that their monopoly was to be complete, their charges high.

Their actual calculations do not exist, but their method can be
surmised. Experiments had given them the ratio of cleaned cotton

Will the Planters Pay? 7

to uncleaned cottonthe weight of the former was one-third the
weight of the latter, seeds and field debris accounting for the differ-
ence. In setting up their system of charges, they used five pounds
of uncleaned cotton as the unit which yielded one and two-thirds
pounds of cleaned cotton. Of this they returned one pound to the
owner and retained for themselves two-thirds of a pound. From this
gross profit they covered their manufacturing and shipping expenses
plus an annual prorating of the jcpsi ,of the gin to be paid off during
the term of their patent; it also included installing, operating, and
maintaining their ginneries, sums expended for the purchase of
water sites, and the erection of elaborate gear and buildings. To
this was added their labor costs in each ginnery allowance had to be
made for feeding the white overseer, who was "to receive & deliver
the Cotton, repair the gins & superintend their work, paying for the
labour of the Negroes who are required to attend the gins & Bag
the cotton at the rate of two shillings per day for the men & one
shilling & sixpence for the women/' The hiring of slaves from masters
was common practice. Miller,, writing to a planter, closed a letter with
the remark that it had been mentioned "that you might be induced to
hire out some Negro fellows. If a hundred dollars per annum or up-
wards would procure them, I would make such a proposal/'

An integral part of the business, announced at the very beginning,
was setting up establishments in "different parts of the country."
While Whitney was in Connecticut getting the machines made,
Miller had been traveling through the upper country, examining the
localities where cotton cultivation was displacing everything else,
and choosing sites accessible to the growers so as to reduce the heavy
costs of overland transportation. Miller was responsible for manag-
ing these installations*

There is a clear statement of how energetically Miller had erected
ginneries around Augusta, where the cotton cultivation centered.
Writing Whitney just two years after they had started, he listed and
commented on the extent of their operations. Already the size of
their enterprise is impressive; there are also hints that trouble was
in the offing. At Mulberry Grove "five gins in good order which will
clean out 500 wt. per day & pretty well supplied; this is a good
draught for eight lean cattle"; at the ginnery at Augusta, "ten gins

98 The World of Eli Whitney

well put up and water plenty, which will clean when they have
employment 800 wt per day but are three fourths of the time idle";
the ginnery near Washington has "four gins now in order (two more
erecting), clean about 400 wt per day & have been employed the
greatest part of the winter"; the ginnery near Petersburg "had only
cleaned out six thousand wt when the fresh [spring flood] over set
the gin house, they are just now re-erecting it"; the ginnery at Gol-
phinton still worked their two gins "with horses but the water ma-
chine is to be put up this coming summer he [Major Shields] cleans
his cotton with more attention than any one of the persons engaged
with us"; the four gins in their Waynesborough plant clean "as much
as five hundred wt per day when there is water but this is the
greater part of the time very deficient this establishment as soon as
our funds admit must be removed"; at Louisville (Georgia) two gins
would be in work by the middle of that month to process the "fifty
thousand wt of cotton on hand Waynesborough has about the same
quantity"; the ginnery being set up at Beaufort, South Carolina,
promises to "work very well & will clean about 300 wt of black seed
per day and has the promise of about thirty thousand weight to
clean."

And this was but the beginning: "Application had lately been
made for another establishment at the mouth of the Eddito [Edisto]
River, which will most probably be accepted. I have in view also to
erect in the upper part of this state about two others during the
summer & perhaps three in the upper parts of Carolina. This degree
of extension will answer pretty well to meet the ensuing crop of
cptton."

&vThe partners minutely considered the internal organization of their
enterprise. Meticulous keeping of all kinds of records was routine;
but that they would schedule the many separate elements the clean-
ing, packing, baling, shipping, every step of which was new sub-
mit each particular process to experiment, and standardize the pre-
ferred technique, is arrestingly modern. (Scientific management is
the term now used for such studied methods; its great exponent,
Frederick Winslow Taylor [1856-1915], instituted elaborate research
methods to establish manufacturing techniques.) Viewing the critical
first years through their business letters, one sees the cotton gin

Will the Planters Pay? 99

less as a single creative act than the initial, crucial impulse from
which flowed a succession of minor inventions, clever innovations,
and skills. Many valid ideas were stillborn, and some died for lack
of funds: there were the carding attachment Whitney had suggested
to Jefferson to expedite household cotton manufactures and the
projected mills "of suitable construction'' to extract cottonseed oil. It
was appreciated from the start that the seeds might "also turn to
some little value." * Those ideas intimately related to their business
were instantly put to use, such as a bagging machine Whitney per-
fected when he was at Mulberry Grove assembling and testing the
first gins. Miller was enchanted with the contraption: "The saving
of labor will exceed my expectations," since with the bagging ma-
chine "three hands will perform all the labor of ginning & bagging
six hundred weight per day." In a slave economy, the work done by
prime field hands, as they were called, had to maintain a population
of less productive slaves the very young, the old, the sick, the
maimed. This consideration in estimating labor costs is reflected in
Miller's advising a planter that "two boys, or one old or lame hand
and a boy can conveniently attend two [gins]." The machine reduced
operating charges to one strong, able-bodied man trained to pack
the clean cotton properly.

The bagging machine made it more likely that the packing would
be done properly an important consideration, for they had been
told that the cotton "will both sell better and be transported with
more care when it is packed hard." Miller, instructing tie manager
of the Golphinton ginnery, makes the thoroughness of the partners'
investigations very clear: "First then after your bag is well sewed
with twine, let a strong hoop be put over the mouth and being
turned over basted on with twine. Then let the bag be well wet and

* How farsighted the partners were in their thrifty ideas to extract the oil from
cottonseed can be seen from the remarks made by Professor Denison Olmsted
thirty years later ( 1824). Writing in the American Journal of Science and Arts,
he deplored the fact that no use had been found for "the vast quantity of cotton
seed Ithat] is annually accumulated, forming a useless and in many instances, an
offensive and noxious pile around the cotton gins." Only limited, imperfect efforts
were made to extract oil, even though "nearly three fourths of the entire cotton
crop consists of seed.** Considering any aspect of cotton cultivation rapid soil
exhaustion, agricultural methods, labor, and so forth one is appalled at the
blatant, unrelieved waste.

100 The World of Eli Wliitney

continue to keep it so while packing by a loose mop, of cloth or cot-
ton, and let the packer continually beat down the cotton round the
edge of the bag with a pestle as heavy as can be worked with con-
venience the upper end to be fitted to the hand & the lower end
a little flatted & rounded at the same time as to force the cotton down
like a wedge. A packer can in this way pack a bag made of five yards
of cloth in a day with care, and such a bag ought to weigh from 260
to 320 Ibs. according to the hand employed."

Baling and bagging were only less important than ginning. The
partners methodically investigated each. What was the best kind of
bagging in which to ship the cleaned cotton? They specified that the
bagging cloth should average about one and one-third pounds per
yard and contain a "web of an improved quality/' There are sug-
gestions that Miller invested money in a bagging factory started by
a Newport friend, Christopher Fowler; it is certain that despite
loans, specifications, pleading, visits, and lawsuits, Miller & Whitney
never obtained what they had contracted for and that they finally
relied on the superior European-made cloth or an adequate substi-
tute woven in Massachusetts.

Their insistence on quality was based on sound business reasons.
Miller itemized for Fowler the increased costs incurred when "an
inferior quality of cotton bagging in packing Cotton for the Euro-
pean Market" was used, since "a bag of cotton containing five yards
of Cloth will pay [in freight] about ten Dollars, it being perfectly
immaterial whether the bag holds three hundred weight or but two
hundred. The space it occupies on the ship is the same." Loosely
packed cotton not only cost more to ship, it did not travel as well as
the tightly packed fiber.

Then again, the question might center on the size of the store-
room to be built at a ginnery. How were they to reckon when no
two installations were alike in size and capacity and it was uncertain
how much cotton the growers would bring in? Yet, despite intan-
gibles and variables, the partners could suggest a simple, basic unit
of measurement: "For the store-room you can judge as well as we/*
they wrote their manager at Petersburg, "only take into considera-
tion that a Cubic foot of building will contain about twelve pounds
of Cotton in seed and if well trod together, about fifteen."

Will the Planters Pay? 101

The same neat estimating went into packing the gins themselves
to insure their safety on their long journey from the factory in New
Haven to their final destination in the South: "The Machines them-
selves weigh 315 Ibs. each, and two of them are packed for trans-
portation in three boxes whose weight [when empty] is 200 Ibs.
So that two Machines when ready to be carried on waggons weigh
830 Ibs." And, lest this seem unduly arbitrary, it was explained that
the gins "having been packed up in Boxes two together at the
Northward, cannot be repacked in a different form without great
inconvenience. I have therefore sent two machines, with a view that
the other may remain until it shall be wanted by yourself."

Miller painstakingly pointed out that packing and handling had
not been the only considerations two gins were a more efficient
operation than one; especially where the purchaser had mentioned
that he intended using horsepower: "The strength of one horse is
fully competent to carry two [gins]/ 7 Continuing in the same ex-
pository vein, he adds: "If there is a stream of water in your Neigh-
borhood, it is by far the most eligible force which can be applied
to Ginning cotton. You will then require a simple water wheel at

ei<?ht to ten feet in diameter with a drum of the same size and on the

o

same shaft which will turn the Ginns/' He reassured the gentleman
who erected the first ginnery in the upper country of South Carolina
that his outlay in money and effort to install the gins in a satisfactory
manner will be repaid: "A good set of gear work, properly made to
work two of these machines will last with care and slight repairs,
I presume, nine years which will reduce the expence to a small
amount on the very large crops which you are able to make."

From the business letters of Miller & Whitney, it is hard to say
whether their didactic tone reflects Miller's nature he corresponded
for the firm or whether each step in the installation and operation
was a new lesson, carefully presented with full explanations, to new
pupils. No matter to whom written, on practical subjects they only
suggest, they are never curt; they never issue peremptory orders,
but honor their managers with their reasons and conclusions. "The
size or form of the water wheel is not very material, as we have
found by much experience that the gins work best with bands which
go around a Barrel ... for a Barrel of about 4 feet diameter lying

102 The World of Eli Whitney

horizontally and turned about 40 times per minute will be suf-
ficiently fast for the purpose. . . . The length of the Barrel may be
about fifteen feet and may best be placed under the floor where the
gins are at work by which means it will be entirely out of the way.
. . . With respect to the size of the building, twenty by thirty feet
will be of sufficient extent to work the Machines; such a building
ought to have about six panes of glass . . . [and] stand with the side
towards the water wheel as the drum must work under the floor."
^Objections raised by a millwright, who disagreed with specifica-
tions they had proposed, were tactfully answered. "The opinion of-
fered in our letter to you was the result of the best theoretic calcula-
tions we could make. And altho a certain degree of experience is
requisite for forming a mature judgment in the construction of all
kinds of water works, yet the general principles of the force & pres-
sure of water remaining always the same, knowledge of these
principles may perhaps alone be depended on for work on so Small
a scale as the one in contemplation." After this polite preamble, their
objective is stated: "We wish the Gins to be turned at the rate of at
least twice per second & to be able to turn them as fast as twice & a
half in that time, if there should not appear to be too much heat
generated by so great a friction."

To mechanic or customer, manager, broker, lawyer, the letters
show the same amiable breeding. To all they are courteous. A
manager whose careless ginning and packing had cost them two
bags of cotton was mildly rebuked; their strongest expressions, shock
and disappointment, were directed to another manager who had been
caught in an act of unmitigated knavery. The long sentences flow on
and on; nothing disrupts the cadence of the full rounded phrases,
amenities expressive of a more leisurely age. Correspondence had
not yet been whittled down to the new business order.

The letter books contain lengthy letters faithfully, painstakingly
copied out in longhand; dry letters spiced with the minutiae of the
moment which still hold an unobtrusive, authentic flavor; letters
which, even when they cry out at the events that seem about to
overwhelm the firm, give forth an aroma of hope. Both Miller and
Whitney were fighters not aggressive, but determined; they faced
the problems that gradually, it seems inevitably, took shape.

Will the Planters Pay? 1Q3

The first sentence of the first letter (May 11, 1794) is almost
lyric. Miller proclaims the end of their worries: "Mr. Whitney has
arrived with the Cotton ginning machines, & the one which has
been put together discovers them to be much superior to the descrip-
tion I had given you." Whitney had returned to Mulberry Grove,
his patent secured, the machines manufactured for the first ginneries.
During the next busy weeks a stream of impatient visitors came to
see the wonderful invention; everywhere it was discussed, but still
only friends were admitted to the building where the gins were being
installed. Continued caution was necessary, for already they had
been warned that their property was being threatened. A few days
after the partnership had been formed, the new firm addressed itself
to Edmund Randolph, Secretary of State, advising Kim that "appli-
cation will be made at your office for patenting some intended im-
provements on the machine for ginning cotton," and asking "that
action be deferred untill we have sufficient time to shew the infringe-
ment which is therein attempted." Their tone is still one of calm
confidence; they appear to feel that they have but to advise and ask
and their rights will be safeguarded.

Certainly no misgivings could have been sensed in 1794, when
Whitney's "greatest apprehensions" were that "we shall not be able
to get machines made as fast as we shall want them. We have now
Eight hundred Thousand weight of Cotton on hand & the next crop
will begin to come in very soon. It will require machines enough
to clean 5 or 6 thousand Wt. of clean cotton per Day, to satisfy the
demands for next Year, I mean for the crop which comes in this
fall. And I expect the crop will be double another year/' Whitney
was elated at the prospect of the first year's business, and eager to
have the gins ready to handle the greater crop promised for the next
year. He had planned to stay only a short time in Georgia, but "was
taken sick with the Georgia fever [probably malaria] about the
middle of June & confined to my bed ten or twelve days, but had
got quite well before I left . . . My machinery was in operation
before I came from Georgia."

It was August before he could get back to his small workroom,
and he arrived in New Haven to find the *town much alarmed with
the sickness." Stiles, who watched the epidemic gain momentum,

104 The World of Ell Whitney

remarked that "there seem to be two disorders i. The scarlet fever
& ulcerous sore Throat which raged here last winter and tho much
abated, yet extant 2. The yellow fever brot in by a Vessel here about
15 or 16 June last, which has been lurking about ever since & now
proved dreadful . . . More mortal than the Small Pox, tho' less con-
tagious." Some of Whitney's workmen took ill, and panic gripped
New Haven. All communications with the stricken town were
stopped; the absence of letters from Whitney caused Miller "not a
little anxiety/' and slowed down his ambitious schedule.

His fears for Whitney's safety "Our Eli Whitney, notwithstand-
ing his own personal danger still remains at New Haven" were
matched only by his fears that they might not be ready for the
season close at hand. Thus, while he reassured his managers that
they might expect the new gins in time for the autumn harvest, he
exhorted Whitney: "Do not let a deficiency of money, do not let
anything hinder the speedy construction of the gins. The people
of the country are almost running mad for them, and much can be
said to justify their importunity. When the present crop is harvested,
there will be a real property of at least fifty thousand, yes of a hun-
dred thousand dollars lying useless unless we can enable the owners
to bring it to market. Pray remember that we must have fifty to one
hundred gins between this and another fall, if there are any work-
men in New England, or in the Middle States to make them. In
two years we will begin to take long steps up hill, in the business of
patent ginning, fortune favoring."

There was little need for Miller to add pressure to Whitney's own
awareness of the urgency to produce the machines. On the trip
home he must have planned how best to manufacture quickly a
large number of gins; by late fall many ideas had taken shape. "I
have been so busy that I could hardly find time to write," but write
to his father he did, and for all his activity, he sounded serene. "The
approach of winter obliges me to improve every moment in pre-
paring for it. My Barn 26 feet by 20 is raised and I expect will be
covered and finished in the course of next week. I have been laying
in materials and I have a prospect of my business going on well this
winter." The success that seemed within sight allowed him to be
generous, for generosity was part of his nature; from the first har-

Will the Planters Pay? 105

vest of cotton then being cleaned on his machine he arranged to have
a bag sent to his father "as much as you will want for your own use,
to which you shall be perfectly wellcome."

Happily, auspiciously, 1794 drew to a close. Miller had succeeded
in securing loans to finance their manufacturing and operating ex-
penses; he rejoiced to have obtained sums at a reasonable interest
rate of 8 per cent. Another year or two of hard work, a steady ex-
pansion, a profit that would soon begin to increase handsomely
Whitney faced the coming year with trust.

Miller & Whitney's credit situation was a thing patterned by that
age and tailored by that region. The firm was started when the na-
tional coinage began to be minted and the first Bank of the United
States was but a few years old. In those days barter prevailed, and
an accumulation of capital was usually in kind, not cash; money
was scarce, large personal fortunes were exceptional, and credit was
designed for long-term commercial enterprises or to carry farmers
from crop to crop. Extended in the expectation of profits, credit was
not yet invested in industry to secure interest. Miller's solutions to
his problems are a forcible reminder that the Revolutionary War left
the South poor; and the passing years had seen it grow poorer as
plantations that relied on tobacco, rice, and indigo found these crops
less and less profitable. Mulberry Grove when Whitney visited
there was a grandiose ghost of the wealth its rice fields had once
purchased, a wealth that neither Greene's genius nor Miller's zealous
devotion could revive. The antebellum South, as it has come to be
remembered, had not yet been born. It came and flowered with cot-
ton.

The financial structure of Miller & Whitney owed its resilience
and stamina to the credit it could command by using the Greene
estate. That it was pledged for substantial sums was Catherine's
contribution to the enterprise, for without her full approval as ex-
ecutrix Miller could never have hazarded the estate. Her faith in the
patent, in the partnership, expressed itself in such tangible terms
that Whitney never forgot it Years later he assumed a $5,000
mortgage to relieve Catherine of "embarrassments, perplexities &
misfortune." In addition to the Greene estate, Miller had as far as
can be reconstructed an assortment of assets with which to work.

The World of Eli Whitney

A large part of his commitments and expenditures were to be met by
money he expected to receive money paid for Miller & Whitney's
share of the ginned fiber, money from cottonseed sold to planters.
Some cash he had, and both he and Whitney could personally raise
a little more. It was in the hope of quickly making a large cash profit
that Miller participated heavily in the Yazoo Land purchase.

"Fraud" is the word that usually follows Yazoo. It summarizes
the landgrab a deal pushed through the Georgia legislature by a
handful of influential, wealthy men; its magnitude some thirty-
five million acres in what is now Alabama and Mississippi; its
secrecy the sale price was set at a cent and a half an acre when the
grantees already had assurances that blocks of their land companies'
shares would be taken up by northern purchasers at a considerable
advance; its arrant partiality hundreds of applicants for shares
at par received nothing. In Georgia, in December of 1794, every one
was bewitched by the Yazoo; Miller offered, by way of apology, the
excuse that "the purchase about to be made of the western territory
of this state has so entirely engrossed the public attention as to leave
it very difficult to transact any other business." When the corrupt facts
spelled out their story, the disillusioned outcry of a defrauded citi-
zenry was so loud, so general, so continuous, that in February of
1796 a new governor signed a rescinding act; the sale was revoked;
and as if to exorcise an evil deed, the records of the transaction were
publicly burned in an official ceremony.

The Yazoo Land debacle one in a series of frenzies recurrent in
American economy, frenzies of which Clark, in his scholarly study
of manufactures in the United States, said tersely, poetically, "Un-
occupied land drank up liquid capital as thirstily as a desert"
preempted funds in the North, as well as the South, that might other-
wise have been tapped for loans by Miller & Whitney. His gamble
cost Miller his available cash; it added costly suits filed in Connecti-
cut to collect from reneging buyers. Whitney early appreciated how
unfortunate the Yazoo flyer might prove. Even before the sale was
revoked by the Georgia legislature, he sounded a warning. "Money
is growing extremely scarce in this State [Connecticut] ten times
so much as when you were here. Speculation is at a stand. ... It is

Will the Planters Pay? 107

a conceeded Maxim that it is altogether uncertain whether a Land-
Speculator is worth anything or not. And the money-lenders are very
shy of a man who is concerned in the buying. . . . Josiah Wooster,
for instance, (Who is worth more money than when he is engaged
in speculation) cannot hire money so low by six per Cent per Ann.
as he could before he engaged in speculation. And it makes that
difference in his getting his notes discounted." Whitney was not
passing judgment on gambling; he was convinced of the hurt being
done the firm by Miller's diverting cash and energy into Yazoo stock
manipulation.

To the charge of having been imprudent, Miller conceded that
perhaps he had been, but only in having placed "so much confi-
dence in the punctuality of the People of Connecticut & to engage
in the land purchase to an extent that I cannot pay for/' And then, as
if weighing his mistake and his motive, he continued in an acrid
tone: "It also may be considered as imprudent to pledge so much
money as we have done in die construction of the cotton gins before
the successful! use of them was rendered certain. But if my dis-
position has heretofore been too ardent, I think it has become pretty
well cooled down." At the time Miller was excusing himself, nothing
but excuses were left him; he was inextricably caught in the conse-
quences of that venture.

The partners were insensitive to local opinion; neither appreciated
that the greatest harm done their business by Miller's Yazoo in-
volvement was that his connection was commonly known. His name
was linked to the original sale, and it was widely said that he had
disposed of shares at an enormous profit to Connecticut merchants.
What was more natural than that the hate and opprobrium generated
in the great number of frustrated would-be buyers powered their
opposition to Miller & Whitney's exclusive privilege; their success in
having the land sale rescinded emboldened the rank and file of
Georgia farmers to attack his ginnery venture and persevere in try-
ing to have the patent rights set aside.

Ill fortune sometimes uses an event, not as a causative agent, but
as a touchstone to reveal unsuspected, unplumbed potentials. Such
was the disaster which now struck the new firm. Whitney's shop in

108 The World of Eli Whitney

New Haven caught fire and was completely consumed. The flames
for a few moments illuminated other elements. Seventeen ninety-
five was an ugly year; it had still uglier sisters,

"I wrote you from New York but a few Days since at which time
I was quite out of hearth," Whitney "s letter of March 22, 1795, to his
father begins. In that earlier note he mentioned that his work was
so well organized as to be able to satisfy Miller's demand for gins;
that he was in New York on business to arrange for the "Continu-
ance of the loan on the same Terms (Viz) at one per cent per
month" and that there he had suffered an attack of malaria, a re-
currence of the sickness contracted the previous summer at Mulberry
Grove. Then, bluntly, he tells his father how, still weak, he had re-
turned to his busy workshop. "But alas, how is the scene changed!
When I returned from N. York I found my property all in ashes 1 My
shop, all my tools, material, and work equal to twenty finished cotton
machines all gone

*Tfhe manner in which it took fire is altogether unaccountable. It
caught fire when the workmen were gone to breakfast The shop was
swept as clean as any dwelling house the evening before there was
not a hat-crown full of fire in both chimneys and not a bucket full
of chips or shavings in all the building. The hearths were swept the
last thing before the shop was left. The most probable conjecture
that I can make is that it took from the broom. From the account I
have collected since my return, I am convinced that it was not more
than ten or fifteen minutes at most after the workmen had left the
shop before they returned and found the shop so completely on fire
that it was impossible to save the least article of it. It burned with
amazing violence and it was with difficulty that the new building
which I set up last fall was saved. You have probably seen some
account of my misfortune in the News Paper where the damage is
estimated at Three Thousand Dollars. But I would freely pay ten
thousand dollars, if I had the money, to have it restored Indeed,
three thousand pounds would by no means make good my loss.

"For more than two years I have spared no pains nor exersion
to systimatise and arrange my business in a proper manner. This
object I had just accomplished. [The workshop itself had been run-
ning but eight months.] It was the purchase of many a toilsome Day

Witt the Planters Pay? 1Q9

and sleepless night. But my prospects are all blasted and my labour
lost. I do not, however, dispair and hope I shall not sink under my
misfortune. I shall reestablish the business as soon as possible, but
it must be a long time before I can repair my loss.'* All his tools
cunningly devised, especially made all had to be made again.

The fire occurred on March 11. Stiles, noting that "Yesterday
Morning VIII h. Mr. Whitney's Work Shop consumed," lists the
loss in money and gins, and adds sadly, "& all the Tools which no
man can make but Mr. Whitney, the inventor, & which he has been
two years in the makings." Three days after the disaster, Whitney
wrote of it to Miller. His summary adds no new details of what they
had suffered: "All the machinery and every tool we had are gone;
17 machines were almost finished and many others in great for-
wardness"; but he did indicate how far he had been able to work
out his method of production: "two years and a half spent in col-
lecting the tools, constructing and making the several machines that
were used for different purposes in the shop/' Obviously, Whitney
had been creating a way to produce gins quickly, in quantity, fairly
standard in size and weight a necessity dictated by his crating and
packing arrangement

Stunned by the tragedy, weakened by his recent illness, he could
only feel how complete was his loss. Nothing remained. But he
would learn that the time, the energy, the thinking that had gone
into constructing special tools and machinery had not been de-
stroyed; that once having thoroughly explored and resolved each
technique he had but to rebuild his factory to resume production
in short order. He would learn from this catastrophe that in his
method of manufacturing time was not a constant factor: although
he had been two years making some twenty gins he would not be
two years making another twenty.

Seven months later, with a certain quiet triumph, he could tell his
father, "My Business goes on quite successfully. We have shipped
twenty six machines since the fire. ... I fear I shall not be able
to find time to Visit you this autumn. My Business increases so fast
that I find no leisure." Henceforth, a new way of calculating pro-
duction schedules was fixed in Whitney's consciousness.

When Miller received Whitney's news, he thought of the talent

110 The World of Eli Whitney

and care his partner had lavished on the shop, and rushed to assure
him: "I will devote all my time, all my thoughts, all my exertions,
and all the money I can earn or borrow to encompass and complete
the business we have undertaken. ... It shall never be said we
have lost an object which a little perseverence could have attained.
I think, indeed, it will be very extraordinary, if two young men, in
the prime of life, with some share of ingenuity, with a little knowl-
edge of the world, a great deal of industry, and a considerable
amount of property should not be able to sustain such a stroke of
misfortune as this, heavy as it is." A few weeks later, when Miller
experienced difficulty in raising money to rebuild the shop, he sug-
gested that Whitney try to secure a loan locally, but cautioned him
that he "use great care to avoid giving an idea that we are in a
desperate situation to induce us to borrow money. To people who are
deficient in understanding, this precaution will be extremely neces-
sary: men of sense can easily distinguish between the prospect of
large gains and the approaches of bankruptcy. Such is the disposition
of man, that while we keep afloat there will not be wanting those
who will appear willing to assist us; but once let us be given over,
and they will immediately desert us/' In the handling of the Greene
estate, Miller had long ago learned the value of appearances.

His capacity for circumspection was not dislocated even by the
letter Whitney wrote to him directly after the fire. When, without
adding or changing a word, Miller published it in the Georgia
Gazette, he must have felt that the whole truth openly stated would
serve Miller & Whitney better than that rumors gain entry into men's
minds; he wanted the Georgia cotton growers to learn from Whitney
of his loss Whitney's words would command their sympathy. Also,
he wanted to convince the planters that this was not the end of
Miller & Whitney. "I cannot yet determine what plan to pursue in
resuming our business," Whitney had said in closing his letter, "but
shall omit no exertion to have it reestablished as soon as possible."
Thus Miller was announcing in unmistakable words that he and
Whitney were still in the cotton-ginning business.

The Battle for the Patent

THREE months before the fire, Miller had been
advised by his Golphinton manager that some

crudely made gins were being surreptitiously used, and had decided
to "defer for a few months the necessary attention to such intruders."
Now, after the fire, the trespassers could no longer be ignored; they
had grown in number, in boldness; and when Miller & Whitney were
suddenly deprived of their factory, the planters were possessed of a
valid excuse for extending the use of illegal, locally made gins. Their
activity threatened to siphon the cotton crop away from the estab-
lished ginneries and end the plan to open additional ones. It threat-
ened the very life of Miller & Whitney.

Miller began to feel that they had made a fatal mistake in demon-
strating Whitney's original machine even to friends and that their
decision to stimulate business before they were ready to handle it
had produced a monster that was trying to strangle the weak, strug-
gling infant concern of Miller & Whitney. Despite his thoughts his
words were free from recrimination as he traced how "several per-
sons, prompted as we firmly believe by no worse motive than that of
committing the same pleasure as they had received in seeing so in-
genious an invention, disregarding the instructions we had imposed
of them as well as their own engagements, did actually explain the
principles of the machine to their acquaintances who were so in-
terested in its success in the upper country and from whom this
information became so general that even the boys of Augusta knew
that the invention had teeth which worked thro* slats, and a brush.
This was easily understood and easily put into practise when known,
for as the excellence of machinery consists in its simplicity, the in-

111

The World of Eli Whitney

ventor derived his principle credit in reducing his principles to this
simple, plain & easy application/'

There are several ways to kill a patent From gossip and reports
Miller learned that some planters were deliberately infringing,
while others, less brazen, claimed to operate legally under patents
issued for improvements to the gin. (Had he not written the Secre-
tary of State a year before not to allow the application for "intended
improvements'?) What Miller did not foresee was the course taken
by the planters around Augusta, the heart of the first cotton-growing
district; later he confessed that he had "had no idea that the more
respectable part of the community would in the least contest the
propriety of our having recourse to the law . . . we never con-
templated an opposition of this kind from indifferent persons in the
community who would be thought to be actuated by the principles
of justice, and who are acquainted with the origin & relation of
property which is held under the law/*

The planters resented having to pay so high a price for ginning
whether in cash or cotton when a workable gin could be made by
any self-respecting mechanic to whom its simple principles and parts
had been described. Miller failed to grasp the cotton growers* rapidly
solidifying determination not to pay what seemed to them an un-
warranted, exorbitant tax. Each spring, as planting time came and
hundreds of new acres were seeded with cotton, their indignation
mounted, and sustained and nourished their intransigence. As they
rode over their fertile fields estimating the crop they would harvest,
as they read the prices offered for raw baled cotton, their indignation
passed into self-righteousness, and the men who had fought Great
Britain to be free of irksome restrictions responded in the way they
had been so brilliantly taught: their resentment hardened into resist-
ance. The men of the South had won their Revolutionary victory by
guerrilla strategy; seeking freedom in economic enterprise, they re-
membered the effectiveness of partisan warfare to wear out the
enemy, not defeat him, and even to suffer defeat secure in the
knowledge that the enemy's victory would be pyrrhic.

Whatever slogans were used, the issue was who was to get how
much from the burgeoning cotton crop. Never before had America
seen such a rate of growth. When the sides were drawn in 1795, the

The Battle -for the Patent

total crop was 8,000,000 pounds; by 1800, when the governor voiced
Georgia's militancy, the total had jumped to 35,000,000 pounds; and
in 1807, when the patent expired, 80,000,000 pounds had been
reached. The fight did not smolder and slowly achieve size; the initial
intensity of the antagonism to the patent was maintained by the
crops' increase in value and volume. From 1795 to 1801, the price
of cotton rose from 36 cents a pound to 44.

In Georgia every smart blacksmith and carpenter itched to put
his tools to work; they scrambled to replace the gins that had been
destroyed in the factory fire. Three men near Wrightboro, one of
whom was Edward Lyon, offered an "improved" gin for sale: in-
stead of wire prongs, they used saw-toothed iron discs. Joseph Eve
hurried from the Bahamas to Augusta to take out patent rights for
his own roller gin, and a local mechanic, Thomas Spaulding, offered
to make the Eve gin for fifty guineas. Other workmen associated with
Eve made other roller gins, all incorporating an "improvement" to
cope with the green-seed cotton. William Longstreet, who had dis-
tinguished himself by building a steamboat before Fulton, had moved
from New Jersey to Augusta and already had taken out a Georgia
patent on a roller-type gin for the long-staple sea-island cotton.
Longstreet's main interest was in applying steam power to the gin-
ning machines; in time he actually installed a few engines in
ginneries. Whitney's invention let loose a swarm of would-be in-
ventors; the confusion was complete when Robert Watkins assailed
Longstreet for infringing on his roller-gin patent and offered gins
at less than half Longstreet's price. Belatedly, in May, 1796, Hodgen
Holmes obtained a Georgia patent for a saw gin. In the rush of in-
vention and improvement, of state patents and federal patents, a dis-
tinction was made between Whitney's gin and the saw gin. It
obscured the fact that functionally the two were identical; the
difference was one of material and design.

The struggle came into the open in the spring of 1795, when Miller
publicly called upon the planters to stop their illegal ginning; and
in the long, bitter fight that followed two names became associated
with the two lands of attempted infringements Edward Lyon and
Hodgen Holmes. The first notice, "A Caution,** directed to those
using machines made by Lyon, advised them that if they were tres-

1 14 The World of Eli Whitney

passing innocently they had but to desist and "deliver up the ma-
chines" and they would not be prosecuted. The second was intended
for those using Holmes's saw gin, since to the same warning, re-
assurance was added that Miller & Whitney "will ever be willing
to afford the most ample encouragement to any person who will make
appear that they have any real improvement on their machine."

Lyon and Holmes were real men, but they have become names,
names that are the archetypes of the two kinds of attack made on
the patent Folklore has busily embroidered details, giving a cun-
ning purpose to Lyon, a certain talent to Holmes. Lyon it has often
been repeated eager to see Whitney's invention, disguised himself
in women's clothes and so gained access to the guarded ginning
room. As Miller told Lyon's story, the disguise is pure fiction added
at a later time; and there is every reason to believe Miller's facts,

"In the Fall of 1793," Miller explained to the lawyer who was
handling the partners' suit against Lyon, "this Lyon obtained from
Major Forsyth a letter of introduction to our P. Miller (which will
be brought forward as an exhibit to the Court) and came down
from Golphinton for the express purpose of seeing our Gin, that
he might erect one on the same construction. His rubel [sic] pre-
tensions having disagreed with the communication of Major For-
syth's letter his request of seeing the Gin was not complyed with.
When he found himself disappointed in this respect he made en-
quiry of several people in Savannah respecting the principle and
mode of construction. But not obtaining information sufficiently
satisfactory on the subject, he afterwards went to Augusta, where
he found an ingenious mechanic by the name of Tyler who could
give him the most correct description of every part of the Machine,
as Mr. Tyler had taken great pains to acquire this knowledge of
several persons who had seen the Machine and particularly from
Mr. Longstreet who had spent three or four days at Mulberry
Grove in making his examination of its principles, construction and
operation. After having been thus informed Lyon proceeded to con-
struct gins and put them to work in different parts of the Country
and had the vanity to say that he had made improvements on our
Machines." Here the name was Lyon, the instance specific; but the

The Battle for the Patent

trespass, as the Minutes of the Circuit Court for Georgia give strict
evidence, applied to many others. *

The story of Holmes and his threat to the patentees is soon told;
it is worth examining because apologists have claimed for Holmes
the honor of inventing the cotton gin itself, while many have
credited him with having designed the saw gin, the variant of
Whitney's machine that gained general acceptance. Again, by Mil-
ler (who was not seeking to argue this point) the true Holmes is
presented and his role clearly described. "It was soon found on
experience that the teeth cut in circular plates could be made by an
ordinary Smith, and the machine be put together by a Common Car-
penter. ... If any credit be due to anyone for introducing into
common use this particular variation in the Saw Gin & thereby con-
tributing to deprive the Patentees of the immediate profit of their
invention, it is to the ingenuity of Mr. William Longstreet of Augusta,
who conversed with me fully on the subject of the invention soon
after it was brought into use, & whose candour as well as Mechanical
Talents is too great to allow him to claim any merit or reward for
opposing the prevailing opinion of the inventor in this particular."

Obviously, Longstreet, for whom both partners had respect, when
shown Whitney's invention had suggested that by using saws instead
of wire hooks the machine could be produced more cheaply and
easily and its efficiency made greater; but Whitney favored wire
hooks because the saws, by "their unyielding firmness would also
force through the breast work any bunches or lumps of the Cotton
which by damp weather, or foul particles, should have a tendency
to clog the Machines [Holmes himself blunted the saws so as not to
tear the lint.]. . . . On these & other accounts he preferred a less
degree of dispatch accompanied with other superior advantages in
the use of Wire teeth set in wood, to work through a Breast work
of composition metal.'* Miller's pride in his partner's superior work-
manship glows in the gratuitous statement that "among all those
Mechanics who have claimed merit for their ingenuity in executing
clumsy models of his invention no one, as I can learn, has attempted
such a Breast work."
Whitney's insistence on wire hooks was not due to false pride his

116 The World of Eli Whitney

original sketch, he himself said, pictured "a whole row of teeth upon
a piece of metal to make them out of sheet iron. . . . [But] not
being able to procure sheet Iron or sheets of tinned plates I had
recourse to wire to make the teeth from necessity . . . one of the

A MODEL OF THE COTTON GIN OPEN

Miss Greenes had brong [sic] out a coile of iron wire to make a bird
cage & being embarrassed for want of sheet iron & seeing this wire
hung in the parlor, it struck me that I could make teeth with that."
Wire teeth, used in the first instance out of necessity, remained
Whitney's choice they separated the fiber from the seed with
greater precision.

By themselves, the Lyon and Holmes trespasses would not have
made the partners prey to "Debts, and claims, and "dread of ruin/'

The Battle for the Patent

but like a debilitating disease they prepared the way for secondary
attacks. It is a moot point wKich of the several factors was most
pernicious the competition from infringing machines, the credit
situation, or the British spinners' hesitancy in accepting the upland
cotton. Combined, their onslaught must have been fatal had the
partners been less able to adapt themselves to each new situation,
less resilient when almost crushed. From the beginning the danger
in all three situations was surveyed and, as far as possible, eliminated.
While their enterprise was still in the planning stage, Whitney and
Miller knew that because no spinners had used the short-staple
cotton, the new crop might present difficulties, since the fiber dif-
fered from the long-staple varieties for which the jennies and water
frames were geared. It would require the British spinners to make
slight adjustments for the shorter fiber to the spindles and rollers.

The partners' original schedule recognized that the need to prepare
the way for the new cotton was basic and urgent: Whitney planned
to visit the leading British mills immediately after he had delivered
the first set of gins. Edmund Randolph, Secretary of State, issued a
passport to him a few days after he had received his patent (March
17, 1794). Was this trip postponed because he suffered an attack of
"Georgia fever" while supervising the installation of the Mulberry
Grove ginnery? And, at the moment when the planters "were run-
ning mad" for gins, did the question of their cotton's reception in
England seem academic? Did they decide that Whitney must hurry
back to New Haven to speed production? A few months after return-
ing to his factory, he told his father that it "does not appear likely
to me at present that I shall go [to England] before spring, if at all.
My business in this Country must be my first object and I must take
particular care that it is carried on in a proper manner."

Had Whitney gone to England, anguish and financial distress
might have been spared him. When the bales of upland cotton ar-
rived at Liverpool, the spinners as had been anticipated were
reluctant to purchase them because of the difference in length of
fiber. This difference, slight yet real, made the cotton strange, per-
plexing; it presented technical problems in the accustomed pro-
cedure. There the matter might have rested, awaiting the interest
of the spinners in this new source to prod them to experiment;

118 The World of Eli Whitney

slowly, steadily, the inertia would have been overcome and upland
cotton would have found its market.

But this natural tempo was violently jarred. The planters, fretting
under the intolerable restrictions of the patent, grabbing at anything
with which to wound Miller & Whitney, deliberately twisted the
reluctance and inertia into a vicious weapon. Not content with using
surreptitious gins, they extended their war of attrition to deprive
Miller & Whitney of its market for ginned cotton. The planters
whispered and their words carried across the Atlantic and the echo
came back to Georgia that the patent gin ruined the cotton fiber.
Thus the reluctance of the British spinners was transformed into
suspicion, and abroad as at home the partners found themselves
seriously jeopardized. Miller frantically wrote to Whitney when he
first felt the effects: "This stroke of misfortune is much heavier than
that of the fire, unless the impression is immediately removed. For
with that which now governs the public mind on the subject, our
patent would be worth extremely little. Everyone is afraid of the
cotton. Not a purchaser in Savannah [brokers] will pay full price
for it. Even the merchants with whom I have made a contract for
purchasing, begin to part with their money reluctantly/*

News of the calculated lie reached Whitney during the hard
months when he was rebuilding and replacing what he had lost when
his workshop burned. The evil rumor struck particularly at his pride
as inventor, since the planters had been careful not to disparage
machine-ginned cotton certainly not their own cotton cleaned by
their own crudely made gins. Only the Miller & Whitney gin, they
declared, hurt the fiber. Immediately, he set out to counteract their
slander. "I have procured Certificates from the Cotton Manufacturers
[of New Haven], that cotton cleaned with my Machine is worth
at least two pence pr pound more than Cotton cleaned any other
way," he wrote to his father at the beginning of November, 1795,
and the certificates were published in full in the Georgia Gazette
that month. Given by Abel Buel, "Superintendent and Proprietor
of a cotton manufactory in New Haven" and two of his superin-
tendents, men who stressed their English training, they bore witness
that Whitney's patent machine "doth not in any way or manner injure
the staple of the cotton . . . that said cotton spins well, makes a

The Battle for the Patent

strong thread, and requires one operation less in manufacturing than
cotton which is ginned in the usual way," and that therefore they
were prepared to pay two cents a pound more for cotton ginned by
Whitney's machine.

Whitney then tried to account for the British reaction. Their self-
interest did not require them to cling to the lie; then why, he won-
dered, did they continue to grumble? He was forced to conclude
that "the cotton which the English manufacturers complain of must
have been naturally bad. The little knotts . . . are knotts which
nature has made and not the Gin . . . [and] our last machines take
the most of them out. You will always find the cotton which contains
these knotts, short and of an imperfect growth. Out of the five
hundred Wt of Cotton, of our cleaning, which has been manufac-
tured by our manufacturers here, one hundred Wt was very full of
these knotts, and they complained of it very much; but were never so
stupid as to suppose that these knotts were made by the machine in
cleaning. ... I think you [Miller] will be able to convince the
candid that this is quite a mistaken notion and them that will not
believe, may be damn'd." And then, to fortify his partner, he added,
"I have had several pressing applications from Proprietors of the
Connecticut Cotton manufactory for one of our Machines, to pass
all their cotton through, in lieu of beating, and have promised to
make them one as soon as leasure permits." The textile mills in New
England bought Miller & Whitney cotton unfortunately, their
support was negligible in the world market.

Miller's letters spell out the mounting injury inflicted on them by
the British prejudice. And always he has but one solution Whitney
must go to England. Like a refrain, in his correspondence with
managers, creditors, and lawyers, are the words, "Our Mr. Whitney
is expected shortly to sail for England." Whitney was kept in a
flurry of imminent embarkation. The year 1795 ended with Miller
advising him to "prepare everything for your departure for England
very early in the spring. . . . Our justification in the opinion of the
English is indispensible to our safety. The utmost stretch of my
capital will not be equal to meet the expenses of another year unless
this Difficulty is removed and we have even now trespassed very
largely on the funds of the estate of Genl. Greene,"

The World of Eli Whitney

All during 1796 Whitney was on the verge of leaving: he almost
engaged passage on the Ganges, "a prodigiously fine strong ship with
excellent accomodation," sailing the end of July; in December he
was so certain of going that he offered Stebbins "one hundred and
fifty dollars for the first year if you will come and assist my Brother
in the management of our business"; but two weeks later he with-
drew the offer and confessed that "disappointment, my constant
attendant, has thrown that business back into the same uncertain
situation it was when I saw you last,"

During 1796 Miller kept writing frantically; perplexity, fear, and
even doubts assailed him. If their cotton "should bear the final test of
the English factories, we shall struggle through all other difficulties.
But if it should be condemned by them we must be ruined. . . . Let
us know the truth & the whole truth. ... I am tired out & my
patience quite exhausted in the refutation of the various species of
false opinion to which these reports of our breaking the staple of
the cotton have given rise. Let us only have a market where our
cotton will sell at an equal price with any other & then they may
talk until their lungs are exhausted." Vainly Miller offered to pay
30 per cent interest if he could but borrow $1,000 for Whitney's ex-
penses the gesture of a desperate man,

Whitney never did go to England. Now he was not detained by
illness or business pressures; the unpleasant fact was that Miller &
Whitney could not raise enough cash to pay his expenses. "The
process of Patent Ginning is now quite at a stand and I hear very
little of it excepting the condolence of a few real friends who express
their regret that so promising an invention has entirely failed."
Miller's sad words sound with the finality of an obituary; the
poisoned rumors of the planters had found their mark.

Or so it must have seemed as 1796 came to a close. How brief had
been their bright hopes! The only alternative now left was to sue.
Just before the year was out, to save the stricken business from
death, he decided to start the lengthy and uncertain remedy of legal
redress. Energetically he instructed his managers to collect the
"names of such persons as are setting up Gins on the construction of
ours ... in order to enable us to commence suits against them pre-
vious to the next court."

The Battle for the Patent

The suits (brought against the Lyon group) were expected to do
more than halt their trespass. The partners felt that they could stay
in business only if they fought for their rights; that soon British
spinners, alert to their own interests, would cease to be guided by
slander and accept their patent-ginned cotton on equal terms.

Faith that they would eventually be able to sell in the world
market armed Miller as he haled the trespassers into court, trying
meanwhile by letters to urge a few British mills to test samples of his
cotton. In particular Miller calculated that the damages collected
from the trespassers would help repair their credit. So convinced
was he of a victory in the courtroom, and of collecting treble the
damage sustained, that he counted on this success to make good his
heavy mortgaging of Greene property. To safeguard Catherine's
position as executrix, he had deeded her two ginnery sites, but even
that had not prevented the loss of some property. "I have been re-
duced to the cruel & mortifying necessity of appropriating the prop-
erty of the Estate to prevent this Bankruptcy from becoming public.
In consequence of which a Plantation belonging to the Estate of
General Greene in Carolina will this spring be sold for half its value.
Some extra compensation must be drawn from our profits should
they ever arrive to meet this loss." (In 1802 Miller had the satisfac-
tion of knowing that as the Greene estate had saved Miller & Whit-
ney, so the latter, in its turn, played a helpful part in the estate
finances. ) Miller wanted to remind Whitney how deep was their de-
pendence on Catherine and how much he had staked on the outcome
of the trial.

But the trial proved even more disastrous to Miller & Whitney
than the fire had been. Lyon was "vindicated," and the adverse de-
cision sanctioned the trespass in the eyes of the whole countryside.

Relating the particulars, Miller wrote to Whitney: "The event of
the first Patent suit after all our exertions made in such a variety of
ways has gone against us ... the imperfections of the Patent Law
frustrated all our views and disappointed expectations which had
become very sanguine." His letter dated May 11, 1797, was written
ten days after their stunning defeat. Poor Miller, he badly needed a
little time to catcfr his breath.

"We had the Judge with a Party to dine with us twice before the

The World of Eli Whitney

trial came on and got him fully prepared to enter into the merits
of the case. We had also got the tide of popular opinion running in
our favor and many decided friends who adhered firmly to our cause
and interest. Added to this we got the trial brought on, against every
measure they could devise for postponement and found them per-
fectly unprepared as to a knowledge of the strong grounds of their
cause and without a single evidence in their favor. We were on the
contrary pretty well prepared and neglected no means to become
as much so as possible." As an instance of their exertion, he relates
how while the court was in session they missed an important paper
that had been left at home, how Catherine's son-in-law, "Mr. Night-
ingale immediately mounted my best horse, in the middle of a
very hot day, came to this place [Mulberry Grove], examined my
chest &c and after a search of nearly half an hour, laid his hand on
the paper, remounted his horse, on the way back met a fresh horse
I had sent out for his relief; and returned to the Court House in
just two hours and forty minutes from the time he had left it the
paper came in time to procure admittance to the evidence we had
brought . . . The Judge gave a charge most pointedly in our favor,
after which the Defendent himself told an acquaintance he would
give two thousand dollars to be free from the verdict and yet the
jury gave it against us after a consultation of about an hour. . . . We
applied for a new trial, but the judge refused it to us inasmuch as
that the Jury might have made up their opinion on the fact of the
law which states an aggression to consist of making devising and
using, or selling, and we could only charge the defendents with
using. In a private conversation had with the Judge afterwards, he
told me we could have no hope of protecting our Patent rights with-
out an alteration of the law, which he had no doubt but Congress
would make for us, on application. Thus after four years of assiduous
labour fatigue and difficulty, we are again set afloat by a new and
most unexpected obstacle/*

Simeon Baldwin, Whitney's lawyer and close friend, recalling the
legal aspects of the trial, said: "The first act relative to Patents . . .
provided among other things that if any person shall devise, make
construct, use, employ or vend any patented machifie^&c they shall

The Battle for the Patent

incur the penalty provided &c. This act was repealed by the more
extended act of Febr, 1793 in which the clause prohibiting the in-
fringement of patented rights is thus worded If any person shall
make, devise, and use or sell the thing so invented &c/ This act re-
mained in force until it was revised and extended by the Act of April
1800 by which the penalty was attached to any person who shall
make, devise, use, or sell the thing patented; the section of the former
act by which the penalty was attached to making and using was re-
pealed. Mr. Whitney spent much of the winter of 1800 at the seat of
Govt & was instrumental in obtaining the alteration. Mr. Whitney
has often told me when conversing on this subject that this unfor-
tunate but unintentional wording of the statute of 1793 by using the
word and instead of or-, make & use instead of make or use, was at-
tended with incalculable mischief to him." *

^f Obstacle," in Miller's lexicon, gradually reveals itself to be a mix-
ture of deceit, conspiracy, and wholesale defiance concocted by the
Georgia planters. His emotions were keyed to grave tones. Thus he
was amazed- not shocked, not outraged at the effrontery of a man
who installed a gin in "a covert and secret manner in the very Town
and in the very same street of the town" where Miller & Whitney
operated a ginnery; he was indignant not wrathful, not infuriated
when confronted with a situation in which "the people of this state
openly declare that they will defy the power of the Federal Laws
, . . and make no secret of their means of safety in such defiance."
Whatever the tenor of his reactions, his resolution did not admit that
because the people of Georgia aligned themselves against him he
was outnumbered and should surrender. If he did not cry out against
his tribulations, neither did he judge, them insurmountable. "As to the
threat of the people of Carolina that no lawyer dare commence a
suit in their country, I consider it in the same point of view as the
threat which you mentioned to have been given out in the Upper
country of this state, that I should be stoned thro' the streets if I per-
sisted to enforce suits against the trespassers. I must say I never ex-

* "A fate of a public policy hangs on the validity of an act; an act awaits the
judgement in a case; a case turns upon the boundaries of a word. This is the way
of tne law." (Hamilton and Adair)

World of Eli Whitney

perienced from them the smallest rudeness whatever and if there
are threats thrown out for the purpose of intimidating, it is never
contemplated to carry them into effect/'

There is bravery in Miller's presence in court, session after session,
intent on submitting proper legal evidence that rival gins were being
worked, while the very din they made invaded the courtroom and
mocked the proceedings. Writing influential senators to enlist their
aid in correcting the Patent Act, Miller reveals the simple foolproof
method by which the Georgia planters safeguarded their defiance:
"They procure a machine and immediately put it into the second
story of a building, to which they give admittance to no person but
their own Slaves, whose testimony cannot be produced in Court."
Slaves, he reminded them, according to the 'laws of the Southern
states make incompetent witnesses in a Court of Justice: hence it
comes to pass that a Man shall with Impunity work a Machine in
defiance of Patent rights and all the ordinary provisions of the Law.
From all the different works & operations white men are to be care-
fully excluded which in many cases is not at all difficult; it then be-
comes impossible formally to prove in a Court of Justice facts which
may be indubitably known to a whole neighborhood.*'

Each new obstacle raised by the Lyon group brought forth the
same response from Miller. Steadfastly he pressed forward in his
determination "to vindicate our exclusive privilege to the use of
teeth and brushes in ginning cotton under the Patent Law." When
his lawyer suggested the futility of trying a case before a jury at
Augusta, "where the general interest is against me," Miller estab-
lished this hostility as a fact that was to win him friends in other
southern states and in Congress.

He was fighting, as he and Whitney saw it, for a principle to pre-
serve the sacred rights of private property. He was not asking a jot
more than his due. "I am well aware that much obloquy has been
attempted to be thrown on the principle, as \\tell as the practice of
exercising exclusive rights under the authority of Patents And to
give plausibility to such attempts, the justly obnoxious epithet of
monopoly (as applied to the forced limitation of a general right) has
been constantly misapplied. It is not the use of any general privilege
which we would confine to ourselves, but the right of managing as

The Battle for the Patent

we please our own property, a property which can be rendered use-
ful to us in no other way than by sharing its benefits in some stipu-
lated proportion with other members of the community." Realistically
he evaluated the way in which the ginning rights had been distorted
and smeared in men's minds. "Politicians of the day, who have
thought to enhance their favour with the people . . . have encour-
aged their trespass by crying out against monopolies, as leading di-
rectly to Aristocracy. The effect of this popular clamour was much
extended by the direct dependence we were known to have on the
Federal Government for the protection of a property which had been
created by their legislative Acts/'

At the beginning he protested; later he was content merely to sue;
season after season the list of defendants was enlarged, though the
main offender was still Lyon. "It is my particular wish that suits
should continue against several of the most bold & presuming in-
truders and . . . among the most proper & promising candidates for
such Prosecution we believe are the following: Henry Chambers
of Greene County, for making, devising & using; Capt John Hunton,
Wilkes County, for devising & using only; James Hutchinson, Rich-
mond County, for selling to others to use." One by one they were
discovered, their trespasses analyzed, and suit started. There were
many others. Folklore has remembered them all simply as Lyon,
since in practice and purpose they were alike.

To procure cash while the legal battle was being readied, Miller
engaged in outside ventures. He salted beef and pork for shipment
"to the Northward markets"; he offered to sell Miller & Whitney's
interest in the Rocky Creek ginnery to, their manager for a small
amount of cash; he sought to utilize their water-power installation to
run a sawmill "besides the. Cotton Ginning"; he negotiated for $10,-
ooo by offering a third interest in the firm itself^he even tried to
defray the current expenses of a ginnery by stud fees. "The Jack mule
is to stand at the Mills under your care for the Season. His price, I
think had better be six dollars, but if you think he will bring eight,
you may ask that." Sensible or bizarre, most of the subsidiary enter-
prises came to naught. He was reconciled to the mule's health T>eing
so low as to induce us to suspend our intentions of advertising him
this season." He was chagrined that the prospective partner not only

The World of Eli Whitney

lacked the purchase price but that notes Miller drew on him re-
mained unpaid "to the total ruin of my private credit & accumulating
embarrassment of all our Affairs."

Immediately the Lyon victory made it brutally clear that Miller
& Whitney faced a long struggle. Miller hired Russell Goodrich, a
former classmate from Yale a man "sensible, honest 6- prudent"
to go "to Knoxville where we were informed that Cotton was saleable
& make such inquiries as appeared . . . most judicious on the sub-
ject. From whence he was to proceed to Nashville & the Cumberland
Settlements . . . from there he was to proceed to Kentucky on the
same business & then return by the back parts of Virginia for the
purpose of looking for an inland market for the consumption of cot-
ton of our ginning. [The British still were reluctant to buy.] If he
should meet with any encouragement in these pursuits we shall come
into some agreement for his future exertions in our business but if
not he is to lose his time & even his travelling expences."

Goodrich's reconnaissance showed that Miller read his defeat in
strictly local terms: "I have just received information that there are
now at work 300 of Lyon's Gins in the Upper Country." He did not
despair of their patent, merely of trying to enforce it in Georgia.
Though neither man made money from the trip "instead of the
large profits, we must now content ourselves to divide the loss"
Goodrich's enterprise and heart-warming allegiance to Miller &
Whitney's interests earned him Miller's trust. Had he not joined
them at their darkest moment and invested his time and traveling
expenses? Miller expressed his gratitude when he introduced Good-
rich to his partner: "Every day's experience confirms my belief that
the number of persons who deserve our entire esteem & confidence
is very small and I am gratified that your knowledge of each other
will add an unit to so limited and interesting a selection."

Already, as 1798 came to an end, an idea was forming in Miller's
resourceful mind. He was writing finis to a whole series of plans
when he notified a Liverpool concern that "we shall clean but little
cotton, untill we find better security from the Government We have
gins sufficient to clean a million of pounds of cotton pr Annum, but
shall scarcely work them this year." He had begun to think along bold
new lines when he informed Whitney that "1 fear we shall be com-

The Battle for the Patent

pelled to sell the privilege without selling our machines. The people
of the back country almost uniformly prefer making their own gins
to using ours. ... At the most I do not think it probable we can sell
more than twenty or thirty of x>ur machines in the southern States.
. . . The prospect of making anything by ginning on toll in this state
is at an end. Surreptitious Gins are erected in every part of the coun-
try. ... I am just now making out of a kind of Certificate which I
shall have handsomely printed to confirm our exclusive right to in-
dividual machines which we dispose of the right of using."

Already the decision had been reached reluctantly he had re-
worked the policy of Miller & Whitney and was willing "to sell or
hire out our Gins or the right of ginning with such gins as any per-
son may chuse to construct for themselves on our principles." He
was ready to recognize the existence of the surreptitious gins and to
legitimize them. His price schedule for the licenses was realistic and
modest, for he had become convinced, in talking with Goodrich, that
"the reservation of so large a portion to ourselves has greatly in-
creased the difficulty of enforcing the patent." Miller saw how he
might get out of the old untenable position: "I have no doubt but
that measure . . . were well calculated to promote our interest; if
the sales for the whole term [of the patent] could be made in any
considerable number the result would prove very beneficial both
to you & us. Even renting for a year, as you very justly observe, will
be a beginning to turn the stream which is certainly more easy to
divert than to stop when once fairly in motion."

Arms for the Government

THE almost total devastation inflicted early on
Miller & Whitney evoked different responses

in the partners. Miller knew acute despair and anxiety, but his ef-
forts proved his dedication; from the end of 1795 until his death
he stayed in the arena fighting. If Whitney lacked Miller's staying
power, the causes are not hard to find. Because his commitment to
Miller & Whitney was complete, the frustration and hostility it en-
countered created for him an unbearably oppressive situation.

To Miller, the ginning concern was but one of many enterprises.
He reminded Whitney, restating the gist of their agreement, that
in the articles of copartnership he had only pledged his credit "for
such sums of money as we should require to borrow," and further
limited his participation to "such advances as my other concerns
would allow of; finally, he had obligated himself merely to "devote
such a portion of my time as the Business of putting up and working
the machines should require." Miller, through the management of
the Greene estate, was involved in a continuous round of small quick
deals; he also had the opportunities to take on, with some partners,
a few sizable, extended ventures. Of these his most ambitious was
the ginning business with Whitney. Another, with Catherine's son-
in-law Nightingale, was his Yazoo speculation; a third, undertaken
with Josiah, Whitney's brother, was a slaughtering business; and a
fourth, also with Josiah, of later date, was a Navy contract for fur-
nishing live oak to northern shipyards.* With so many irons in the
fire he could be philosophical about Miller & Whitney's reverses. His

* "A piece of the live oak sent to Boston . . . has been made use of in re-
pairing of the frigate Constitution/*

188

Arms for the Government

militancy was inspired by the wish to safeguard his business and
social position and to be worthy of Catherine Greene and the Greene
children. He stood happily in the center of the pleasant sociable stir
that made Mulberry Grove famous for its hospitality and filled the
thirty rooms of Dungeness.

And Whitney? His brain child had dominated every facet of his
life from the time when "we undertook to render valuable an in-
terest arising from the efforts of your genius & my patronage." How
well that word, used thus by Miller, defined the inequality of their
positions! And there was little need for Miller to recall that Whitney
had agreed that his "whole time and talents should be devoted to
improving, perfecting, & constructing the machines," Engrossed by
his work, Whitney had no other interests nor activities, and no home
but his workshop. Fame could not fill his heart with its capacity for
affection, nor could manufacturing gins long satisfy his active mind.
His faith in his ability to achieve had been assured him by the im-
portance of his invention; it had been reassured by his quick ability
to repair the loss sustained by the fire, Whitney must have been
gratified when the New Haven community honored him. On Sep-
tember gth, 1795, in the Yale commencement procession led by
Timothy Dwight, the newly installed president, Whitney walked
with those on whom the degree of Master of Arts was to be con-
ferred. This degree had not been earned by additional study; rather,
it expressed his Alma Mater's approval of his exemplary conduct for
three successive, post-graduate years. In this manner, respectable
behavior received recognition.

Thus, when later that fall Miller, on a trip to New Haven, frankly
admitted that "no immediate employment can be obtained for the
machines,!* Whitney was suddenly confronted with the threatened
loss of work and purpose, hope and prestige.

The despair into which he was plunged could have been oc-
casioned by nothing less than a powerfully thwarted emotion. By
itself the stricken condition of Miller & Whitney would not account
for the anxious gloom that possessed him during the next two years.
Such a prolonged reaction implies causes that are deep and have
become fastened over time. It is possible, sometimes, to piece odds
and ends together to make a garment possible, though never as

ISO The World of Eli Whitney

satisfactory as cutting the parts out of whole cloth; and yet, to ap-
preciate certain aspects of Whitney's nature, surmise becomes neces-
sary. And so, out of a few facts, known reactions, and the personalities
involved, an explanation can be tailored.

Three years before, when Whitney wrote to Stebbins a few days
after his arrival at Mulberry Grove, imbedded in his factual report
was a hooded sentence, precise in tone, its wording vague. *1 find
myself in a new natural world and as for the moral world I believe it
does not extend so far south." Something was troubling Whitney,
something he dared not put into words. What, or whom, was he cen-
suring? In the few weeks since he had joined Mrs. Greene and her
party, had he become aware of a strange ease that lay between
Catherine and Miller? He would have been reluctant to find fault:
he was grateful to have been welcomed into the family circle; he was
charmed by Catherine and pleased to find Miller congenial; he was
impressed by the splendor of Mulberry Grove. But at the same time
he felt the need to pass judgment; he was shocked, puzzled. What,
he must have asked himself, was Miller's real position in the family?
In a hundred small gestures, in tones of voice, in the attitude of the
children, it must have been apparent that between Catherine Greene
and Phineas Miller there was a strong, well established tie. Such
conduct would have shaken the deep respect Whitney gave General
Greene's widow. And it would be hard to believe that Catherine,
responsive to people's sensibilities as to their capacities, did not
perceive her new friend's attitude and tell him, soon, quite simply
what there was to tell.

Almost a year before, in August, 1791, a marriage settlement had
taken place between Catherine Greene and Phineas Miller he was
eleven years her junior- by which he renounced all claims to her
property so as not to disturb the Greene estate. The paper recorded
in the county courthouse also stated that a marriage was soon to
take place. In the following years veiled references are scattered in
letters written by Miller, Catherine, and Whitney. But the facts are
so few they do not serve as guides; they are pegs whereon to hang
questions. Was this paper, legally phrased but awaiting implementa-
tion by marriage, legal benediction to a long-standing, unsanctioned
relationship? Then why did they delay? It is hard to believe that

Arms for the Government

their disparity in ages made it more seemly to maintain secrecy or
that Miller would have felt the necessity of achieving financial in-
dependence before publicly assuming control of Greene's estate. Was
the marriage postponed because Catherine was loath to relinquish
being Mrs. Nathanael Greene? (Had not Washington himself made
a special point of calling on her to ask her "how she did"?) Or was it
delayed because she needed the help of Greene's friends and as his
widow commanded more of their efforts than she would have as
Miller's wife? The motivating reasons can be only surmised; the
reticence they themselves showed still conceals the full answers.

According to Puritan standards Whitney should have called a
spade a spade arid fled. Yet he accepted the unconventional rela-
tionship and returned to Mulberry Grove, relinquishing the posi-
tion at Major Dupont's. Could he have stayed on with Catherine
and Miller for six months simply to construct a machine that might
make his fame and success? Or was his invention a reason he could
accept and his return to Mulberry Grove permitted because his emo-
tions had been so deeply stirred as to recast his responses? From the
first, Whitney had been deeply attracted to Catherine; if it was
love, he never admitted it. The picture he must have had was of
two young men, of almost the same age, embarked on a brilliant and
promising enterprise, united in friendship with a delightful, intelli-
gent woman, older and warmhearted, to whom both were devoted.

One is forced to hazard the further guess that when Miller, in the
fall of 1795, explained the serious condition of Miller & Whitney,
he also told his partner the plans for his marriage to Catherine. (They
were married the following spring, on May 31, 1796, in Philadelphia;
the marriage settlement was sworn to and entered in Georgia on April
5, 1799.) It may well have been discussed as part of the business
arrangements, as a way to give legality to Miller's using the Greene
estate funds to finance Miller & Whitney. If for three years Whitney
had been bracketing himself with Miller, could he suddenly step
aside and accept the differences his relationship to them would now
have? He knew what would be the rich texture of Miller's life as
Catherine's husband; he knew too well how for all his superior gifts
his own would continue bare, bleak. What is more likely than that,
possessed by self-pity, he fastened his unhappiness on the one en-

The World of Eli Whitney

gagement Miller had undertaken of which he could express disap-
proval Yazoo?

Neither reason nor sense drove Whitney to complain of Miller's
Yazoo speculation. Had sense or reason prompted his behavior, he
might, with equal propriety, have protested the time and money
Miller was spending on his other transactions such as the one with
Whitney's brother Josiah. It was the gesture of a man deeply dis-
turbed that made him suggest (in the very next breath), that his
partnership with Miller in the ginning business automatically gave
him the right to a half-interest in Miller's Yazoo gamble. Whitney's
letter presenting this "most unexpected & extraordinary demand" is
missing; his attitude and arguments can only be conjectured from
Miller's answer. That long reply shows the acute state of Whitney's
discontent. "Permit me, my good friend," Miller said pointedly, "to
ask you one simple question on the subject. Suppose my specula-
tions should happen to fail on what person would you direct me
to call on for half my loan? This is an indispensible condition of all
speculations." The subject was never again mentioned, but that it
continued painful is implicit in Whitney's insistence, almost twenty-
five years later, on collecting damages for the harm he was persuaded
Miller had done the partnership.

In the succeeding months Whitney's despair increased; the letters
written then confirm a dark constancy of mood. "This day has been
spent thro' Connecticut in giving Thanks, talking and preaching
Politicks, sleighing, dancing, laughing, eating Purafczn-Pie, Grinding
Salt, Kissing the Girls, &c. &c." But he was alone, alone in his rented
room, after having dined at the home of Elizur Goodrich, his old
tutor, when he wrote to Stebbins a few days before Christmas, 1796.
The gay sociability of the season sounded all around him, but merri-
ment could not cross the threshold of his loneliness. "As for myself,
(this day) has been spent mostly in that kind of anxious solicitude
with which I have for some time been encumbered."

The months dragged on. To Miller he itemized his fears and wor-
ries, but Miller was powerless to do anything but console. Miller
was "much distressed at the embarrassments which you are com-
pelled to sustain to keep alive the little credit we may still have re-

Arms for the Government IS 3

maining at New Haven," Or he was "quite uncertain what we ought
to do relative to continuing the workmen you have now in employ-
ment. It may be attended with many inconveniences to discharge
them, but if you could find them some temporary employment which
would be bringing in a profit for a few months, I do not know but
it would be well/' In September, 1797, when Miller learned how
desperate Whitney was for cash, he still regretted "that I can furnish
you with no other aid than that of sympathy." There was no use
asking Miller for help.

The crisis, so long dreaded, had come. He had to meet it alone.
His sense of abandonment and failure was magnified by the crowds
of jubilant students who took over New Haven for commencement
week. "I am mortified, sorry and ashamed beyond description" so
he excused himself jto Stebbins. "All the apology I can make is my
extreme embarrassment. On Tuesday last I was obliged to pay 980
Dollars, a part of which was to be raised. I knew not how, nor where,
untill the D^y on which it fell Due. This embarrassment mixed with
and succeeded by the bustle of commencement together with the
load of anxiety which has lain so long and so heavily upon my mind"
made him oblivious of everything. He confessed his perturbation,
his confusion: "I can write you nothing concerning my own affairs
because I know nothing about them, myself. To be or not to be* is a
question which I cannot decide. All is doubt and uncertainty."

As an aching fester slowly becomes an angry circle when the
particles of decay and dissatisfaction separate themselves from
what had been a bodily malaise, contract, and then burst, so Whit-
ney's anguish at last broke through the barriers of his habitual
reticence. His letter to Miller on October 7, 1797, is a terrifying,
heartbreaking act of emotional catharsis. "The extreme embarrass-
ments which have been for a long time accumulating upon me are
now become so great that it will be impossible for me to struggle
against them many days longer. It has required my utmost exersions
to exist without making the least progress in our business. I have
labored hard against the strong current of Disappointment which
has been threatening to carry us down the Cataract of distinction
but I have labored with a shattered oar and struggled in vain unless

The World of Eli Whitney

some speedy relief is obtained." Briefly he framed the cause of his
unhappiness; and if his phrases do not wear modern dress, his anguish
does.

He was thirty-two, intelligent, fiercely ambitious, and proud. In
his heart the fear of failure, the doom of loneliness became inextrica-
bly mixed. "I am now quite far enough advanced to think seriously
of settling in lif e. I have ever looked forward with pleasure to a con-
nection with an amiable & virtuous companion of the other sex. It
is a source from whence I have expected one Day or other to Derive
much satisfaction & rational enjoyment. I would not be understood
that I have, or have ever had any particular person in view pointed
attachment of this kind I have studiously avoided, because I have
never been in circumstances that would allow me to enter into such
a connection. The situation of our affairs fojr three or four years has
been such as made it necessary that I should hold myself in readiness
free from any embarrassment, to go into foreign Countries for the
promotion of our mutual interest. You have yourself several times
-expressed to me your apprehensions that I should get married and
by that means be prevented from prosecuting our business in the
way which appeared most advantageous. The accomplishment of
rny tour to Europe and the realization of something which I can call
my own appear to be absolutely necessary before it will be admis-
sable to even think of Matrimony. Three years have already elapsed
since the former of these was to have begun & in that case it would
have been finished before this time. There is a greater prospect now
that it will be delayed three years longer. . . . Life is too short at
best and six or seven years out of the midst of it is to him who makes
it, an immense sacrafice. My most unremitted attention has been
directed to our business. I have sacraficed to it other objects from
which, before this time, I certainly might have realized 20, or 30,
Thousand Dollars. My whole & sole prospects have entered in it,
with an expectation that I should er'e this time have realized some-
thing from it."

He reminded Miller that he had married, had "estates, separate
from this to which you can look for support, and, tho' you are under
some temporary embarrassments, you are enjoying life. You have
devoted no inconsiderable part of your attention to other businesses

Arms for the Government 135

since ours was undertaken. After all these considerations can you
think it strange that I should be desirous of realizing something? . . .
Can you be surprized if I am unwilling to put our business on such
a footing as shall oblige me to pay my whole attention to it for seven
years to come without a prospect of realizing anything from it till
the expiration of that time? Of what value is property to me with-
out any prospect of enjoying it? It is better not to live than to live
as I have for three years past. Toil, anxiety and Disappointment have
broken me down. My situation makes me perfectly miserable. 7 * For
the briefest instant, there sounds the sickening, uncushioned crash of
a man's hopes.

And then, without pause, Whitney reaffirms his conviction in the
importance of what he has created. "Yet my ideas of the utility of
the invention and the emoluments of our business ( if rightly persued }
are not in the least abated.

"You may perhaps conclude from what I have said above that I
am in a foolish teaze to get married. But you can readily conceive
that a person who has no idea of marrying immediately, might be
very unwilling to enter into obligations or put it out of his power
ever to marry. If this letter should appear incoherent and foolish
my circumstances will be some apology for me. I address it to you as
a friend and a man of candor. I am willing to do everything in my
power to promote your happiness at the same time I cannot be in-
different to my own. I am too much confused and perplexed to write
any particulars of our concerns. ... I had rather be out of Debt
and out of business without a shilling than be in a situation half so
much embarrassing as my present one."

Whitney had stated his position. He continued promoting the af-
fairs of Miller & Whitney; he wrote long explanations to congress-
men appealing to them to support a revision of the patent-law* word-
ing; he forwarded to Miller additional testimonials of the excellence
of their ginned cotton being spun at nearby factories; he tried to
sell some of their machines to the West Indies. He was noticeably
changed. Except for this activity, he remained apart, writing little,
visiting less.

His withdrawal from all contacts but those made necessary by
business caused one of his Yale classmates to write him, after months

136 The World of Eli Whitney

had passed without a word, "I conclude you are in the land of the
living & on the soil of N. Haven, but your silence and obscurity are
so great that if you was buried they could not be more profound to
me." Artless, garrulous, filled with flowery sentences and arch allu-
sions, the classmate sympathizes with a stricken, gifted friend; the
letter is evidence that Whitney's failure was open talk in New Haven.
"Don't think you are always to be shut up in N. H. & renounce all
connexion with your Friends till you can . . . grow richer than all
of us before you can be sociable again. Come break out & run away,
get relaxation & courage & you will be better prepared to go back
& accomplish your present, & strike out some new invention which
will astonish the World & command all their Purse Strings/'

Whitney had anticipated this advice. His isolation ceased serving
his wounded spirit and became, rather, a concentrated experimenting
with ideas. His acute depression yielded to the energy of his active
mind, to his deep impulse to create something new, something that
would be his own.

As 1798 began, Whitney had already found the way to obviate
his single greatest handicap, the lack of funds to finance a business.
He knew what perils could befall the inventor who tied himself
to the "patronage" of a man of wealth, even a man as honorable arid
generous as Miller; and having once grasped the fact that Miller &
Whitney's troubles had not been due to some untoward act on Miller's
part, Whitney saw that his major problem could be solved by en-
gaging in business with the government.

The advantages to be gained were plain. Instead of taking a part-
ner, he would enter into an agreement with the Federal Government;
instead of the limited cash and credit at the command of any in-
dividual, the Treasury would finance his project. He realized alsp
that, instead of being overwhelmed by more customers than he could
supply, he would be producing for a single buyer. That he made
this basic decision first and then looked about for a likely vehicle is
clear. Appraising him as he stood poised to go forward, one sees his
stature assume new dimensions. He was no longer a young man
who had made a happy strike; his was an incisive mind that was
not afraid to think in wholly new temis. As in his boyhood he had
stopped making nails and turned to hatpins and canes, so now he

Arms for the Government 137

turned from an unremunerative manufacturing of gins to the produc-
tion of something profitable.

Chance had sent Whitney south, and to the invention of the gin;
but it was a cleanly thought-out plan that directed his efforts to-
ward his next enterprise. His first step secured him nothing, but it
is the point necessary to plot the straight line of his attention and
activity; it also brought him, for the second time, directly to the
notice of Oliver Wolcott, now Secretary of the Treasury.

Acting on his new decision to do business with the United States
Government, Whitney worked out a screw press with "presses and
dies for the execution of the Stamp Act," and forwarded a "drawing
of the machine, & a written description & instructions for working &
keeping it in repair," to the Supervisor's Office. John Chester, by
whom it was received, allowed that he had "neither the time nor
ingenuity sufficient to ... understand the nature of its operation.
From a slight examination it appears to be very complex, though I
cannot doubt of its possessing sufficient force to answer all requisite
purposes. ... I have only to lament that the thought of your con-
tracting for the making of these machines had not occured to my
mind some months sooner than it did." The last sentence makes
Whitney's motive very clear; he was trying to secure a contract.
Unfortunate he must have felt, on learning that his ideas had been
anticipated and that the business had been given to someone else;
yet he drew encouragement from the fact that Chester had forwarded
his drawings to the Secretary of the Treasury, and that Wolcott had
noted upon the Supervisor's reply, "I am not able to employ the in-
genuity & talents of Mr. Whitney, of which, however, I entertain a
high opinion." The machine Whitney submitted was lost long ago,
and save for Chester's letter even the knowledge of it would have
disappeared.

A more momentous step followed. On May i, 1798, Whitney, thus
encouraged, wrote directly to Secretary Wolcott; the boldness and
magnitude of his new proposal announced it can now be seen the
advent of America's industrial future. "By the Debates of Congress I
observe that they are about making Some appropriations for pro-
curing Arms etc for the U.S. Should an actual War take place or

138 The World of Eli Whitney

the communication between the U.S. and the West India Islands
continue to be as hazardous and precarious as it is now, my present
Business of making The Patent Machines for Cleansing Cotton must,
in the meantime be postponed. I have a number of workmen & ap-
prentices whom I have instructed in working Wood & Metals and
whom I wish to keep employed. These circumstances induced me to
address you and ask the privilege of having an opportunity of con-
tracting for the supply of some of the Articles which the U.S. may
want. I should like to undertake to Manufacture ten or Fifteen Thou-
sand Stand of Arms.*

"I am persuaded that Machinery moved by water adapted to this
Business would greatly diminish the labor and facilitate the Manu-
facture of this Article. Machines for forging, rolling, floating, boreing,
Grinding, Polishing etc may all be made use of to advantage.

"Cartridge or Cartouch Boxes is an article which I can manufac-
ture. I have a machine for boreing wood of my own Invention which
is admirably adapted to this purpose. The making of Swords, hang-
ers, Pistols etc I could perform. There is a good fall of Water in the
Vicinity of this Town which I can procure and could have works
erected in a short time. It would not answer however to go to the
expence of erecting works for this purpose unless I could contract
to make a considerable number. The contracting for the above arti-
cles will not I suppose belong to the Department of the Treasury;
but if you will take the trouble to mention me to the Secretary of
War, I shall consider it a particular favor, I shall be able to procure
sufficient Bonds for the fulfillment of a contract of the kind above
mentioned and will come forward to Philadelphia immediately in
case there is an opportunity for me to make proposals."

Ten or fifteen thousand stand of arms! A notion as fantastic and
improbable as aviation was before Kitty Hawk. Only three years
before, Whitney had bemoaned the loss of twenty gins, and now he
was calmly offering to manufacture muskets in astronomical num-
bers, though he had never made a firearm before. To his way of
thinking, familiarity with a particular article be it a gin, a screw
press, a cartridge box, or a gun was a secondary consideration, since

*A stand of arms in this instance refers to the complete arms needed to
equip a soldier the musket, bayonet, ramrod, wiper, and screw-driver.

Arms for the Government 139

the operations of forging, boring, grinding, or polishing could be
directed to form any object.

Whitney, it is obvious, was not conscious of the future implications
of such a method. His only aim was to establish a business, and he
thought in terms of what steps might secure him his goal. He was
not a prophet but an instrument of the industrial order. The time
had come for a new technique to give form and force to industry
that it might change the face of a nation that had a continent to con-
quer and exploit and but a thin scattering of hands to accomplish
the task. The great countries of Europe had thousands of men, long,
unbroken lines of fathers and sons trained to the fine skill of arms
making; there was no need to create new techniques in the ordered
armories of England and France, Spain, Holland, and Sweden. Whit-
ney sought to compensate for the dearth of artisans in America, and
the system he had been evolving since he had been faced with the
need to make gins in number and in haste for the cotton growers
by-passed the time required to train workmen such as Europe had.
Whitney was but taking the next step to expedite production that
it was the decisive step that carried an economy from the watershed
of handicraft organization over into the unexplored watershed of in-
dustrial manufacture has been revealed by time.

Whitney's proposal might have been postponed or mutilated by
heartbreaking hurdles had it been put forward at any other time.
Normally, new ideas have to fight for their lives the slightest jolt
to an accepted way of looking at things automatically, as it were,
mobilizes the words that defend habitual techniques: "impractical,'*
"visionary," "dubious," "rash." Familiar words to safeguard familiar
ways. A grim need can override this hostility to an original way of
looking at an old pattern; extreme danger permits people to grasp
at straws. Certainly President Adams, Wolcott, and Timothy Picker-
ing, Secretary of War, were eager to make the United States as self-
sufficient as possible; but stated policy could not have pierced
through their normal prudent attitudes. (Wolcotfs thoroughgoing
conservatism was overshadowed only by his bitter hatred of Gallican
and radical ideas. ) It was the face of war that made possible a speedy
acceptance of Whitney's radical proposal.

On March igth (the very day Chester was writing to Whitney)

140 The World of Eli Whitney

President Adams announced to Congress the failure of the Pinckney
mission to France. "Millions for defense but not one cent for tribute"
words later put into Pinckney's mouth were the measure of the
militant excitement that swept the American people at the revelation
of the crisis. The allies of but a few years before had become the
enemies of the moment the rebuff accorded the American envoys
aroused the nation, while the news that France would regard Amer-
ican seamen found on British ships as pirates erased the last traces
of former amity. Congress nullified the treaties with France, the size
of the army was increased, new naval ships were ordered built, the
country prepared itself to resist an invasion, and Washington was
called out of his retirement to head the armed forces.

War with France! The unthinkable might happen at any mo-
ment. The more cautious remembered that it was the 80,000 muskets
bought from France that armed the soldiers of the Revolution and
that most of the materials used in making arms came from Europe;
the most foolhardy was sobered by the knowledge that since that
war the country had remained dependent on imported arms.

War with France would mean facing, not a small army o pro-
fessional soldiers, but great numbers of an embattled citizenry. The
wars of defense of the young French Republic had, for the first
time in history, mobilized an entire nation. "All Frenchmen are per-
manently requisitioned for service in the armies" so the Conven-
tion in the summer of 1793 had decreed the levee en masse. "Young
men will go forth to battle; married men will forge weapons and
transport munitions; women will make tents and clothing, and serve
in hospitals; children will make lint from old linen; and old men
will be brought to the public squares to arouse the courage of the
soldiers, while preaching the unity of the Republic and hatred
against kings." This innovation of total mobilization remains the
heritage willed the modern world by those encircled people. Before
that time the size of armies ran to thousands and hundreds of thou-
sands; henceforth armies would be counted in the millions. All citi-
zens became soldiers, and the professional soldier became a type
apart in the national body. The need for weapons multiplied as did
the size of the armies; expanding demands must outstrip the old
production methods.

Arms for the Government

Another innovation of the French Republic had a bearing on
Whitney's next enterprise. There is relationship between France's
standardization of weights and measures and Whitney's standardiza-
tion of the component parts of a musket. Both derived from the
same concept establishing uniformity to make like units inter-
changeable.* Among the inequalities wiped out by the French Re-
public were those that had characterized the units of weight and
length. Replacing outmoded confusion wherein a pound represented
391 different local units of weight, and 282 different units of length
were called a foot, they decreed that such units be given precise, na-
tional definition. It would make goods flow more easily over wider
areas. France commissioned her greatest mathematician, Laplace, to
effect the change. The significance of this uniformity impressed Stiles,
who succinctly recorded the result and its implications. "The French
Republic are introducing a new Test on Measures & weights, founded
on the arc of the 45th degree Latitude, assumed a medium between
the equator & polar degree of the oblate spheroid of the Earth. They
divide this degree into 10 million parts. . . . The standard weight,
a cube of distilled Water, one side of the Tenth part of the standard
measure. This is the basis."

Metric uniformity widened and quickened trade in France: uni-
formity in the parts of a musket would increase the rate at which they
could be produced. France had wiped out local variations on the
pound and the foot; Whitney would replace the individually made,
unique musket with thousands of mass-produced, standardized mus-
kets that resembled one another as exactly as possible. The concept
was as elementary as his making a model quill pen for his students
to copy, thus ruling out individual taste and skill. "This is the basis'*
apocalyptic words, but Stiles did not live to see Whitney's genius
express the concept in an article as complex as a musket.

Tense weeks followed President Adams's announcement. The
President and his Cabinet discussed how best to prepare: Should
they rely on a large navy to repel the invaders or on an army to de-

* Shortly after 1763, Jean-Baptfste de Gribeauval, of the French army, had
standardized the calibers of cannons and their carriages. But, as Major James E.
Hicks points out, this standardization "was not important from the point of view
of technical improvement, it showed the part which artillery was to pky in
military affairs.

The World of Eli Whitney

fend the land? The same question, with the size of appropriations
required, was debated in Congress. Inevitably, as the problem was
argued, it must have started Whitney thinking in terms of his own
experience, of manufacturing a single item as quickly as possible to
satisfy a hungry market.

Wolcott received Whitney's letter even as Congress voted $800,-
ooo for the purchase of cannon and small arms (May 4, 1798). It
is probable that he discussed Whitney's offer at Cabinet meetings.
Quite possibly his mention of Whitney's ten thousand muskets made
the fifty thousand the administration called for seem more likely of
attainment and it went far to help President Adams "form an opin-
ion with respect to the probability of obtaining within the United
States by contract the number conceived to be necessary and the
period within which it will be practicable to procure them/*

The need for small arms was already acute in 1794, when relations
with France began to grow uneasy. Congress at that time had estab-
lished two national armories one at Springfield and another at
Harpers Ferry and, until they should produce arms sufficient for
national defense, voted sums to purchase arms abroad. The sum of
$100,000 was sent to the American minister in London during 1794-
1795 to secure cannon and muskets. Soon ships from London, ships
from Hamburg, sailed into Philadelphia loaded with cargoes of arma-
ments. In all, about 7,000 muskets were bought at a price of $9 apiece.
This was the last sizable shipment of arms from abroad (French
privateers later made the ocean crossing hazardous), and it was but
a fraction of the desired total.

The output of the Springfield armory was discouragingly small.
Two years after it had been created, it had made 245 muskets; and
in another two years its total, though it had increased sharply, was
just over 1,000. The need for private contractors was obvious. Until
the receipt of Whitney's letter with its promise of impressive pro-
duction, the government, in its moment of national emergency, had
wondered how it might arm for defense. Both Whitney and the gov-
ernment had reasons that made them rush to enter into contractual
relations; each party was well aware of the substantial rewards that
would accrue from fulfillment the negotiations moved into final
form smoothly and with incredible speed.

Arms for the Government

Wolcott's answer reveals the government's eagerness. "Knowing
your skill in mechanick, I had before spoken of you to the Secretary
of War as a person whose services might possibly be rendered highly
useful. I do not hesitate to advise you to come to Philadelphia as soon
as possible." By the 24th of the same month, May, Whitney had ar-
rived at the seat of government and three days later could write to
Baldwin, "I have not yet closed my contract; it is however probable
I shall before I return."

To Baldwin, whom he had consulted as to the form the contract
should take, Whitney gave the tense atmosphere which gripped the
Capitol. "The probability of a War is daily increasing. It is said there
is a French Privateer in the Chesapeake who brings to and examines
all vessels that pass. An Act was passed yesterday authorizing the
President to instruct the Commanders of vessels belonging to the
U.S. to capture and bring in all privateers belonging to the F. Re-
public who may be found hovering round our coast with apparent
intention of committing Depredations on the commerce of the U.S.
This the Federal Party in Congress call a Peace measure the Jaco-
bins call it War."

With Capacious privateers raiding within coastal waters, time was
a precious commodity. The importance of each passing moment of
peace drove the officials to accelerate what otherwise would have
been leisurely, protracted transaction. A month after he had mad%
his first inquiry, Whitney submitted a draft contract to supply the
government "with Ten Thousand Stand of Arms, on the following
terms & conditions."

On June 14, 1798, just twelve days later, the contract was executed,
the terms Whitney had suggested remaining substantially un-
changed. Two further facts should be added to give this document
its full, proper setting. The contract .was unique in form as well as
content. Of the twenty-seven contracts given out that year for small
arms, only Whitney's was completely written out; the contracts
for the other twenty-six men who agreed to manufacture a total of
30,200 muskets were made on regular printed forms with terms and
conditions as orthodox as the methods they proposed using. The
urgency of the government's rush to build up adequate supplies of
arms made it brush aside the considered opinion of the Purveyor of

144 The World of Eli Whitney

Supplies, to whom Wolcott submitted Whitney's draft for speedy
comment: "I have no hesitation in declaring that the Secretary would
be right in closing, with Mr, Whitney provided he was satisfied he
can accomplish so great an undertaking in so short a Time. I have my
doubts about this matter and suspect that Mr. Whitney cannot per-
form as to time." The caution had beqn sounded; it would be remem-
bered.

According to the agreement signed by Wolcott "for and on behalf
of the United States of America of the One Part, and Eli Whitney
of New Haven in the State of Connecticut of the Other Part," Whit-
ney contracted to manufacture and deliver "Ten Thousand stand of
Arms, or Muskets, with Bayonets and Ramrods complete fit for
service, Four thousand stands of which arms shall be delivered on
or before the last day of September, One thousand seven hundred
and ninety nine, and six thousand additional stands, on or before

the last day of September, One thousand eight hundred.
/

The said Arms shall be delivered at New Haven . . and

shall be made after the Charleville model. The Barrels shall be
proved and the muskets inspected, agreeable to the Rules now prac-
ticed and required by the United States. The stocks shall be duly
hardened. The Ramrods and Bayonets shall be tempered, and the
mountings, stocks and every other particular shall be finished in
Workmanlike manner, in all parts precisely or as near as possible,
conformable to Three patterns which have been marked and sealed
by the contracting parties to this Instrument. . . .

**3rd. The Barrels shall be proved and the muskets inspected at New
Haven aforesaid by a person or persons to be appointed by the Sec-
retary of the Treasury or the Secretary of War. When due notice shall
have been received by the party of the first part of this Contract that
Five hundred Barrels are ready for the Test, the proof shall com-
mence; on like notice, that a Second number of five hundred barrels
are ready, the same shall also be proved, after which the United
States shall not be required to prove less than one thousand barrels
at one time. The wages of the Inspector, the expence of powder and
ball and alLother expences of proving and inspecting shall be borne
by the United States.

Arms for the Government

"4th. The United States shall cause to be delivered at Philadelphia
to the party of the second part, One thousand well seasoned black
walnut stocks in the rough as they have been received into the Public
Stores, within sixty days after the time of executing this Contract,
at the rate of twenty five Cents each, and a further number of Nine
Thousand of the aforedescribed stocks shall be delivered to the
second party aforesaid at said Philadelphia, from time to time as
they may be wanted and at the said rate of Twenty five Cents each.

"5th. The party of the first part contracts for and on behalf of the
United States to pay or allow in settlement Thirteen Dollars and
forty cents for each and every of the stands of arms which shall be
manufactured according to the pattern, and delivered after proof
and inspection as aforesaid.

"6th. Five thousand dollars shall be advanced to the party of the
second part on closing this contract, and on producing satisfactory
evidence to the party of the first, that the said advance has been
expended in making preparatory arrangements for the manufacture
of arms, Five Thousand dollars more shall be advanced. No further
advances shall be demanded until One thousand stands of Arms are
ready for delivery, at which time the further sum of Five thousand
dollars, shall be advanced. After the delivery of One thousand stands
of arms, and the payment of the third advance as aforesaid, further ad-
vances shall be made at the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury
in proportion to the progress made in executing this contract. It is how-
ever understood and agreed by and between the parties to this instru-
ment, that from time to time, whenever the party of the second part
shall have the second thousand ready for delivery he shall be intitled
to full payment for the same, so with respect to each and every Thou-
sand until he shall have delivered the said Ten thousand stands."
With the contract for $134,000 safe in his pocket, Whitney took
the stagecoach back to New Haven. Despite the magnitude of the
task to which he was committed, despite the fatigue of conferences
and negotiations with harassed officials, he felt, for the first time in
long months, free and light. The relief was shared with Stebbins.
"Bankruptcy & ruin were constantly staring me in the face & disap-
pointment trip'd me up every step I attempted to take. I was miser-

The World of Eli Whitney

able. . . . Loaded with a Debt of 3 or 4000 Dollars, without
resources and without any business that would ever furnish me a
support, I knew not which way to turn. An opportunity offered to
contract for Manufacturing Muskets for the U. States. I embraced
it. ... By this contract I obtained some thousands of Dollars in ad-
vance which has saved me from ruin/'

For the first time since the ginning business had collapsed, Whitney
was at liberty to think without worry.

Justice from South Carolina

FROM 1798 to 1801 there was, in the affairs of
Miller & Whitney, a calm, a lull; it was caesura
dividing the initial clash from the second major conflict.

"I have been so long and so continuously placed in the very vortex
of error & of prejudice, of complaint & abuse respecting our unfortu-
nate cotton gins, that some new evidence against a suspicion of in-
sanity would seem requisite, to enable me to stand thus alone in op-
position to public opinion." Miller was not asking for help he was
stating a fact; his worries were of a different order. By then he had
learned that credit is but another name for debt. He advertised Mul-
berry Grove for sale in October, 1798. He found no buyers. Finally
in 1800, it was put up at auction to satisfy a debt of $38,124.99; it was
knocked down for $15,000.

Yet the firm's activity did not pause. The letter books repeat their
detail of lawsuits and licensing fees, of Yazoo reverberations, and
frantic finances of ginnery troubles and Greene estate embarrass-
ments.

With the coming of 1799, Miller could report events to satisfy his
sanguine nature: "I have just returned from the upper Country
much mended in my health .... The Rocky Creek works which
now belong entirely to us ... is a property of great value should
we ever make oil. The stream is durable & sufficient. The building
large & substantial, & the Dam extremely well made. ... In the
future I begin to hope our concerns will look up, since I have been
able at last to draw from Liverpool favorable accounts of the staple
of the cotton, and thro' the interest of some Gentlemen am just begin-
ning to sell our Gins under the most favorable auspices."

147

The World of Eli Whitney

The "Gentlemen" were customers from South Carolina. Unlike
the Georgia planters who "join in pilfering (I believe the epithet
appropriate) the hardly earned and expensive profits of the inven-
tion from the Patentees rather than see the law for the Protection of
the arts supported at the expence of a few Dollars from their private
purses," a few South Carolinians sought out Miller & Whitney to
buy gins. Here was the first sign that the attitude of the Georgia
planters towards patents might be unique and that people did exist
who would pay for using Whitney's invention. In some measure these
planters would ease Whitney's bitterness at his ill treatment. "At
some future period/' he commented to Stebbins, the gin "will be
deemed a usefull machine and be of immense value to the Southern
States but all this will do me no good. I shall then feel no pleasing
satisfaction from the consideration of having been the inventor/'

Subsequently, the partners gained an improvement in their legal
position which encouraged them and alarmed and angered the
Georgia cotton growers. In April, 1800, largely through the exertions
of Whitney and Miller, the patent law was amended, and by the new
wording the ambiguous sanctuary to the trespassers was wiped out
At once Miller started after the most arrant offenders. He instituted
a series of suits to be tried in the fall session of the Circuit Court
principally, as he told his chief counsel, Seaborn Jones, "to decide
the dependence which can be placed upon a Jury of Augusta/' He
got his answer from Augusta. He also got a prompt answer from the
governor.

In a speech to the Georgia House Governor James Jackson lashed
out against the federal law that protected "the patent gin monopoly";
he called it "a manifest injury to the community and in many re-
spects, a cruel extortion on the gin holders/' and declared that Georgia
and South Carolina, where cotton "appears to be becoming the
principle staple, are made tributary to two persons." Expressing the
mood of the Georgia planters, he invoked the phrases and names that
would dignify their cause: "Monopolies are odious in all countries
but more particularly so in a government like ours. The great mentor,
Coke, declared them contrary to the common and fundamental law
of England. . . . The celebrated Dr. Adam Smith, observes, that
monopolies are supported by cruel and oppressive laws, such is the

Justice from South Carolina

operation at present of the law on this subject; its weight lay on the
poor industrious mechanic and planter." He did not stop with his
denunciation of monopolies; his words were a rebuke to Congress
for having changed the Act, and an invitation to "our sister state of
South Carolina . . . cheerfully [to] join Georgia in any proper ap-
plication to Congress on the subject. I am likewise of the opinion that
the states of North Carolina and Tennessee must be so far interested
to support such application." And midway in his speech he men-
tioned he was but echoing the planters that the patentees, "it is
supposed on the lowest calculation, will make by [their patent] in
the two states one hundred thousand dollars/'

Georgia was aroused. How would their cry of "odious monopoly"
sound were it to be found neither odious nor a monopoly outside her
borders? The cotton growers' dignity was at stake as well as their
profits; if they were to be damned as rascals, they must all be damned
together there must be none to escape the epithet. The appeal to
hysteria had been sounded.

Alas for Georgia! South Carolina, different in origin, composition.,
and tradition, was not to be pushed into a- course of action foreign
to her. Georgia, from the time of her settlement on, had been a fron-
tier, Britain's southernmost outpost in North America, an outpost
designed at once as a bastion against, the Spanish in Florida and the
French in Louisiana, and as a base from which to harass these
enemies. Compared with Charleston, Savannah was a shabby coun-
try town, and it and its surrounding area was largely populated by
colonists who had chosen the dangerous southern frontier in prefer-
ence to their depressed condition in England and Europe. Georgia
never had the social position of South Carolina; it had no fur trade
nor plantations of rice and indigo to bring it wealth; it had no
Pinckneys or Rutledges who had studied law in England; and neither
as colony nor state had it ever enacted a patent law.

South Carolina, on the other hand, was the first colony to frame
a general patent law in America (1691), reaffirming the English
principles, and one of its earliest acts as a state was to revive its
statutes to protect inventors (1784). Two years later the exclusive
privilege the state conferred on any inventor of a useful machine for
fourteen years was made contingent upon several conditions, one of

150 The World of Eli Whitney

which was that he deposit a model with the Secretary of State. In
South Carolina many factors made the climate more salubrious for
patentees.

"Our friend Mr. Goodrich has just returned from the upper Coun-
try," triumphantly Miller wrote on September 4, 1801, to Whitney,
"and brings us the pleasing intelligence that a prospect is at last
opening of an advantageous disposal of our Patent right to the Legis-
lature of So. Carolina. The foundation is already laid for such a pro-
posal to come from the Legislature to the Patentee's and it is deemed
perfectly essential that either you or myself be present. As you are
the original inventor and generally known as such, the pretentions
of the present administration in favour of genius & the arts might
with great propriety be wrought upon in your favour." Miller then
named political elements which would have influence and make
Whitney the better negotiator. "The personal acquaintance you have
with the President and the heads of the Departments . . . would
enable you to present yourself to a Democratic Legislature with let-
ters of recommendation from the Demigog of their party. You have
also the advantage of me in having been able to sit down quietly un-
der the protecting branches of the great tree of life, of honour and
happiness to our Country. While I have been exposed to the hollow
murmurs of sedition, and often have had to combat a whole company
of the Satellites of such men as Abram Bishop and Genl. Jackson. . . .
Hence it is probable that I have become somewhat obnoxious to the
undertrappers of administration and should meet them in a negotia-
tion under some disadvantage."

y^Probable" is an exquisite understatement. Bishop, the most articu-
late of the anti-Yazoo men in Connecticut where Miller was suing
to collect from northern buyers used his tongue and his pen to
excoriate the men behind the land-grab. Among the most conspicuous
offenders he named Nightingale, Miller's associate and Catherine's
son-in-law, and of the leaders he said: "Unto such was given power,
as scorpions have power and their power was to hurt men."

Immediately Whitney prepared to go. His traveling writing case
was jammed with letters of introduction, for, in addition to one from
President Jefferson, the "Demigog," Whitney had asked Timothy
Dwight, president of Yale, and Oliver Wolcott, former Secretary of

Justice from South Carolina

the Treasury, both staunch Federalists, to commend him to the Hon-
orable Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and other influential friends.
He was thus putting into practice the lesson he had recently learned
in Washington: Business knows no party politics. He acted on the
theory that it was unimportant if a man be a Democrat or Federalist;
the point was whether he would advance Miller & Whitney's patent
rights.

Whitney made the long trip south by 'liorse & sulkey," without
company. Conditions, after he crossed the Potomac, must have
seemed as foreign to him as to the Englishman, Thomas Cooper,
Priestley's friend, who but recently had sought refuge in America.
Cooper remarked: "Hospitality is relative. From Massachusetts to
Maryland, inns are plentiful, and strangers frequent them when they
travel; from the south boundary of Pennsylvania to South Carolina,
taverns are scarce and dear, and hospitality is on the most liberal
scale."

Whitney dated a letter, 'Virginia Nineteen Miles North of the
Northern line of North Carolina at no place at all (Sunday Evening)
22,d Nov. 1801." He must have been lonely that Sunday evening,
grateful for the crossroads shelter where he recorded for his boy-
hood friend Stebbins, who was now living in Maine, his plans, his
experiences, his impressions. "There is a prospect of selling my Patent
Right to the Cotton Machine to the Legislature of So. Carolina & it is
that prospect that has induced me to take a jaunt to this state to meet
their Assembly which is now sitting & I am thus far on my way by land
& expect to be at Columbia in about Eight Days. So you see I am still
pursuing prospects. . . .

"At the great City of Washington I was detained by business a
week. I had letters of Introduction to Mr. Jefferson & Mr. Maddison
with both of whom I had several interviews. I am much pleased with
Maddison, he is a sensible and at any rate appears to be a candid
man. The Great City has increased a little since I saw it last winter
but I fear it will require an eternity to fill up the great casms which
still remain. I obtained letters from Mr. Jefferson & Mr. Maddison
to Governor Monroe of Virginia, with whom I had an interview at
Richmond where I tarried half a day & which is the handsomest place
I have seen in passing thro the State.

The World of Eli Whitney

"My journey thro this State has been solitary and dreary. The
roads are very indifferent & the land except a little just on the banks
of the Rappahonock is 'poor Miserable blind & naked/ It is either old
Barren fields lying waste or half wooded with wood of half size
but which will never grow any larger. Except a few small towns
thro' which I have passed, I have only seen a Miserable hut once in
about 4 or 5 miles. Their main crop is Indian Corn of which their
land produces from four to Six Bushels pr acre. [He was the son of
a farmer and saw with a farmer's eyes] . Some Wheat & Some Tobacco
are made for exportation. I have met from 30 to 50 Hogshead yester-
day & today going to Petersburg. The mode in which they transfer
it is to put a pin in each end of the Hogshead to each of which is
hooked a Shaft, like that of a Yanke Fung * in these shafts is tackeled
a little horse & a second horse put before with a Negro to ride one
of the horses & another with a withe hooked to said pins to assist
in holding it back. In this manner the hogshead is rolled thro' thick
& thin from one to two hundred miles as the case may be. There are,
however, about as many white people as Negroes employed in this
business of transportation ... & the people while engaged in this
business stop in the woods by the side of the road when night comes
on, build a fire by which they & their horses or cattle stay thro' the
night & they never go into a house to lodge during the whole jour-
ney."

Whitney reaching Columbia on December 3rd, had to stay there
a "little more than two weeks attending the Legislature/' Of this he
also wrote an account to Stebbins: "They closed their sessions at 10
o'Clock last evening. A few hours previous to their breaking up they
voted fifty thousand Dollars to purchase my patent right to the
Machine for Cleaning Cotton, 20 thousand of which is to be paid
in hand & the remainder in three annual payments of 10 thousand
Dollars each. This is selling the rights at a great sacrifice. If a regular
course of Law had been pursued, from two to three hundred thou-
sand Dollars would -undoubtedly have been recovered. The use of
the machine here is amazingly extensive & the value of it beyond
all calculation. It may without exaggeration be said to have raised

* The New England pung was a low horse-drawn box sled slung between two
long poles that served both as runners and as shafts.

Justice -from South Carolina 153

the value of seven eighths of all the three Southern States from 50
to 100 pr Cent. We get but a song for it in comparison with the worth
of the thing, but it is securing something. It will enable M & W to pay
all their debts & divide something between them. It established a
precedent which will be valuable as it respects our collections in
other states & I think there is now a fair prospect that I shall in the
event realize property enough from the invention to render me
comfortable & in some measure independent. Tho 3 my stay here has
been short I have become acquainted with a considerable part of the
Legislature & most distinguished characters in the State."

For the first time Whitney was face to face with the deep-seated
hostility, hiding behind half-truths and twisted logic, with which
for so long Miller had had to deal. To handle this, he had been "very
busily employed in removing the prejudice & ignorance which greatly
prevailed respecting our Patent Rights." "His modest and even dif-
fident manner had procured him some friends the value of his in-
vention had procured him many more." So wrote an eyewitness,
Henry William de Saussure, former Director of the Mint, adding:
"But he still had many prejudices & difficulties to overcome. Some
doubted the originality of the invention, tho his proofs were strong
and they could not point out any other inventor, others doubted the
utility of the invention: or at least were fearful that the use of it in
cleaning the black seed cotton, where it was not absolutely necessary,
was more prejudicial to the character of that staple in foreign markets,
than the use of it was beneficial in cleaning out the green seed cot-
ton, where it is indispensible. Truth & public spirit prevailed The
legislature purchased Mr. Whitney's patent right to the Saw gin, & its
improvements, for the use of the inhabitants of the State, for 50,000
dollars, of which 20,000 are payable immediately 10,000 in the
autumn of 1802- and the remainder soon after.

"Our Treasury, thanks to the assumption and funding the State
debts, was full; and we were enabled to make these payments with-
out any additional general tax, altfio we have agreed to lay a small
tax on the persons who use the Saw to re-imburse the State gradually."
A tax of fifty cents was imposed on every saw or annular row of teeth
in every gin, to be paid by owners who had used the gin since the
1st of October or who should use it before the ist of the following

154 The World of Eli Whitney

April. "It is with pleasure that I make this communication, because
it furnishes proof that the States will do Justice to the talents of our
Countrymen: and it will take away the Reproach cast upon repub-
lics, that they are never the patrons of the arts, nor the rewarders of
ingenuity. Mr. Whitney, relieved from the embarassments which
oppressed his genius, will, I hope, go on to exercise his faculties for
the benefit of his Country."

Miller & Whitney had asked $100,000, a figure that, the partners
argued, indicated their willingness to dispose of the invention to
South Carolina "for a sum far below its value." However reasonable,
the sum was an asking price; in Miller's opinion the settlement
whereby they received even half the amount was due to Whitney's
quiet authority and polite insistence, "for without his presence I
should have feared that twenty or five and twenty thousand alone
would have been obtainable, and the advantage of increasing the
price will operate by precedent as well as present benefits."

The sale was consummated six weeks later, when, on February 16,
1802, Whitney received the first payment from Paul Hamilton,
Comptroller of Revenues and Finances of South Carolina. In return
he conveyed their patent rights and signed an agreement to fulfill
two additional provisions; "to refund to the Comptroller ... all and
every Sum of money and to deliver to him also such obligations of
Notes as we and our agents have received for Licenses. . . . And
to deliver to him two of the said Saw Gins of the most approved Size
and construction for the use of the State within a reasonable time."
Brief, explicit, Whitney must have thought the agreement; yet it was
to cost him years of effort and endless argument to have its spirit hon-
ored.

Whitney spent the intervening weeks traveling. He had never seen
any of their installations all these years he had been busy in New
Haven and so from Columbia he went by way of Augusta to the
ginnery nearby Rocky Creek which Miller had described so glow-
ingly three years before. The stagnant years had left their mark; it
was "in a miserable condition & fast going to decay. I think it had
better be sold for what it will bring." He visited happily with the
Millers at Dungeness, the plantation to which they had moved when
Mulberry Grove was sold. Though bare of all elegancies, it was a

Justice from South Carolina 155

handsome property, for when Greene had bought it he had erected
a four-story thirty-room mansion solidly constructed of tabby, the
local concrete made of lime and shells mixed with water.

Whitney's itinerary, with sidetrips and stopovers, was arduous.
Covering about 2,800 miles, it was made "in a Sulkey & the same
horse performed the whole journey," and brought him back to New
Haven the beginning of May. He laconically summed up the whole
jaunt by saying that he had "met with some difficulties and delays
but finally closed up the business of the Sale to S.C., reed part of the
money & obligations for the residue."

Whitney, no less than Miller, failed to gauge the true temper of
the Georgia trespassers, who knew that as long as moneys were due
and obligations remained the sale was not finally closed; there was
still ground left to contest, still space to maneuver. To them, any
agreement spelled defeat They feared that were the sale to be con-
cluded, the idea would take hold and infect other states. It was not to
give Miller & Whitney recognition now that Georgia planters had
killed the patent, starved out the firm's ginneries, and reduced the
partners to insolvency. Suddenly the South Carolina sale made it
apparent that what had gone before was not finished; it was but a
first act, formless, impromptu, dispersed, disguised. Everyone could
plainly see that now the great struggle to apportion the raw cotton
profits was approaching its real climax. The protagonists spoke of
honor and justice and genius, knavery and fraud, monopoly and
freedom but these were grace notes embellishing, almost obscuring,
the drab theme of profits.

Half of the life of the patent was passed when Miller & Whitney
sold their rights to the State of South Carolina in February, 1802,
and the objectives and policy of the partners had changed as events
had forced their change. Where they had tried to shut down every
illegal machine, they now fought for their right to sell licenses. It
may be that this new approach divided the opposition: some planters,
notably those in Georgia, remained unreconciled and adamant; a
few South Carolinians, respectful of the law, were unwilling to base
their new economy on anything as insecure as the use of surreptitious
machines. (Even in Georgia there were those who thought it advis-
able to settle with the partners on a licensing basis. "The grand jury

156 The World of Eli Whitney

of Hancock County, at the last February terms, among other present-
ments, recommend to the legislature of this state, at their next ses-
sion, to purchase for the use of the state, the right to use Whitney
and Miller's patent cotton gin; and that the state do indemnify itself,
by levying a tax on the use of said gin/') Between the two extremes
were to be found the fast-growing audience of southern cotton grow-
ers. They watched the incidents unfold, the tension mount; they
were swayed by local pressures and prevailing moods; they seesawed
between expediency and honor, ill at ease in subservience to the
former, reluctant to pay too high a price for the latter.

As the conflict moved out of the undeviating atmosphere of the
Georgia upcountry, and cotton cultivation began to be important
in regions where other points of view were allowed expression, a
settlement became possible. The one thing the Georgia planters could
not do was to stop the spread of cotton growing, and it was this factor
that cleared the way for Miller & Whitney's sale of their patent
rights to South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Yet at
that time the intransigent planters who had successfully used Lyon
to ruin Miller & Whitney's ginning concern within Georgia thought
that Holmes might be effective in stopping neighboring states from
reaching an agreement with the patentees. Holmes, who had lost
his case in court, and paid the partners a license fee, was resurrected
and, dressed in his pristine pretensions, presented in a frantic effort
to nullify the sale made to South Carolina.

This phase of Miller & Whitney's struggle for survival Whitney
attended to personally. He had started the negotiations with South
Carolina at Miller's request; he continued his active role not merely
because of the enormous sums at stake, but because his opponents
still denied him his invention and disparaged his good name. He
was aware that to the negotiations he would have to bring heroic
patience and unflagging energy. Great numbers of Carolinians were
acting, as he put it, "much like children & much more like rogues";
their behavior caused him, he confessed, "much vexation of Spirit in
this Business." In the light of all he had suffered, he would have been
foolish not to reckon that many Carolinians would be selfish enough
to begrudge him the $50,000 the legislature had agreed to pay.

Justice from South Carolina 157

Whitney knew that he and Miller were in real danger of losing what
little they had just gained from the gin.

It would seem that until Hamilton, the comptroller of the state,
on November 3, 1802, notified Miller & Whitney that the sale had
been revoked by the state legislature, neither Miller nor Whitney had
any idea that things had gone amiss. (Hamilton's notification and
Miller's letter to Whitney are missing; their contents can only be in-
ferred.) To Whitney, who was just then in Raleigh negotiating to
"sell my Patent Right to the Legislature" of North Carolina, the
news sounded absurd; it left him "more vexed than alarmed," but
he warned Miller "to be very cautious and circumspect in our meas-
ures and even in our remarks with regard to it. Be cautious what you
say or publish till we meet our enemies in a court of justice when, if
they have any sensibility left, we will make them very much ashamed
of their childish conduct"

Both partners learned that the contract had been broken because
their Georgia opponents had persuaded many South Carolina
planters that they had much to gain by not paying Miller & Whitney;
and that the excuses were decoys set out to give the opposition time
to commence the legal harassing that had worked so advantageously
in Georgia. For in Miller's sixteen-page reply to the comptroller he
stated that "it has been privately reported and in a manner to gain
belief, that the representations of a man by the name of Hodgen
Holmes acquired so much credit with the legislature as to form part
of the secret ground of their proceeding"; he also noticed "that the
pretentions of a Mr. Lyon have been revived." Lyon he dismissed
quickly: "We had supposed that his vanity and weakness on the
subject had ceased to engage the attention of any man of sense."
But Holmes he discussed minutely, giving the fuU schedule of his
unworthiness.

Miller also replied to the state's contention that the firm had failed
to honor its obligations under the agreement Whitney had made with
the comptroller. "The one which bound the Patentees to the return
of Notes of money received from individuals for the Sale of Licences,
... it is admitted to have been uncomplied with ... it was ex-
pected that Mr. Russell Goodrich, the special agent of the Patentees,

158 The World of Eli Whitney

would have attended to the fulfillment of this stipulation, but un-
fortunately he went on a Journey into the State of Tennessee and to
the Natches, where he was detained by indisposition and other un-
expected events until the time had elapsed for the payment. This
failure then, being admitted, it only follows to ascertain the amount
to which the legal or equitable forfeiture of the Patentees could
fairly extend. In respect to the notes, no possible injury could arise
. , . by their detention. ... In respect to the money they detained,
the amount is exactly $580. ... [Mr. Goodrich] will probably have
the honor to wait on you with this money about the first of next
month which will extend the detention to five months, the interest
of which for this period of time amounts to a little short of Twenty
Dollars, and this sum very small and trifling as it is, is all that a court
of law or equity would allow for the failure of a similar engagement
between individuals, and it can hardly be supposed that the State
of So. Carolina would avail itself of the power of State Sovereignty
to make a greater exaction."

He offered to pay $50 if the state should want to charge the pat-
entees as high as 20 per cent. He suggested to the comptroller the im-
propriety of any penalty, since "It will appear I presume on examina-
tion that the Citizens of So. Carolina have made a net profit out of
the use of the invention the last season of at least fifty Thousand
dollars." Then Miller exposed the mean spirit that had directed the
rescinding: "Much more is it the subject of astonishment that the
Legislature of a State could not only proceed to sanction such a
measure, but to pass a resolution, as I am informed, they have done,
directing a detention of the whole Balance of money due the Pat-
entees, and ordering a suit to be commenced for what has been al-
ready paid ... for a cause so very unimportant/'

The second specific charge lodged against the firm concerned
Whitney directly, and, since it was his responsibility to provide model
gins, he was mortified **that I am by anyone accused with any omis-
sion or neglect/' He recalled, to Major General Charles C. Pinckney,
the discussion that preceded the agreement. "As to the Models I
believe it had been the understanding of the Gentlemen at the
time, that ... I should engage to deliver them previous to the
[next] session of your legislature. I declined stipulating to furnish

Justice -from South Carolina

them at so early a period observing it was doubtful whether it would
be in my power to perform it, that I was desirous those models should
be constructed in the best manner, and contain some improvements
which have never yet come into general use; that in this case I should
have no other alternative but to make the models myself, there be-
ing now no machine in existence after which I could employ work-
men to copy; that by a previous understanding I was pledged to the
government of the United States and could not consent to engage
to do a thing which I might not have it in my power to perform. Mr.
Hamilton, the Comptroller will I presume recollect this to be the
import of the conversation which passed between him and myself
at the time . . . and it will be observed that the engagement which
I have entered into with the Comptroller does not require the
Models to be delivered at the same time the monies are to be re-
funded. ... I have certainly been actuated by the best of motives
and if I have done wrong I must say I am not sensible wherein.
Permit me to ask the favor that you would speak to the Comptroller
on the subject and name the circumstances to any Gentlemen who
may feel dissatisfaction. I would come to Columbia before the rising
of your Legislature if it were possible, but it is not in rny power. . . .
I shall immediately after my return [to Connecticut] proceed on in
making the models for So. Carolina the materials for which I began
to collect six months ago."

To the voluminous statements sent Hamilton there has remained
but one reply: 'In answer to yours ... I am to say that I can only
act under the directions of the Legislature; and that I have the honor
to be respectfully yours "

What doubts possessed Whitney when he learned, as he was clos-
ing the sale of his patent rights to North Carolina, that the fine fabric
of his previous year's efforts had been unraveled? 1802 was ending.
South Carolina had rescinded the sale. Once again he was selling, but
this time he wondered how good the new contract might be. He had
a copy he underlined the last words of the resolution passed by
the General Assembly of North Carolina that pronounced the "con-
tract is beneficial, advantageous and generally satisfactory to the
Citizens of North Carolina and ought to be strictly fulfilled on the
part of the State with punctuality and good faith" He must almost

160 The World of Eli Whitney

have had to remind himself that the payment schedule was different
and that the names were, too. To John Haywood, treasurer of North
Carolina, he gave "an amplified copy of a Patent granted under the
authority of the United States/' and was assured that a "tax of two
shillings and sixpence for each and every saw or annular row of
teeth, which shall be used in said gins, in each and every year for
the term of five years thereafter shall ... be paid to Miller &
Whitney . . . first deducting the Sheriffs usual commissions of six
percent for collection." On their part, the patentees bound themselves
to the same obligations they previously had. Would the contract born
with 1803 die as that year died?

Bewilderment was Whitney's companion as he drove north in
his sulky, through the dismal winter weeks, north to Washington
where he might rest and plan what to do. His perplexity expressed
itself: "I cannot now tell what, whence or when I wrote you last. I
have been here three weeks & am now laying by to regain the health
of which the severity of the winter has deprived me." He wrote to
Stebbins in March from Washington. The weather this season has
been constantly & suddenly changing from one extreme to the other,
which has rendered this journey very tedious & fatiguing." His re-
mark on the fickleness of the weather seems to have been his way of
commenting on human inconstancy. "I find my personal attention
[to the Patent concerns] to be of the first importance. Nothing has
been effected in that business but what I have done myself & I am
well persuaded that no person or persons could have effected any
thing had I been absent. The Cotton Machine is a thing of immence
value & by pushing hard I hope to realize something for it ... but
so large a proportion of Mankind are such infernal Rascals that I
shall never be able to realize but a trifling proportion of its value.
You know I always believed in the 'Depravity of Human nature. 9 I
thought I was long ago sufficiently 'grounded & established: in this
Doctrine. But God Almighty is continually pouring down cataracts of
testimony upon me to convince me of this fact." His anger seems to
have needed a thunderstorm to clear the heavy atmosphere which
had so long oppressed him.

The vary next day he again wrote Stebbins. He wanted to gather
together the loose strands of fact from which to make a sturdy rope

Justice from South Carolina 161

that would tie the slippery southern planters to his contract. "When
I returned from Georgia in the year 1793 [Whitney was once more
himself], we were in the habit of communicating freely with each
other upon every subject which occupied any part of our attention,
especially what related in any wise to my Invention of the Cotton
Gin. . . . Several Patents have been issued for Machines of my
principle."

And then Whitney told how Holmes had been used to discredit
him. "One of the Patentees claims as his invention making the rows
of teeth of sheet iron instead of wire. The fact is he was told that was
my original Idea, & my machine was particularly described to him,
even by drawings of every part. . . , We commenced a suit against
this man to have his patent vacated, after a tedious course of litiga-
tion & Delay we obtained a judgement on the ground that the prin-
ciple was the same & that his patent was surreptitious his patent
was vacated & Declared void. He came forward & paid up the costs
& purchased a License of us to use the Machine for which he had
pretended to get a patent & we now hold his note [for $200] given
for that License.* By some neglect of the Judge or mistake of the
Clerk in entering the Judgement, upon a new Democratic District
Judge being appointed he found means to revive the cause. After
a series of delays etc. his own judge was obliged to give judgement
against him. Still these designing rascals pretend to hold up his claim
& make a handle of it to our disadvantage. & although I have no idea
that any court can be so abandoned as to take any serious notice of
it, I should like to obtain such testimony as will shew it to be my
invention & thereby put a complete stopper on that businesSv^ie
already have one positive witness of the fact [Judge Nathaniel Pendle^
ton]. The first person to whom the machine was shown (besides
Miller's family) which was in the spring of '93."

* Holmes's patent was issued on May 12, 1796. From then until 1804, Whitney
counted ten other such patents granted. Miller & Whitney's attitude toward
Holmes is unexpected. While their suit against him was pending, Miller in-
structed Goodrich that "if a dispute at law becomes necessary, I prefer to have it
with principle planters rather than with the Mechanics. I would have no objec-
tion to a compromise on- easy terms with Hodgen Holmes ... as he is a Me-
chanic he migbt be userull to us and I would rather make him serviceable to us
& himself than do him an injury. But keep this to yourself unless you actually
settle with him."

168 The World of Eli Whitney

Whitney would return to South Carolina prepared to destroy the
hydra-headed lie which claimed for Holmes the honor of inventing
the gin. To arm himself with proof of his being in fact the inventor,
he asked Stebbins for a deposition reminding him of events of the
summer of 1793, when, as Stebbins could truthfully testify, they had
"many frequent conversations on the subject of mechanics & Natural
Philosophy in general and particularly relative to said invention.
That I [Stebbins] transcribed his specifications or descriptions of
said machine several times & that he conferred with me relative to the
various parts of said Description." Whitney's lawyer, Simeon Bald-
win, took another deposition from "old Mr. Chittenden, a brother of
Gov. Chittenden of Vermont, one of the most distinguished Mechanics
& Machinists of his day. (He was the inventor during the Revolu-
tionary war of a machine for cutting & forming card teeth by a single
stroke & with great rapidity, of vast importance at the time & said
to have been afterwards patented in England & to be the basis of
Wittimore's improved machine for making cards.)" Whitney re-
quested of James Madison, Secretary of State, "an exemplified Copy
of my Patent . . . with the principal Specifications, References &
Drawings included in the copy." Nathaniel Pendleton, General
Greene's aide-de-camp, the first person outside the immediate family
to have seen the gin, wrote to General Pinckney giving Whitney
a copy of his letter asserting that when he was shown the gin in
the spring of 1793 he had "no doubt then, nor have I any now that
Mr. Whitney was the inventor of that machine during the previous
winter. Soon afterwards a machine house was put up at Mulberry
Grove by Mr. Phineas Miller and several of those machines worked
in it by Cattle, which I frequently saw."

Such documents could silence the whispering campaign in South
Carolina; but Whitney knew that he must also win a clear court
victory in Georgia there lay the taproot. He had learned that
his opponents would not scruple to waste his time and deny his
talent. How exasperating to be repeatedly summoned from his
manufactory in New Haven, how repugnant was the necessity of
having to prove his honesty by evidence. "I have a set of the most
Depraved villains to combat & I might as well go to Hell in search
<frf Happiness as apply to a Georgia Court for Justice."

XII

Judge Johnson's Decision

THE bitterness toward the Georgia planters was
further justified in Whitney's heart when, ar-
riving at his destination, he received "the Mellancholly tidings of the
Death of my friend & partner Phineas Miller Esq.,** on December 7,
1803.

Not even Stebbins could replace Miller. Miller & Whitney, he
knew now, was a symbol of a shared, adventure the golden hopes,
the long gray fruitless years of struggle against opposition and mis-
representation. It must have been hard to remember a time when
their partnership was not an expression of their friendship, a joining
of names and efforts. Miller had assumed the financing of a business
whose kind and scope had not existed before in the United States.
Singlehanded, Miller had stood off a hungry countryside and had
preserved part of their property; as much as possible he had shielded
Whitney from any duty, burden, or harm that might interfere with
his freedom to explore and conquer his own special world of mechan-
ics and production. From the very beginning Miller had valued
Whitney's gifts and sought to advance them. Whitney appreciated
Miller's unique devotion to their firm and to him. When he had
moved on to his next great project he had not entered into another
partnership, partly because he preferred independence, partly be-
cause no man could have replaced MiUen

The thought of Catherine, and the memory of how generously she
and Miller had welcomed him into their home and lives, made
Whitney leave immediately for Dungeness. Traveling there, his mind
and heart must have been crowded with the events of the past decade
their plans for quick sure riches and the sequel of anxious toil,
uncertainty, disappointment

163

16Jf. The World of Eli Whitney

Miller's death "the very unexpected event/' as he characterized
the death of a man not yet forty was tragically timed; it came as
good tidings were beginning to attach themselves to their firm, with
the decision of Tennessee to purchase the patent rights and North
Carolina's reaffirmed intention to abide by her contract. Had this
been bought at the cost of Miller's life? Whitney must have asked
the question, for again and again he openly expressed the hatred he
felt toward those who had tried to kill Miller & Whitney.

Reinstatement of the sale to the South Carolina legislature had to
be postponed to the next year; he would have to return for the legis-
lative meeting of December, 1804. During his short visit at Dunge-
ness, he attended to the more pressing matters: with Catherine,
executrix of Miller's estate, he gave Goodrich authority to assign the
patent rights to Tennessee. He instructed his lawyer in Columbia,
South Carolina: "Should any of those persons from whom we have
reed money for Patent Licenses commence a suit ... to oblige us
to refund the money which they have paid, you are hereby author-
ized to accept service in my behalf and answer to the Cause in Court.
I shall have no defence to make they are fully entitled to recover
the money & it would have been paid to them long ago had it not
been for the improper interference of the Comptroller/' To whom
the moneys were to be refunded seems to have been a point of dis-
cussion. Whitney thought they should be paid directly to the individ-
ual, whereas the comptroller claimed "that the said monies and ob-
ligations were to be delivered over to him for the use of the state."
Whitney may have suspected that the comptroller had deliberately
created new obstacles. By the time the legislature met again, Whitney
wanted a performance by the firm of their part of the agreement,
since he was convinced that now he could answer by proof the
insinuation that he was not the true inventor. He was nailing shut
every exit through which they might try to run out on their contract.

"My time, since my return to [New Haven] last spring," he wrote
to Catherine at the end of September, lias been almost wholly oc-
cupied in constructing Models of the Cotton Machine for the South-
ern States & for the last three months my labour & anxiety have been
incessant" He was as tense as a general on the eve of battle. ""These
Models are of full size for general use in which I have endeavored

Judge Johnson's Decision 165

to bring together all the useful improvements & alterations which
have occured to my mind in contemplating the Subject for Several
years past Delicacy in their opperation, Durability & a more com-
pleat Development of principle have been primary considerations
in their construction & I flatter myself they will be found superior to
any which have before existed. They are not quite finished, I hope
however to compleat them & start from here for So Carolina in ten
Days. I anticipate a very fatiguing & perplexing tour/* "Fatigue" and
"perplexity" were the words he habitually used for a southern trip,
but this time they bore no relation to what befell him. The acute
panic that seized his enemies was proof of how well he had sealed
all loopholes. When, at the end of November, 1804, he appeared in
Columbia, their use of force was their confession of weakness.

Once, Miller had been warned that if he persisted in bringing the
trespassers to trial, he would be "stoned thro* the streets"; his ex-
emption from violence was the measure of the planters* certainty that
he would be unable to collect from them. This kind of threat had
prepared Whitney for a contumacious foe but no more.

But Whitney's "opponents in Georgia had the address to influence
the Legislature of S.C. to rescind their grant, & on his going there
to meet the Legislature in 1804 he was by their order arrested in
a suit to recover the money previously advanced."

Had they thought thus to intimidate him, they were wrong. Angry,
indignant, Whitney accused the legislature directly. He stated that he
conceived himself "to have been treated with unreasonable severity
in the measures recently taken against him by and under their im-
mediate direction. He holds that, to be seized and dragged to prison
without being allowed to be heard in answer to the charge alledged
against him, and indeed without the exhibition of any specific charge,
is a direct violation of the common right of every citizen of a free
government; that the power, in this case, is all on one side; that what-
ever may be the issue of the process now instituted against him, he
must, in any case, be subjected to great expense and extreme hard-
ships; and that he considers the tribunal before which he is holden
to appear, to be wholly incompetent to decide, definitely, existing
disputes between the State and Miller & Whitney."

Pride illuminated bis avowal that he had "manifested no other

166 The World of Eli Whitney

than a disposition to fulfill all the stipulations entered into with the
State of South Carolina, with punctuality and good grace; and he
begs leave to observe further, that to have industriously, laboriously,
and exclusively devoted many years of the prime of his life to the
invention and the improvement of a machine, from which the citizens
of South Carolina have already realized immense profits, which is
worth to them millions, and from which their prosperity, to the
latest generations, must continue to derive the most important bene-
fits, and in return to be treated as a felon, a swindler, and a villain,
has stung him to the very soul. And when he considers that this cruel
persecution is inflicted by the very persons who are enjoying these
great benefits, and expressly for the purpose of preventing his ever
deriving the least advantage from his own labors, the acuteness of his
feelings is altogether inexpressible."

Miller & Whitney's opponents had played their last desperate trick.
Whitney had left them no hiding room for whispers and lies, insinua-
tions and trickery; ten years of antagonism had created a climax
that demanded a settlement. And the planters, confronted by Whit-
ney, who not only had invented the machine but was able to prove
that he had invented it, knew their cry of "monopoly" was but a
querulous counterpoint to his passionate plea. "On a full hearing be-
fore a committee embracing at his" request his strongest opponents,
the committee reported so full and favorably in his favor that the
Legislature restored the grants & made extra provisions for the pay-
ment/*

From the^ report of this committee,* it appears that its principal
task had been less one of deciding for or against the patentees than
of arranging a retreat in which the trespassers could retire with a
minimum of discomfiture. Why else should they have inserted the
last clause: "And although from the Documents . . . they are of
opinion that said Whitney is the true original inventor of the Saw
Gin, yet, in order to guard the Citizens from any injury hereafter, the
Committee recommend that before the remaining Balance is paid,
the said Whitney be required to give Bond & Security to the Comp-
troller General to indemnify each and every Citizen . . . against
the legal claims of all persons ... to any patent or exclusive Right
to the invention or improvement of the machine for separating cotton

Judge Johnson's Decision

from its seeds." Hie wording of this communique conceals the fact

that the final clash in the committee room was short and savage

as Whitney indicated in a quick note to Baldwin. "The boisterous
session of the Legislature is just closed [December 26, 1804] it
commenced on the day of my arrival. My constant & utmost exertions
have, without interruption been engaged in getting thro' my business
& have been so fortunate as to have succeeded equal to my expecta-
tions. It was carried by a large majority in the Lower House but it
was won by a hard fought Battle in the Senate/'

Miller & Whitney had at last achieved their first real victory: their
patent rights had been sustained, their credit reestablished. And yet
it was but a beginning. Even as Whitney was fighting in South Caro-
lina, he heard that the "contract which has been made with the State
of Tennessee now hangs suspended?; but he was reassured by the
news that though "two attempts have been made to induce the State
of No Carolina to rescind their contract, neither . . . have suc-
ceeded."

The report Q{ Whitney's thundering success was dressed up to
suit people's fancies. "Common Fame is a common liar and though
she sometimes fabricates her globes of falsehood round a little nu-
cleus of truth, . . . still a large proportion of mankind will for
awhile believe every word of her gab." He wrote Stebbins the
latest distortion of facts. "She has undertaken to report that in con-
sequence of great success in the Southern Country the winter past,
I have become very rich. My friends are rejoiced & I should not
be disposed to undeceive them were it not from the consideration
that the longer they continue in the delusion the greater will be their
mortification when they find it is not true. ... A report was cir-
culated some miles about the Country that I brought home with me
the enormous sum of 80,000 Dollars! What a pack of fools to think
any man would be such a. foolish fool as to travel with half that sum
about him. The truth is I brought home the remnant of what I car-
ried away with me for my travelling expences, which, (as I always
calculate to have the means of purchasing another horse in case
mine should die on the journey) amounted to the sum of 225 Dollars
37 y 2 cents. I have borrowed 500 Dollars since I returned to pay some
of my most pressing Debts & now want 500 more & can't obtain it'*

168 The World of Eli Whitney

The sale to South Carolina and other states had not halted the law
suits of Miller & Whitney against the Georgia trespassers. The
minutes of the Circuit Court speak eloquently of the firm's deter-
mined spirit. Its name appears in more than sixty suits against sev-
eral dozen separate defendants, as the partners continued over a
full decade seeking legal redress despite adverse verdicts and hostile
juries and calculated delays. (Was it prearranged that "as the last
counsel was arguing this case, George Henly, one of the Jury was
taken with a fit" and the case put over to the next session?) Some-
how, despite years when they struggled to stave off bankruptcy,
the campaign was kept alive. Miller's death did not interrupt the
firm's appearance on the court calendar; if anything it committed
Whitney more firmly to continue Miller's program. He understood
how vital it was that they win a verdict in Georgia. On it rested their
strategy. Emotionally, too, it was necessary, for Whitney had long
been outraged by the insinuation that his invention was ill begotten
and his patent a kind of blackmail to secure him a wealth he had
not earned; he noted as "a solemn truth that many of the Citizens of
Georgia are amassing fortunes, living voluptuously and rolling in
splendor by the surreptitious use of [the gin], while I am, and for
more than six years past have been, chained down to this spot, strug-
gling under a heavy load of debt contracted for my very subsistence
and expenses while I was solely employed in inventing and perfect-
ing this machine. This, my Friend, is the simple fact."

He was better prepared to fight for his rights, for now Miller &
Whitney had sufficient funds to press the law suits. Adam Gilchrist,
a Charleston merchant, had been instructed to accept the money to
be paid by South Carolina; in July of 1805 he wrote that he had "re-
ceived the whole amount, altho* a part was not due, say $22,418."
From this sum Whitney directed Gilchrist to send $5,000 to Miller's
executor, Dr. Lemuel Kollock, "to be paid over on a Judgement
against the Estate of Genl. Greene."

But something less tangible than a substantial bank account
operated in Whitney's favor. The attitude of the other cotton-growing
states South Carolina, North Carolina, and even Tennessee made
it almost impossible for Georgia to stand alone in denying Whit-
Bey's rights. Her lofty moral reasons suddenly had the sound of cheap

Judge Johnson's Decision 169

and shabby excuses; her pride in defending economic freedom ap-
peared to be a cloak covering the swagger of a highwayman; the
long list of verdicts against Whitney could be interpreted as a sharp
scheme to legalize a robbery. The planters found the climate they
had created unpleasant. Everything had been changed by the action
of their sister states; to neighboring planters the Georgians found
themselves obliged to defend their behavior. Such a situation quickly
became intolerable. And those men who had been rejoicing that
shortly the patent would expire its fourteen-year period started
on November 6, 1793 began to worry at how little time remained
in which to extricate themselves from their predicament. Their best
way out, they must have reasoned, was through the courts; since they
had used the courts to sustain their trespass, by the same method
they could make redress and remove the stigma.

A scant three years was left between the time Whitney defeated
the opposition in South Carolina and November, 1807, the expira-
tion date of his patent; but to the Georgia planters who now had to
buy their self-esteem from him, this length of time was whittled
down to five court sessions, held semiannually. Their change of at-
titude is the most likely explanation for the change to be noticed in
the court proceedings, whose minutes are as cryptic and indicative
as the readings on a thermo^neter. Spring and winter, session after
session, the entries dully repeat "non suit" ( a way of terminating a
case apart from its merits without precluding a retrial at a later date ) ;
then, while the struggle took place in the South Carolina legisla-
ture, the Georgia juries were content to mark lime witk "case con-
tinued" or "continued on Defendants Affidavit" or~"contrnued by Con-
sent/'

Abruptly, after an arresting entry for May, 1806, these stop. "On
Argument a perpetual injunction against Jno. Powell ordered." He
was one of the two defendants whose case happened to come at that
session. The other was Arthur Fort, wKo had been sued since Decem-
ber, 1802. Fort was the lone defendant at the following session in
December. A new theme had been, introduced; it was developed
skilfully and majestically at the next session, "before the Honble Wil-
liam Johnson & the Honble William Stephens on Bill, answer, replica-
tion, testimony, & exhibits in behalf of the complainants [Eli Whitney

170 The World of Eli Whitney

et al.]. It is ordered, adjudged, & decreed that the injunction prayed
for by the complainants in their bill be granted them & that the same
be made perpetual and that the Defendant pay the costs of this Bill.
Dated Louisville [then the capital of Georgia] this 19 December
1806 & in the 31 year of American Independence."

This occasion was made lustrous by Judge Johnson s celebrated
decision. One by one he considered the arguments advanced by the
defendant's lawyer: that Whitney's invention was not original, that
it was not useful, that the machine his client had used was different
in that it was an improvement and had been invented by another per-
son. Here, raised again, was the thrice-slain specter of Holmes;
but this time Whitney was present and fully prepared. He had of-
fered in evidence two models he had made one with wire teeth,
the other with teeth cut out of an iron plate and he demonstrated
that in practice, in principle, even in appearance, the two were
identical. His exhibit earned the comment from Judge Johnson that
~Mr. Holmes has cut teeth in plates of iron, and passed them over the
cylinder. This is certainly a meritorious improvement . . . but at
last, what does it amount to, except a more convenient mode of mak-
ing the same thing. Every characteristic of Mr, Whitney's machine
is preserved . . . and all the merit that this discovery can assume
is that of a more expeditious mode of attaching the tooth to the cylin-
der."

Of the first two arguments raised by the defense, the judge spoke
out eloquently. *To support the originality of the invention, the
complainants have produced a variety of depositions of witnesses
. . whose examinations expressly prove the origin, progress and
completion of the machine by Mr. Whitney. . . . Persons who were
made privy to his first discovery, testify to the several experiments
which he made in their presence, before he ventured to expose his
invention to the scrutiny of the public eye. But it is not necessary to
resort to such testimony. . . . There are circumstances in the knowl-
edge of all mankind, which prove the originality of this invention
more satisfactorily to the mind, than the direct testimony of a host
of witnesses." And then Judge Johnson drew out of the stream of
history the salient facts which when considered together constituted
an irrefutable argument. "The cotton plant has furnished clothing to

Judge Johnson's Decision

mankind before the age of Herodotus. The green seed is a species
much more productive than the black, and by nature adapted to a
much greater variety of climates; but by reason of strong adherence
of the fibre to the seed, without the aid of some more powerful
machine for separating it than any formerly known among us, the
cultivation of it could never have been made an object. The machine
of which Mr. Whitney claims the invention, so facilitates the prepara-
tion of this species for use, that the cultivation of it has suddenly be-
come an object of infinitely greater national importance, than that
of the other species ever can be. Is it then to be imagined that if that
machine had been before discovered, the use of it could have been
lost, or could have been confined to any tract of country left unex-
plored by commercial enterprise?"

Whitney must have smiled inwardly, jsince this had been his argu-
ment and Miller's; always it had been deemeji insufficient proof,
and now, when he had produced incontrovertible evidence, it was
charmingly dismissed as superfluous! He could relax but not rest z
since he was deeply committed to the idea that the prolonged fight
touched his honor and affected his purse. Vindication was right and
pleasant^ but not enough. Soon after the decision he wrote from
Savannah that he had "claims against the citizens of this State to a
large amount, which still remaux. unsettled & although these claims
have been placed upon elevated ground by a late very pointed deci-
sion of the Circuit Court in my favour,, one year more, ,at least, must
elapse before a general and final adjustment can take place."

He felt certain of his sense of timing, his ability to perceive the
drift*before anything visible had occurred. Had Jie not, upon receipt
of the verdict against Powell the previous May, written Catherine:
"From the course of events & the present aspect of things I conceive
it will be a more favourable time than has heretofore occured or will
hereafter present itself*?

Yes, one year more and he must have wished that Miller, his
fellow warrior, his close friend, had been beside him when he was
accorded the award they had always merited

Judge Johnson's further remarks probably sounded banal to those
who heard them. But across the intervening years of incredible
growth, they speak with an immediacy that makes the events in the

178 The World of Eli Whitney

courtroom high drama in the life of a nation. "With regard to the
utility of this discovery, the court would deem it a waste of time to
dwell long upon this topic. Is there a man who hears us, who has
not experienced its utility? The whole interior of the southern states
was languishing and its inhabitants emigrating for want of some
object to engage their attention and employ their industry; when the
invention of this machine at once opened views to them which set the
whole country in active motion. From child-hood to age, it has pre-
sented to us a lucrative employment. Individuals who were de-
pressed with poverty, and sunk with idleness have suddenly risen
to wealth and respectability. Our debts have been paid off, our capi-
tals increased; and our lands are treble in value. We cannot express
the weight of obligation which the country owes this invention
the extent of it cannot now be seen some faint presentment may
be formed from the reflection that cotton is rapidly supplanting wool,
flax, silk and furs in manufactures, and may one day profitably sup-
ply the use of specie in our East-India trade. Our sister states also,
participate in the benefits of this invention; for besides affording the
raw materials for their manufactories, the bulkyness and quality of
the article, afford a valuable employment of their shipping.'*

The resounding truth of those Ciceronian phrases must not have
carried beyond the courtroom walls. Judge Johnson's verdict did not
appear in any newspaper until a year and a half later, when Whitney
at last won the next step and collected "Two thousand Dollars &
costs of suit," which the jury considered "treble the damage sustained
by the plaintiff."

This last engagement in Miller & Whitney's battle had elements
of comedy broad enough for the plaintiff's side to enjoy. Because
Whitney did not go south for this trial, the ludicrous details were
described to him. Dr. Kollock, Miller's executor, attended "the ex-
amination of their new witness & model at the Court House. I found
a little bit of a Scotchman they had picked up who lugged forward
the model of a machine which he swore he had seen operate in some
of the manufacturing Towns in England anterior to the date of your
patent & which he said was called a Devil. You have had, I recol-
lect, this thing brought forward in a former trial & layed aside again.
they seem to me to have remodeled the thing adding ap-

Judge Johnson's Decision 173

pendages which resembled your machine just enough to impress a
jury with a verisimilitude & to have been made for the purpose
which the little Scotchman had not hesitancy in swearing (though
no mechanic) that to the best of his Knowledge 6- Belief the princi-
ple is the same & any man" Kollock adds the qualifying "(of
Genius) who had seen a draught or description of this could have
made yours." (Picking, a step preparatory to carding the yarn, was
so weJJ known that ten years before, when Miller was trying to have
fair tests made by British spinners, he had advised them that one
great advantage of the patent-ginned cotton was that "it would re-
quire but little whipping or beating before it is put on the Cards,
and will derive no advantage from the use of the Picking devil/')

The final years of the struggle lack the compact intricacy and
tension of the earlier period. The savage clash deteriorated into a
routine of small^ scattered courtroom incidents, and by comparison
Whitney's final victory in Georgia was an anticlirnax.

It is impossible to state the exact sum realized from the invention.
Some money was made by ginning and by selling gins; some damages
were collected from trespassers; some royalties based on the gins
used in North Carolina and Tennessee were collected by those states
and paid to Miller & Whitney. The only definite. item was the $50,000
paid by South Carolina. The amount taken in by Miller & Whitney;
was for those days impressive, but it did not approach the golden
harvest of which the partners had dreamed. Their reward was piece-
meal and purchased at a great cost; the return on their ingenuity
and enterprise was, despite -the moneys they did secure, largely
moral. It was this imbalance between jjonor and cash that made
Whitney twice attempt to have Congress pass an Act extending the
period of his patent. (His petitions are dated April, 1808, and Ju^
1812.)

On their side, the cotton growers felt that they had paid him once
and that once was enough. The accusations their representatives
leveled at him resurrected charges a dozen times disproved. They
implied that he did not deserve consideration because he had not
taken part in the Revolutionary War (he was born in 1765! ); or that
he was not the original inventor but had merely adapted from this
or that machine, and, at the same time, that though he was the

17 '4 The World of Eli Whitney

original inventor, the gin now in use had been so improved as to
leave his invention without much merit. Finally, it was argued that
were Whitney's request granted he would thereby become too rich.
All the reasons aired in the congressional committee room were fancy
ways of saying No.

In the year 1811 Whitney, answering a letter Robert Fulton had
written, summarized for his fellow inventor the steeplechase into
which the patent had led him. "The difficulties with which I have
had to contend have originated principally in the want of a dis-
position in Mankind to do justice. My Invention was new & distinct
it stood alone & was not interwoven with anything before known.
And it can but seldom happen that the Principle of an invention or
improvement is so strongly marked & can be so clearly and specifi-
cally identified & I have always believed that I should have had no
difficulty in causing my rights to be respected if it had been less
valuable & used only by a small portion of the community. But the
use of this Machine being immensely profitable to almost every in-
dividual in the Country all were interested in trespassing & each
justified & kept the other in countenance. Demagogues made them-
selves popular by misrepresentations & unfounded clamors, both
against the Right & the Law made for its protection. Hence arose
associations & combinations to oppose both. There was a time when
there were but few men in Georgia who* dared come into court and
testify to the most simple facts in their knowledge relative to the
use of the machine. In one instance I had great difficulty to prove
that the machine had been used in Georgia & at the same moment
there were three separate sets of this machinery in motion [within]
50 yards of the building in which the court sat & all so near that the
rattling was distinctly heard on the steps of the courthouse." *

More than a hundred years have passed, and the passions all are
spent. As Whitney drew generalized conclusions when writing to
Fulton, so must an appraisal be made from the vantage point which
the intervening decades and complete freedom from participation
in the heated clash afford. It must be said that financially and
morally Whitney had been wronged; but it should also be added that

* See Appendix B, Oliver Evans to Whitney, Oct. 29, 1811.

Judge Johnson's Decision

he was not, as it appeared to him, the victim of rogues, rascals, vil-
lains, and ingrates who deliberately deprived him of the rightful
fruits of his invention. Rather it would seem that both Whitney and
the planters were unhappy actors in a situation in which right and
wrong were categories not of their making.

Whitney and Miller always denied that they sought to establish
a monopoly, yet that was precisely the effect of the ill conceived
initial policy of the firm. The planters did not want to trespass, yet
they were forced into such action by the excessive tariff they were
asked to pay. Reviewing events as they happened makes it easy to
say that if the partners had had the foresight, had they had a model
to guide them in setting up their business so as to exploit their patent
without threatening to control a whole industry, if immediately
after the fire in New Haven they had licensed the infringing gins
as later they were forced to do, they might have maintained their
patent rights from the beginning and never aroused a just public
opposition. But too much was at stake to expect the impoverished
Georgia planters either to share so much of their profits or to wait
while Whitney manufactured enough machines to install in enough
ginneries; they would have been lacking in initiative had they not
processed their harvest when the British mills stood ready to buy
all the cotton they could raise.

Could Whitney, even with his genius for creating manufacturing
techniques but without the necessary previous experience have
been able to make enough gins to satisfy such a demand? By 1797
there were already three hundred surreptitious gins in operation,
and the amazing growth in cotton production was made possible by
the large number of such gins. When Whitney cited the total cotton
exports and on that basis bitterly figured the vast sums of which he
was being defrauded, he forgot that those figures had been reached
because the illegal gins existed and were able to process the increas-
ing volume of cotton being planted. The pressures created by local
conditions and the world market generated an explosive power that
could not and would not tolerate any restrictions or controls such as
were imposed by the patent provisions. The answer, a black market
in gins and ginning, was acquiesced in by all because all were af-
fected by the same pressure. Thus was created a climate that chan-

176 The World of Eli Whitney

neled the planters* moral indignation away from their own trespass
and into defiant indignation toward Whitney, and justified in their
minds their stratagems to deprive Whitney of his property rights in
his invention.

Whitney shared the lot of most inventors, and compared to what
he had every right to expect he could truthfully assert that his in-
vention brought wealth to everyone but himself. That, however,
would not be a just statement: if his hopes for the invention were
blasted he himself did not end pitifully. His intellectual vigor en-
abled him to scrutinize the labyrinth into which he had wandered
by chance, analyze its structure, and estimate where and when and
how it might be breached. The story of the cotton-gin fiasco is not
just another example of an inventor's loss; its details are the final part
of the curriculum cf Whitney's mature education. As Stiles had in-
troduced him to the intellectual and scientific world and Catherine
had made him at home in genteel society, so his experiences in
Miller & Whitney taught him certain fundamentals of the new busi-
ness order. He used them to good advantage.

xiii The Birth of

the Machine-Tool Industry *

L s his invention of the cotton gin altered forever
, the history of the American South, so Whitney's
sustained work in the manufacture of muskets changed the social
and economic growth of the North and gave it its industrial might.

Whitney's success in the manufacture of guns can be stated in its
most tangible terms by a comparison of the items in the little Ex-
pence Book that detailed the beginning of his adult business efforts,
with the inventory of the impressive estate he left. But the full
measure of the man is not so neatly bracketed. Such a comparison
does not reveal that Whitney fathered the American system of inter-
changeable manufacture which shortly was producing quantities
of cheap, serviceable clocks and watches, hardware, and sewing ma-
chines the first fruits of the new industrial era to enter into the
everyday life of peoples all over the world. Nor does it disclose that
men who were trained by him continued the method he had pio-
neered and translated its concept into other fields. Whitney invented
many tools and machines, but the one that assumed a major role in
the genealogy of machine tools was the milling machine. Lastly, he
established a business that remained, in the hands of his son and
grandson, one of the country's leading private armories for ninety
years, until it was sold to the Winchester Arms Company a clear
indication that from the onset Whitney understood the economics
of the new business structure and that he was able to analyze prob-
lems very different from the mechanical ones which gained him his
fame.

To assess Whitney's achievement, it is necessary to measure it
against the contemporary level of technology. In England, where

177

178 The World of Eli Whitney

Hargreaves and Arkwright and Crompton had set the pace in tex-
tile machinery, where Boulton and Watt merged their complemen-
tary talents to produce steam engines for the world, where the
Darbys and Cort and the Wilkinsons had brought coal and iron
together to start the metal industry, where Bramah and Wilkinson
and Maudslay in small shops were designing and making the tools
for industry's new needs, where Samuel Bentham and Brunei pro-
jected a series of machines to produce the huge number of wooden
pulley blocks the British Navy required annually in England, Whit-
ney would have found a score of extraordinary men whose language
he talked, whose world was his world, whose thoughts his way of
thinking, who were making the future.

These men were not statesmen nor political leaders; they were
not outstanding in religion, the arts, science, nor finance; neither were
they great landowners nor powerful merchants. Mostly they were
mechanics; all had energetic minds and came from the sober, thrifty,
disciplined-to-work, free-to-think dissenters. Reading their life sto-
ries, one finds a common thread: their tradition was to teach them-
selves and think for themselves. Their approach to a specific goal
might be summed up in a maxim of Maudslay's: "First get a clear
notion of what you desire to accomplish and then in all probability
you will succeed in doing it" Whatever their personal fate kind or
tragic their work and their names are forever tied to Britain's eco-
nomic supremacy. The magnitude of their triumphs makes it easy
to transpose them into familiar modern settings; it is necessary to
take the long road back to the close of the eighteenth century to
know what exactly it was they desired to accomplish and how they
succeeded.

Sir William Fairbairn (1789-1874), one of England's first great
civil engineers, recalled when his profession did not even exist. "The
millwright of former days was to a great extent the sole representa-
tive of the mechanical art, and was looked upon as the authority on
all the applications of wind and water, under whatever conditions
they were to be used, as a motive power for the purposes of manu-
factures. . . . He was the engineer of the district in which he lived
and . . . could with equal facility work at the lathe, the anvil, the
carpenter's bench. ... He could handle the axe, the hammer and

The Birth of the Machine-Tool Industry 179

the plane with equal skill and precision; he could turn, bore, or forge
with the dispatch of one brought up to these trades. . . . Generally,
he was a fair arithmetician, knew something of geometry, levelling,
and mensuration, and in some cases possessed a very competent
knowledge of mathematics."

The millwright's staple material was wood, occasionally reenf orced
by pieces of iron. Machinery was built out of timber, sawed by hand
and axe-dressed. M'Connel & Kennedy, "the largest spinners in the
kingdom," had a forest in their Manchester mills of "large square
shafts and wooden drums, ^ome four- feet in diameter. The main
shafts seldom exceeded 40 revolutions per minute." Smeaton's first
cast-iron axle for a water wheel, made in 1769, became a famous
tourist attraction. His familiarity with technical problems made
Smeaton appreciate that even tfye famous Carron Iron Works lacked
the men and means to make a cylinder sufficiently accurate to carry
out Watt's idea. That awaited the special skill of John Wilkinson,
who designed a hollow, cylindrical boring bar, mounted on bearings
at both ends, and produced (1775) "the first metal-cutting tool
capable of doing large work with anything like modern precision."

Smeator/s failure and Wilkinson's success were predicated on the
difference in their primary interest and training. Smeaton, like Watt,
had been apprenticed to a mathematical instrument maker; Wilkin-
son, on the other hand, grew up in the new iron industry, his father
having been one ofjhe first to copy the Darbys' coke furnace. He
spent his life indicating the endless uses t which iron could be put:
he made iron chairs, and with Abraham Darby (the third) he built
the first iron bridge ( 1779 ) : Cast with a single arch, it had "a hundred-
foot span and rose forty-five feet above the Severn. He planned and
launched the first boat formed entirely of iron plates bolted together
(1787); he^filled the order for forty miles of cast-iron pipes for the
water system of Paris and supervised the furnaces ordered for the
Creusot foundry; he coined his own copper and silver money, which,
bearing his profile and the legend, Wilkinson, Iron Master., passed
for currency in the Midland and Western counties; he was buried,
by his own order, in an iron coffin. Throughout his long life he boldly
advocated iron's unique properties, its cohesion and strength, and
proved its versatility. Iron, which is both fusible and malleable, has

180 The World of Eli Whitney

the capacity to keep its shape, whether formed by casting or wrought
by hammering. John Wilkinson was the great virtuoso of the new
industry, but he was that because others before him had worked out
means to produce iron with coal. The Darbys had started before
him, and during his lifetime Henry Cort added notably to the proc-
essing and production of iron.

From the prehistoric age, man h^d known how to extract iron
from its ores, but always charcoal had been used to melt and fine
the ore. In Elizabeth's England forests had been leveled to wprk
the furnaces, and as the forests receded the furnaces followed them,
ever hungry for the fuel they were devouring. By the eighteenth
century most of the iron furnaces were starved and had been aban-
doned; they stood cold ghostly reminders of a once thriving in-
dustry. Coal, it is true, was everywhere; its plentiful presence was
known, and many men sought a way to use it to work the iron ores.
Unlike the cotton-textile industry that was built upon' mechanical
inventions, the metal-working industry depended on chemical in-
ventions, and chemistry was still far too inadequate to be of any
help.* Advances in the processing of iron and steel were made by
experiment, by combining substances to be melted together, by
methods learned directly at the furnace, the foundry, the forge.

With the modern rebirth of this industry, the name of Abraham
Darby is usually associated. The Darbys, father, son, and grandson,
have been called a dynasty; they were known as the Darbys of Coal-
brookdale. The dynasty lasted eighty years, and provided Britain
with world leadership in the metal-working industry.

By the close of the eighteenth century, cast iron had become
available in sufficient quantity and at a price low enough to force
millwrights to consider using it for the wooden gears and shafts and
pulleys that made maintenance of the textile mills costly. This
would have been eminently desirable, but with what were they to

* The chemical properties of iron and steel were not investigated until Torbern
Bergroann (1735-1784) of Upsala made a start by showing the role carbon
pkyed in determining the different physical properties of the combinations of
iron and carbon. He found that the carbon content of steel was low, running from
0.3 to 0.8 per cent, while that in cast iron amounted to i to 3.3 per cent. He also
acted trie important variations in the amount of "phlogiston." (Another century
would pass before chemistry would corroborate what had been empirically
learned)

The Birth of the Machine-Tool Industry 181

shape the iron machinery? The millwrights were aware that then-
tools were neither reliable nor powerful enough to work this new
medium. Save for ^Wilkinson's borer, 'the tools at their disposal
were crude, inadequate, and pitifully out of step with the great
advances recently made in the metal industry. The tools they had
can be quickly enumerated. The lathe was still chiefly made of wood
and designed for the working of wood; it was powered by a crank or
foot treadle, and the cutter was held by the mechanic. The lathe
could shape circular or cylindrical parts, biit what if the iron were
expected to have a surface flat and true? For that there was no tool;
the standard method was "chipping and filing." A steel chisel pains-
takingly chipped off bit by bit to secure an approximately level line,
and then the pitted surface was filed smooth. The method was
tedious, very expensive, and only fairly accurate.*

Cutting screws, similarly, was a hand process. Either the threads
were cut out of an elementary die or, if the screw was to be of some
size,^a strip of paper was wound around the metal, the paper's center
line marked with a punch, and f then the marks slowly traced out
with a cutting tool The thread on screws so made was individual.
Basically, the millwright's chief reliance was on his superlative mas-
tery of hand forging, and on the hammer, the chisel, the file. For
measuring he had calipers and a foot rule made of wood with a "fine
32nd" to assist his trained eye. To comprehend accuracy as it was
conceived of at that time, there is Boulton's enthusiastic comment
that "Mr. Wilkinson has bored us several cylinders almost without
error; that of 50 inches . . . does not err the thickness of an old
shilling in any part.' 7

Wilkinspn's borer was not merely the first metal-cutting tool
capable of anything approaching modern precision in large work. Its
invention made it very clear, as Mantoux points out, that "with the
reign of iron and steel came also that of machinery, one being the
indispensable condition of the other. Watt would never have been
able to build the steam engine which, in 1775, Wilkinson ordered for
his Bradley ironworks, had not Wilkinson provided him with metal

* Professor Roe says that "Watt's beautiful parallel motion, invented in 1785,
was made necessary by the fact that there were no planers to machine a crosshead
and guides. Planers were not developed until thirty years later."

182 The World of Eli Whitney

cylinders of perfectly accurate shape, which could not have been
made by old-fashioned methods a most significant occurrence,
which illustrates the essential interdependence of these two simul-
taneous facts, the development of the iron industry and that of
machinery .^ And yet twenty years were to pass before the next im-
portant machine tool was perfected. Slowly, during those years,
the embryonic state of engineering, with its leisurely methods, its
high costs, its small output, its dependence on obsolete tools, be-
came the bottleneck of the Industrial Revolution. How serious this
was is implied in Fairbanks statement that when he "entered Man-
chester [Cottonopolis], in 1813, the only important tools then in
vogue were a few common lathes, a'screw-cutter, and a boring ma-
chine for a steam cylinder. 7 ' His own machine shop could boast of a
lathe of "considerable dimensions ... we were, nevertheless, with-
out a steam-engine, or any other power, except Murphy, a muscular
Irishman." And yet, by that time, to the problems presented by this
situation, a number of men, mechanically creative, had already
started the revolution in machine making by tools as before them
Watt had provided the way to harness the power of steam, and Har-
greaves, Arkwrigjit and Crompton had begun the mechanization of
the cotton-textile industry. Joseph Bramah (1748-1814), Henry
Maudslay (1771-1831), Sir Samuel Bentham (1757-1831), and
Marc Brunei ( 1769-1849) were Whitney's contemporaries. A review
of their particular contributions makes Whitney's achievements
clearer; an evaluation of their triumphs gives Whitney's success in
manufacturing muskets greater stature. What joins them is the fact
that at the same time, on either side of the Atlantic, men were re-
sponding to the same set of economic and industrial imperatives;
unknown to each other, independently, they had set their feet on
the same road.

Bramah, the oldest of the group, had been apprenticed to a cabi-
netmaker after a severe foot injury had made doubtful his ability to
be a fanner. His first invention is almost in the nature of a com-
mentary. A farmer's son pursuing his cabinetmaking trade in the
homes of London's well-to-do, he designed and patented the first
modem water closet (1778 and 1783 ), substantially unchanged

The Birth of the Machine-Tool Industry 183

since his day. In 1784 he patented a virtually pick-proof lock.* In
1802 he constructed his wood-planing machinery, and one of his
machines was used for fifty years in the Woolwich Arsenal. Four
years later he made a machine which automatically stamped serial
numbers on the Bank of England bank notes. It is not Bramah's
versatility in inventing that makes him noteworthy (a man with his
mind and hands and training was, at that period, like a daring navi-
gator in the sixteenth century whatever the course he set, important
discoveries awaited him); it was his insistence on quality workman-
ship. A whole generation of younger men, rigorously trained by him,
bore witness that his measure as a teacher equaled that as inventor.

One of these younger men, and the greatest, was Henry Maudslay,
the son of a soldier employed at the Woolwich Arsenal. His biog-
rapher deplores the scant formal schooling he had, for as a child he
was taught little outside the arsenal workshops. While still an adoles-
cent, his exceptional qualities were the boast of his fellow workers,
and, when only eighteen, he was sought out by Bramah, to whom he
had been recommended. Despite the high prestige of his shop, Bra-
mah had no mechanic who could impart to metal the necessary
precision, and no tools to manufacture his lock in great numbers.
As previously the precision instrument makers had made orreries
and chronometers and quadrants for the astronomers, now mechan-
ics were to come to the aid of inventors, translating production proc-
esses into machines with which to make machinery. Maudslay was
the man to help Bramah. Roe describes his talent: "To dexterity he
added an intuitive power of mechanical analysis and a sense of pro-
portion possessed by few men, and from the beginning he showed a
genius for choosing the most direct and simple means for accomplish-
ing his purpose."

Maudslay's qualities complemented the imagination, quickness,
and originality of Bramah's mind; the eight years they worked to-

* Bramah proudly displayed one of his padlocks in his shop window with this
sign: "The artist who can make an instrument that will pick or open this lock
shall receive two hundred guineas the moment it is produced/* Not until 1851
did an American mechanic, Alfred C. Hobbs, after working fifty-one hours ( the
Committee of Referees allowed him a month for the task) with a complete tool-
shop at his disposal, pick the sixty-year-old lock andrcollect the reward. Subse-
quently, he madeJbis living by the reputation it brought him.

The World of Ell Whitney

gether (1789-1797) were decisive it was then that the slide rest
was built. This idea, in part or whole, had occurred to many men;
but credit for it goes to Maudslay, who gave it shape and developed
its possibilities. "Maudslay s, Go-cart/' as it was affectionately called,
began a new era in mechanical engineering: it allowed for larger and
heavier work to be done. Speed, accuracy, and uniformity, the
desiderata of the new industry, were controlled by gear wheels and
lead screw. Turning and screw cutting, operations that before had
demanded ingenuity and produced pieces individual as to pitch and
size, now were subject to standardization.

James Nasmyth, Maudslay's pupil and himself a famous engineer,
wrote glowingly of the slide rest: "This beautiful and truly original
contrivance became, in the hands of its inventor, the parent of a vast
progeny of perfect screws, whose descendants, whether legitimate
or not, are to be found in every workshop throughout the world where
first-class machinery is constructed." The combination of mechanical
elements Maudslay incorporated in his slide rest is found in some
form in almost every machine tool; it can claim to be one of the
major inventions of history.

Maudslay set up his own shop in 1797, when Bramah refused to
raise his salary, and shortly thereafter started making the machines
conceived and designed by Sir Samuel Bentham and Marc Brunei.
Bentham, touched with the same brilliant inventiveness as his fa-
mous brother Jeremy, expressed it in different terms. Today he would
be called an efficiency expert. Though such a category did not exist
in his lifetime, the opportunities did. His special love was naval ad-
ministration and construction, and his studies carried him to the
principal ports and dockyards of northern Europe. He went to Russia
when the Empress Catherine invited him to examine the mining and
engineering works in her vast empire. There the lack of skilled
workers was most acute to assist him in his survey, he had a Danish
brass founder, a British watchmaker, and a few Russian sergeants
who could read and draw.

Under such circumstances Bentham began to speculate on the
possibility of designing machines that would permit unskilled hands
to perform skilled tasks. He thought only in terms of woodworking
machinery, for Ms training and outlook were conditioned by the

The Birth of the Machme-Tool Industry 185

Navy, where the use of iron was negligible. Slowly his ideas took
form, and after his return to England ( 1791 ) he took out two patents.
The second (1793), long regarded as one of the most extraordinary
ever issued by the British Patent Office, described an entire series
of machines to expedite the manufacture of pulley blocks. Since
each full-rigged frigate used about fifteen hundred, and the Ad-
miralty alone required over a hundred thousand a year, it was an
ideal item to inaugurate the idea of interchangeability. These ma-
chines were first installed in the new prison that Jeremy Bentham
had designed, where an essential element in the handling of prisoners
was a system of labor. Since the prisoners were both unskilled and
transient, Samuel Bentham's machinery implemented his brother's
reforms.

Bentham was fortunate in meeting Brunei, or perhaps it should
be said that their meeting was a happy event for both. They had
much in common. Brunei was a French naval officer who, escaping
the revolution in France, spent five years in America working on
various engineering projects. He had been appointed chief engineer
for New York and, as such, had assisted Major Pierre L/Enfant, the
man who had drawn the masterplan for the City of Washington, in
laying out the fortifications of the Narrows of New York harbor. In
America, Brunei saw the crippling handicap imposed by the scarcity
of skilled labor, and there he first thought out a machine for shaping
wood. In 1799 he went to England, and two years later he had com-
pleted working models of his machines. Presenting them to the Ad-
miralty for consideration, he was introduced to Bentham, At about
the same time each had been preoccupied with the same problem;
they felt no rivalry, but rather an awareness that their efforts had a
common goal. But though both were inventive and clever and capa-
ble of original designs, neither was a skilled mechanic. This need
brought them to Maudslay's small new shop.

The famous Portsmouth block machinery was the product of then-
joined efforts. Forty-four machines in all, each was a unit designed
to perform its part in an ordered series of operations. When the
machinery was in full running order in 1808, after almost eight
years of planning and construction ten unskilled men did the work
of 130 craftsmen, producing 130,000 blocks annually, supplying the

186 The World of Eli Whitney

needs of the Royal Navy as long as wooden pulley blocks were used.

A basic prerequisite was common to the thinking of Whitney and
Bentham and Brunei. Mass production was their response to supply
cheaply and quickly the demand for a single item bought regularly
and in great quantity. That pulley blocks for the Royal Navy and
muskets for the American Army were first chosen simply means that
at that time governments were the only purchasers able to set such
a demand.

The British toolbuilders had grown up in the industry which they
brilliantly advanced, or served apprenticeships in organized shops,
or received technical instruction in naval academies. None of this
marked Whitney's preparation and training. From the farm he went
to college, from college to inventing. Certainly, neither his father's
farm nor work shed was equivalent to their systematic education,
nor was Yale comparable to the British and French naval academies;
and yet, because Whitney had mechanical genius, he could create,
as he himself phrased it, "a new principle" whether to clean the
green-seed cotton or mass-produce muskets and invent the ma-
chines and tools to endow the principle with life.

Whitney stands apart from those contemporaries in another re-
spect. Always, at a critical phase, they could turn to one another for
assistance. So Boulton and Watt asked of Wilkinson; Wilkinson re-
lied on Darby's superior iron casting; Bramah and Bentham and
Brunei depended on Maudslay's mechanical artistry as, in turn, they
gave him the "clear notion" of what was needed. This luxury of
having another head, other hands, to call on in a crisis, was denied
Whitney. He was utterly alone as he worked out his principle, trans-
lating it into methods and machines.

Looking at the goal Whitney had set himself, one can see that
at various times since boyhood he had been concerned with the
same problem. When he had made a model pen for his pupils to
copy, he had intuitively expressed his awareness of the benefits de-
rived from setting a model for form and size and demanding that
eadb replica reproduce the pattern as exactly as possible. Later,
when he made gins, the advantages of standardizing the machines
became obvious; in the presses and dies for the screw press he had

The Birth of the Machine-Tool Industry 187

again dealt with the concept in another form. He kqew that this way
of manufacturing was engaging the ingenuity of other men, for ma-
chinery that automatically made nails and card teeth was being used
in Rhode Island; these industries were the pioneers in producing
cheap small, uniform metal objects. What most delighted Whitney
was that the contract to produce ten thousand muskets provided the
only opportunity he could have found to allow him to develop his
ideas.

He concentrated on the intricate anatomy of the Charleville mus-
ket; he had brought back with him two of the French guns made in
1763 and sold by the French government to the American colonists.
These models had been made by a system in which each small part
was fitted to its particular gun and each gun, though it might seem
like every other, was different and individual. Whitney's familiarity
with production problems had convinced him that for the United
States the solution lay in reducing a complex which formed a labor
skill to simpler procedures which workers could learn in a short
time. This had been demonstrated by Hargreaves, Arkwright, and
Crompton when they replaced the spinner's skill with cunning ma-
chines. But Whitney, exploring still further the laws that govern
production, concluded that to increase the production of an article
as intricate as a musket, methods and tools and machines would have
to be created which would themselves be endowed with some of the
armorer's skill and which would give uniformity and accuracy to
make the parts interchangeable. The system would also solve the
related problem of maintainance by making available parts for re-
pair. A Jogic derived from his experience and mechanical instinct
assured^iim it was quite reasonable to assume a contract for ten
thousand guns when the other twenty-six bidders, manufacturing
by existing methods, together dared undertake a total of slightly
over thirty thousand.

Whitney's friends knew that he had embarked on a venture
worthy of his talent. He had their faith and support. Henceforth his
would be a lonely search for the ways and means of attaining pre-
cision. Precision was an ideal to be approached, and each step for-
ward defined and clarified this ideal. Whitney's genius seized on the
concepts of standardization and precision which were abroad in the

188 The World of Eli Whitney

minds of men and translated them into tangible tools and processes.
Now it is possible to see what forces industrial, economic, social,
political were created and set in motion by Whitney's initial effort
in mass production. At that time, an economist like Saint-Simon
could perceive from the lusty beginnings that had occurred in Britain
the nature of the industrial and social problems which would arise
from the new organization of production. But to Whitney there were
no such overtones. He saw his successful completion of the contract
as the chance to reestablish himself.

The 1763 Charleville muskets, to whose specifications Whitney
had to conform, deserve to be dusted off and their unique story
told. The glitter of great names and events had made the voyage
of the muskets from France to America the joyous, triumphant
climax of a little comedy of high politics. The Abduction from
the Arsenal, might be the title, and, like the contrived stage pieces
of that period, everyone but the wicked enemy (who makes
his appearance at the end and to no avail ) schemed, intrigued, and
indulged in mysterious theatrical tricks. The time: early spring, 1776.
The principal actors: Stias Deane, the Connecticut Yankee sent to
the court of Louis XVI by the Continental Congress that was grimly
aware of what it meant to start a shooting war without adequate arms
to fight; worldly, energetic, determined, experienced both as lawyer
and storekeeper in bargaining and promoting; Pierre Augustin Caron
de Beaumarchais, France's leading dramatist (his Le Barbier de
Seville had fust appeared, his Le Manage de Figaro, wherein his
passion barbed with wit demolished a corrupt aristocracy, had not
yet been written), the friend of Voltaire, the trusted servant of his
long, and a courtier who had the confidence of the king's foreign
minister, Vergennes. The minister, secretly sympathetic to the re-
bellious American colonists, was officially unable to commit an act
hostile to Great Britain.

Adept and experienced at political manipulation, Vergennes was
enchanted with the plan Beaumarchais devised whereby Deane
could get arms for his compatriots and he could remain friendly to
Britain. The plat, broad and direct as the action of a comedy should
Jbe, adfaieml a happy conclusion: the action called for Vergennes,

The Birth of the Machme-Tool Industry 189

with the king's consent, to order Penet, the chief armorer at the Royal
Arsenal at Charleville, to dispose of thirty thousand muskets of the
1763 pattern it was explained that they were obsolete, changes and
improvements having been made in 1766, 1768, 1770, 1771, 1773, and
1774 to armorers in various French cities. Meanwhile Beaumar-
chais, with Deane as a silent, very active partner, organized Hortalez
& Co. (how partial Beaumarchais was to the Spanish disguise!), a
firm favored by large loans from the French government The
performance was thoroughly professional, the timing perfect. By the
beginning of 1777, three ships left France. One was intercepted by
the British blockade (the wicked enemy), but the other two brought
their cargo of 23,000 muskets safely to American ports. They were
distributed in time to share in the honor of defeating Burgoyne at
Saratoga.

Thus muskets made to Serve a feudal France assisted a revolu-
tionary America; formed by the time-honored skilled handicraft
system, thirty-five years later they became the models for the first
article produced by the new industrial system.

The Amis Manufactory
at Mill Rock

N'

FEVER, in the breathless rush to get started, did
Whitney doubt his ability to manufacture the
muskets for which he had contracted. Reading his letters, written in
the summer and fall of 1798, one is aware of his sure touch. No aspect
of the complex structure seemed alien to him, though the whole enter-
prise was wildly novel. Intuitively, he knew what landmarks were
significant in the world he was about to create.

Had Wolcott suggested the advisability of another contractor es-
tablishing himself in the vicinity of New Haven making of that
town a small Birmingham or Sheffield? To do so, Whitney argued,
"would be like an attempt to plant a forrest with full grown trees."
The limited local labor supply would be instantly disturbed. "I
have not only the Arms but a large proportion of the Armourers to
make. My intention is to employ steady, sober people and learn them
the business. I shall make it a point to employ persons who have
family connections and perhaps some little property to fix them to
the place, who consequently cannot be easily removed to any con-
siderable distance." Let the unattached, the restless go westward;
he would not invest time and money in teaching a man who was
not tied to New Haven by family and property.

Workers, he explained, "must necessarily learn the business at my
expence. When they are learnt, they may easily be led to think they
ought to have higher wages; without considering at whose expence
they got an insight into the business. If there is another manufactory
in the vicinity where workmen are wanted, and higher wages of-
fered, they will either be discontented or go off and leave me it
matters not which for I would as soon have a workman taken off
WO

The Arms Manufactory at Mill Rock 191

as made dissatisfied." And then he points out that "a rise of Wages of
only 6d per Day will be a serious evil," striking off "all the profits at
once." Having stated his argument against inviting ruinous competi-
tion for labor, Whitney pointed out that another gun manufactory
in the neighborhood would inflate the price of certain materials,
"particularly' Charcoal; the demand for which will be so suddenly
and so greatly increased beyond what it ever has been, th^t it will
not be had vyithout paying an enormous price for it. These are con-
siderations which materially affect the Contractor and are not un-
interesting to the Public."

Until his business had taken the form he wanted, Whitney was
on guard lest the same aggressive enterprise and competition that
had so quickly killed Miller & Whitney's ginneries in the South
should gaiEL a foothold and ruin his workshop in the North. Once
was enough to be robbed of the returns his genius and efforts could
claim; this time he had also to protect his "new principle." As the
Lyonses and the Holmeses had slapped gins together, so other
mechanics, incapable of artistry or precision, by their crude efforts
could justify those who ridiculed the principle of interchangeable
manufacture. He had to make certain that his second venture did
not carry the seeds of calamity. Out of a wish for self-preservation,
he warned Wolcott that "perhaps Mr. Dixon or some of his connec-
tions may send propositions to contract to manufacture Arms, pro-
posing to make the Locks, Barrels, and all the principal parts of
the Musket at a Distance from New Haven and have them only
stocked and finished at this Cotton factory here. Should this be the
case, I beg leave to observe that I apprehend it would be only an in-
direct method of procuring that, which they despair of obtaining by
direct means. It would fix their general rendezvous here, and afford
them, perhaps a better opportunity of tampering with my workmen
than if their whole business were carried on here."

In the same letter of August 2nd he enclosed the bond, "executed
3 ist ultimo by. Mr. Jqhnjanes Clark and myself for the faithfull per-
formance of my Contract," and requested Wolcott to forward the
$5,000 advance to which he was entitled. He himself, he wrote, was
going "to Massachusetts to procure workmen" but had arranged to
send a small vessel to bring four thousand gun stocks, since "it will

The World of Eli Whitney

be more troublesome and expensive transporting the stocks from
Philadelphia in the winter after the Delaware closes." A clearly
thought-out schedule can be discerned behind the arranging, as-
sembling, building, organizing. Calmly, and with confidence, he
declared, "I shall use every exertion to put my business into effectual
operation as fast as it can be done with a suitable degree of prudence
and economy."

His careful program was disrupted almost immediately. Yellow
fever had already struck in Philadelphia with such virulence that
the government moved to Trenton so that it would not be cut off
from the rest of the country. The epidemic forced Whitney to post-
pone getting his stocks from the public stores; but, even worse, it
also deprived him of that market for his iron and steel. This, he told
Wolcott in October, "has been a very considerable disappointment
to me because the Iron which is manufactured in this part of the
Country is generally made in the winter Season, the Streams on
which most of the Forges Stand being nearly dry thro* the Summer
and untill late in Autumn." He was worried not only for the quantity
he needed, but had serious doubts about the quality. "None of the
various kinds of Iron which are made in New England, except that
of Salisbury, have been tried for musket barrels. . . . After making
particular enquiry, I found but one man who had it in his power to
procure the genuine Salisbury refined Iron. This man, Mr. Wm.
Charles Loveland of Canaan, would contract to furnish me with my
Barrels welded up ready for boreing and finishing but would not
undertake to supply me with Iron. Under these circumstances I con-
cluded to enter in a contract with him to deliver me Ten Thousand
musket Barrels at New Haven and I think there is a fair prospect
that he will fulfill his engagement."

In arranging to have his supplies ready to be called in as required,
Whitney knew that either he must give his subcontractor the se-
curity and protection of a contract or rely on other sources whose
iron might or might not make satisfactory barrels. In this situation
Be wanted the government either to take any surplus barrels he
imght have on hand when his contract had been filled or allow him
to experiment with the other Jdnds of iron. Welding iron barrels, he
assured Wolcott, was "so simple that good common Blacksmiths will

The Arms Manufactory at Mill Rock 193

pretty readily turn their hand to it but the Boreing and fitting up
cannot be done to a profit without an expensive apparatus and is a
Branch which they do not understand/' The loss of the Philadelphia
source made him revise his estimation of time and money. "I find
it will take a longer time and be attended with more expence to
establish the Business than I was aware of at the time I contracted,"
he admitted to Wolcott, but hastened to add that "the prospect of
finally placing it on^an advantageous footing appears to me to be
more flattering."

No factory, no workmen, no materials to these he had already
added no time and no money. But whereas he was certain that the
lack of men and machines and supplies would soon be met, the pass-
ing months only increased his feeling that he was racing against time.
He had intended "to have done a considerable part of the work in
the town of N. Haven, in the Buildings which I own and then oc-
cupied there. [The shop where he manufactured gins.] But after
viewing the works at Springfield [Armory] where their water works
are at some distance from the principal Armoury, I relinquished the
idea of doing any work in town and determined to do aU my work
on one spot. The Superintendent at Springfield told me that it would
cost 4000 Dollars a Year more to do the same in 2 places at two miles
distant from each other, than if it was all concentrated into one place.**

Delay dragged at every step he took. Securing his mill site should
have been simple and quick. He knew exactly where he wanted to
build his manufactory. '"There is a good fall of Water in the Vicinity
of this Town which I could procure and could have works erected
in a short time," he had written to Wolcott Mill Rock, the spot he
had chosen, was where the founders of New Haven had built the
first dam and set up the first corn mill. Mill River, as the stream was
called, offered great opportunities. At all seasons an ample flow of
water guaranteed him a steady source of power, the fall at the darn
was sufficient to turn the necessary machinery, and the river up to
that spot was navigable for scows carrying from twenty to thirty
tons. (Timothy Dwight averred: "No position for a manufactory
could be better. From ,the bleak winds of winter it is completely
sheltered by the surrounding hills; to the delightful breezes of sum-
mer it is perfectly opened by the valley through which the river

The World of Eli Whitney

flows. No place, perhaps is more healthy; few are more romantic.")
But it was September lyth before Whitney was able to purchase "the
Mill and Stream just above Neck Bridge where Buel's factory
stood Called Sabin's Mill and the farm adjoining which belonged
to Capt. Daniel Talmage."

He confided to Stebbins that because he has encountered "some
difficulties and much delay in compleating the purchase I was unable
to commence my opperations in erecting the necessary buildings and
machinery for executing my contract, till about the first of Novem-
ber." Six precious weeks had been lost. To get his dam built and his
buildings up before winter, he hired every workman he could. He
ripped out the old mill; he collected the material needed for the
new buildings. The mill site, "tho* firm and well founded by nature,
was rough & irregular and it required a considerable expence & some
time to lay the foundation of regular works so as to take the best
advantage of the water & situation. Three days' more would have
completed the foundation of my principal building when the first
snowstorm (which was terribly severe) happened. This occasioned
so much delay that I did not compleat the raising of my building till
the 4th Dec/' By the slim margin of three days he had lost the race,
but even to winter he would not yield, and between snowstorms
(there were twelve impatiently he had counted them) he and his
small army of workmen toiled. He might complain that he was
"worne out with fatigue & anxiety"; but fatigue was forgotten and
anxiety stilled when on January 13, 1799, he could triumphantly re-
port that "My building which is 72 feet long by 30 & 2 stories high
is nearly finished!"

In this letter to Stebbins he briefly sketched the outlines of his new
world. "There are three things called houses on the farm which I bo't
of Talmage. I moved into the best of these (the one he used to occupy
& which is the nearest house to the Mill ) about the first of last month.
Mrs. Ogden is my housekeeper & I have two girls in the kitchen
and I have at present only twenty in family." Were these the work-
men he had secured in Massachusetts? From the start he kept watch
over his employees. For the unmarried he ran a boardinghouse, close
to the factory, where, in fatherly fashion, he supervised their lodging

The Arms Manufactory at Mill Rock 195

and feeding and had their clothes washed and mended. Later, for
married men, he built homes the first mill village in America.

"I continue to Date from N. Haven tho* in fact I live in the bounds
of Hamden. My situation here may be made a pleasant and a valuable
one. The New Turnpike Road from New Haven to Hartford which
is laid out, granted & subscribed for, passes directly by my Door
between the house and the mill indeed it cuts off a part of the
House and comes hard on my New buildings which I have erected
for my waterworks. This will be one of the most beautiful and most
considerable roads in New England; being nearly in a straight line
from N. H. to Hartford & the distance between the two places by
this new Road but a little over thirty-four Miles." In the turnpike
his friend Senator James Hillhouse had promoted, the arrow-straight
highway that would connect Boston with New York, carrying
travelers past the front door of his manufactory, he took a certain
pride. That autumn he had frantically told Stebbins that it would
"be a ruinous thing" should winter retard his activities; but when
winter had t come he^ accepted the fact that he would "not be able
to do much till the Spring opens." Looking out over a world buried
under deep snow, he could quietly admit that "I have now taken a
serious task upon myself & I fear a greater one than is in the power
of any man to perform in the given time but it is too late to go back/'
It was at this time, that Whitney again wrote to congressmen and
influential friends, urging a change in the wording of the patent law.

But it was in Whitney's nature to relax only when he had practical
reasons to permit it. His apprehensions were eased when, on proof
of his having spent the first $5,000 advance, the second, equal in
amount, was immediately forwarded to him. He received it on Janu-
ary 4, 1799. At the same time Whitney must have felt that fortune
was favoring him when he read in the "Circular to the Contractors
for fabricating Muskets" that Captain Decius Wadsworth had been
"appointed Inspector to prove barrels and inspect muskets." Here
was a friend in an important position. Wadsworth, a Yale classmate
of Miller's, had exerted himself to have the patent law amended; his
respect for Whitney's, genius was based on intimate knowledge of
his cotton-gin invention. Whitney knew that should a critical mo-

1QQ The World of Eli Whitney

ment arrive, he would deal with an official willing, on the basis of
past accomplishments, to trust his integrity and ability to succeed in
his present venture.

That moment was fast coming. As the first year of the contract
drew to an end, Whitney fek as though he were being strangled for
lack of time and capital His letters recounting his troubles and
pleading for indulgence give the only firsthand account of the begin-
ning of mass production. Wadsworth perhaps paid Whitney a visit,
for in April he had been requested by Wolcott to report "what
progress Mr. Whitney has made and when his deliveries may be
expected to commence." News from Europe made it very clear that
the United States would have to rely on themselves for arms. Wol-
cott, who had won admiration for his hard practical sense and his
capacity for taking pains, began to have grave misgivings that many
of the men who had undertaken to manufacture them would fail:
"The sooner a contractor discontinues a business to which he is un-
equal, the better it will be for him & the public,"

Twice Whitney phrased the long letter before he finally sent it to
Wolcott on June 29, 1799. There are a few differences, but both have
the same blending of assurance and need, of prevailing business pro-
cedures and excited, haphazard references to the new production
system. "I do not make that progress in the execution of my contract
for fabricating Muskets which I expected at the time I contracted.
I have met with many unexpected and unavoidable delays & disap-
pointments which could not have been foreseen and guarded against.
I was also myself mistaken in some of my calculations at the time I
entered into the Contract. The greatest and principal cause of delay
has been the uncommon length and severity of the past winter. Its
early commencement prevented the completion of many things ap-
pertaining to my water works, such as Dam, flooms, etc, which, had
the winter held off as usual, would have been accomplished in a short
time. ... Its long continuance produced a great scarcity of forage
for cattle and untill within these few Days, it has been extremely
difficult to procure any teamwork even at double the price." Ox
teams were the tractors and bulldozers of that period.

Whitney was not alone in lamenting winter's cold and spring
floods; established firms throughout New England suffered heavily.

The Arms Manufactory at Mill Rock 197

"In the month of February I contracted with Messrs. Forbes &
Adam of Canaan, who are unquestionably among the most able and
punctual dealers in and manufacturers of Iron in this Country, to
make me a number of tools, Mill-iron and other heavy iron work, for
all of which I carried them patterns at the time, and to supply me
with rolTd iron Rods, etc. of a particular description. All these they
were to send me in a fortnight. At the time I was there their Works
were frozen up & had been somewhat injured by a late flood. . . .
With all their resources and exertions their works are not yet in
motion. I had a letter from them a few Days since saying that 'their
works were much more injured than they imagined/ ... At the
same time I contracted with another man in the same neighborhood
a man of property and reputed to be one of the most punctual, to
supply me with several tons of iron all to be delivered in the month
of April. The season proved such that neither ore could be dug nor
coals burned till all the fodder for cattle was expended, then neither
ore nor wood could be transported for the want of teamwork & I have
not received a jingle pound of iron from that quarter. The man with
whom I contracted to weld my Barrels faSed this would have been
a great disappointment if I had met with no other. As it is however I
think I shall do as well as if he had fulfilled his engagements. . . .

"At the time I entered into the Contract to manufacture the arms,
my mind y^as occupied in devising the best & most expeditious mode
of doing the work & I contemplated the Dispatch and facility with
which I could work after all my aparatus was compleat atf d in mo-
tion and did not sufficiently consider the time that must necessarily
be taken up in constructing and making fMs apparatus. ... I find
that my personal attention is more constantly and essentially neces-
sary to every branch of the work than I apprehended . . . Indeed
there is no Branch of the work Jhat can proceed well, scarcely an
hour, unless I am present."

Almost from the start, Whitney discovered that he had not com-
pletely solved his financial problems. In estimating the size of the
government advances, he had counted on obtaining credit, but the
credit structure did not accommodate industrial enterprises like his.
He explained to Wolcott that "when I contracted I supposed it would
cost me from twenty-five to thirty thousand Dollars in money and

198 The World of Eli Whitney

credit to make one Thousand stands of Arms and be in proper cir-
cumstances to continue the business to advantage & I have no reason
to believe that this calculation was erroneous. But I do not find that
advantage from Credit which I expected. I can, it is true, purchase
anything I want on a Credit of Sixty Days, but that is not a credit
which, in the present stage of the business can be of much service
to me. ... In mercantile transactions, where quick turns are made
and the property for which the credit was obtained can at all times
be turned into cash, commodities may be purchased with safety on
this short credit. But manufacturing is very Different. More time is
required to work up raw materials. . . . Credits which I obtained
last fall have expired & I have been obliged to pay up those obliga-
tions with the money which I had appropriated for other purposes/'

In the draft, he explained why the initial expenses were the heavi-
est. "The business in which I am engaged is so New a business in
this Country, that a daily supply of raw materials cannot be had.
Most of them must be procured from a considerable distance and the
persons must be notified that they are wanted a Considerable time
before they can be delivered. The whole quantity of many of the
articles which will be wanted in the course of two years should be
purchased at once. Procuring these articles takes up my time &
draws me from home when my whole attention is required it is
better to procure the whole quantity I shall want at once than to
procure the tenth part provided I can pay for them."

Having presented a candid picture of his situation and indicated
the reasons for his anxiety, Whitney described the other side of the
coin. "My general plan of arrangement is good [and] my confidence
in it increases in proportion as the execution advances. My water
works are not yet in motion but are in great forwardness; my arrange-
ments for forging, filing etc. are nearly compleated. I have about
sixty good men engaged and a prospect of being able to procure
such number as I may want. I am persuaded that I can do the work
well . . . provided I can be indulged as to time & avoid pecuniary
embarrassments in an early stage of the business." Let not Wolcott
think this much had been easily attained. "I have constantly and ex-
clusively, Day and Night, devoted utmost attention and exersions
to the accomplishment of my undertaking and tho' the burden of

The Arms Manufactory at Mill Rock 199

care and anxiety which I have incurred to myself by undertaking
this Business, is much greater than I before conceived of, still noth-
ing shall induce me to shrink from the task or for a moment divert
my attention from its final accomplishment."

And then, in what must have seemed like a cryptic aside for with
the threat of war still serious, Wolcott was eager for muskets, not
theories, and he could hardly have appreciated what a slight altera-
tion would mean to costs and production in this new system Whit-
ney added: "I might have made 500 stands of Arms by this time but
they would have cost me 15 Dollars apiece and would not have been
as good as I wish to make them. My Aparatus would have been such
that it could not readily have been enlarged with advantage and it
would have taken me six months more to make another 500 and it
would have been a losing business with me from beginning to end.
It appears to me that many who have undertaken to make Muskets
will make but indifferent ones; that their system is such that they
will not improve much by practice and that their arrangements
are in no way calculated for permanence or increasing progression.

"Tho' I have not hitherto accomplished as fast as I wished and
expected, yet I should be perfectly willing to a strict examination
by men of sense & information & stand or fall by their decision/* The
contract, which both parties had agreed upon with swift impulsive-
ness, was now to have the first demands made on it for understanding.
"Cannot some arrangement be made by which I may obtain such
indulgences as will enable me to pursue the business with equal ad-
vantage to the Government and relieve me from the extreme anxiety
which now in some measure overpowers my ardor and damps my
resolution." Somehow, somehow the terms of the contract had to be
altered in Whitney's favor.

Time and money. Of both, Whitney had great need. When he
asked for more of each, half the contract time and all the money ad-
vanced had been spent Whitney regretted his lack of an "oppor-
tunity of laying before [Wolcott] my whole plan & manner of execut-
ing tie different branches of the work/' and Wolcotfs not being
able to afford the Measure to examine and compare them with the
modes practised in this and other Countries." Whitney was well
aware that he was asking Wolcott to grant him grace. Today such

The World of Eli Whitney

a request would be reasonable, for it is a commonplace that an in-
dustrial enterprise demands a heavy initial outlay and a protracted
preparation before the first new article is tooled, assembled, and
delivered. But then! Captain Wadsworth, who recommended
the weapons Whitney was making as "superior to any muskets
for common use ever fabricated in any country/' who had ex-
amined his factory and heard Whitney explain the advantages
to be gained from his system of interchangeable manufacture, and
who resented the ridicule of Whitney's idea "by almost all those
who pretended to superior knowledge and experience in the busi-
ness" even Captain Wadsworth gave as his opinion that "there is
more to please the imagination than of real utility in the plan!"

Two factors served Whitney's cause and sanctioned Wolcotf s
yielding to what then could only have been an inclination. Whitney
was known to have discovered the way to clean green-seed cotton,
and his invention commanded respect even though as a money earner
it was a spectacular failure. And those who derided his new venture
as a "vain and impracticable" effort were silenced by the cogent
argument that the country was in desperate need of the domestic
manufacture of muskets.

During the next two years Whitney was like a man trying to make
harbor through storm-tossed seas. It seems little short of miraculous
that twice, when disaster was about to wreck him, a single voice, high
in authority, should have been able to still the angry doubts that
would have submerged him.

As Whitney read Wolcotf s stern initial statement that "my mind
is inclined to scepticism with respect to all theories which have not
been sanctioned by experience," he must have felt discouraged. But
then came a gracious offer: "If you feel entire confidence in your
project and will furnish me with additional security for a further ad-
vance, money shall be granted to enable you to make a fair trial.
I should consider a real improvement in machinery for manufactur-
ing arms as a great acquisition to the United States. For present pur-
poses & to give you time to look out for good security, I enclose you
a [letter] of credit on the Collector of New Haven for 1500 Dlls."

Such encouragement from a man so strictly observant of orthodox
business practices was an act of faith in Whitney, his genius, his

The Arms Manufactory at Mitt Rock Wl

integrity; faith, too, in the landfall Whitney had sighted the misty
outlines of the vast new world of industry. It surely must have been
this that moved Whitney to put on paper the principles which so far
had eluded words. The rough draft of the letter he sent to Wolcott
on July 3Oth gives the measure of how deeply he felt the grandeur
of the undertaking. "Actual Experiment is the only true touchstone "
such generalities expressed the convictions of men of sense. But
Whitney wanted Wolcott to understand the kind of experiment in
which he was involved. He explained:

'1 find that I can forge the Guards faster, more exactly in their
true shape & so they will require less work in fitting up than they
could be cast in Brass after a perfect Pattern by an experienced
founder. This is also the case with respect to several of the smaller
limbs of the Lock and mounting. I find by experience that I can
forge the lock-plates with a solid pan in such a manner that they
will require but little filing. And this I have ever.considered the most
Difficult part of the lock.

"My general plan does not consist in one great complicated ma-
chine, wherever one small part being out of order or not answering
to the purpose expected, the whole must stop & be considered use-
less. If the mode in which I propose to make one part of the musket
should prove by experiment not to answer, it will in no way affect my
mode of making any other part. One of my primary objects is to form
the tools so the tools themselves shall fashion the work and give to
every part its just proportion which when once accomplished y will
give expedition, uniformity, and exactness to the whole.

"If each individual workman must form and fashion every part ac-
cording to his own fancy & regulate the size & proportion by his own
Eye or even by a measure, I should have as many varieties as I have
members of each part many of them would require an inscription
upon them to point out the use for which they were designed, & it
would require treble the number of hands to do the same work By
long practice and many trials mere Mechanics who have no correct
taste, acquire the art of giving a particular uniformity, I hope, to par-
ticular substances. But very few really-good experienced workmen in
this branch of business are to be had in this country. In order to supply
ourselves in the course of the next few years with any considerable

The World of Eli Whitney

number of really good muskets, such means must be devised as
will preclude the necessity of every workman's being bred to .the
business. An accurate Eye, close attention and much time are nece^-
sary (where experience is wanting) to form things rightly; but few
among the great mass can proportion things accurately.

"In short, the tools which I contemplate are similar to an engraving
on copper plate from which may be taken a great number of impres-
sions perceptibly alike!'

Whitney had found the analogue that touched at the heart of his
principle; he gave Wolcott a phrase that he could understand and
quote, a phrase that surely must have engaged the imagination of
those who heard it. But when he tried to explain how many muskets
he could deliver, he must have dumbfounded Wolcott, a systematic
and orderly man. The number? Far less than he had expected, "tho
I shall have some of the smaller parts of the whole ten thousand made
by that time." When would the deliveries start? He had to admit
candidly that it was taking much longer than he had contemplated.
What kind of sense did Wolcott make of this behavior? *1 must not
only tell the workmen but must show them how every part is to be
Done. They are as good as any workmen but I cannot make them
understand how I would have a thing done until it is Done." And then
having given no exact promises, he reaffirmed that "I shall produce
good arms and introduce some real improvement^^ manufacturing
Muskets whereby they can be made better and with more expedi-
tion."

Wolcott must have been troubled by this mixture of vagueness and
bright hope; he replied briefly but pointedly. "I will take no advan-
tage of the strict terms of the contract in point of time. You must,
however, produce a number of compleat arms this season. At the
next session of Congress I must make a report of the state of the dif-
ferent factories."

To advance an additional $10,000, however, Wolcott required
additional security. Reading the agreement of September 8th, one
can share the elation Whitney felt when ten of New Haven's citizens
agreed to put their names on a bond. "We to aid Mr Whitney &
to encourage the manufacture will join in such Bond, provided Ten

The Arms Manufactory at Mill Rock $03

or Twelve will so join he securing us by mortgage on his farm &
Works. Agreed to by James Hillhouse, Elias Shipman, Timothy
Phelphs, Peleg Sanford, Elizur Goodrich, Simeon Baldwin, David
Daggett, Pierpont Edwards, Eneas Munson, Jr. and Jeremiah At-
water." Yale graduates, mostly, these men represented the leaders
in politics, the law, medicine and trade almost the bond was an
expression of civic pride and trust in the gifted young man who had
chosen to make his home and his fortune in New Haven.

Relieved for a while of his money worries and the immediate
obligation to deliver muskets, Whitney devoted himself to his manu-
facturing. For the next year a silence covers his activities, unbroken
but for his letters to Stebbins. It was always easy for Whitney to talk
to Josiah Stebbins, but he might have foregone that pleasure under
the pressure of work had Stebbins not continued to write and gently
insisted that somehow Whitney find time to answer. Soon after his
marriage in 1797, Stebbins had moved to the wilderness that then
was Maine, where his college education and legal training brought
him eventual prominence, and where his awkward manner, ungainly
appearance, and lack of style in argument were regarded as char-
acteristics, not handicaps. Only a handful of the many letters he
wrote to Whitney remain. They reveal a man serious, plodding, fear-
fully respecfable, a man wr^o gave the same love and understanding
to Whitney when he was grown as when they were boys together at
Leicester Academy.

The great need Stebbins and his wife had to continue their New
Haven friendships induced him to seek an appointment as "Deputy-
Post-Master at this -place [New Milford, -later Alna, Maine]. We
have the mail only one day in a week ... so an office could not be
contrived with less inconvenience of attendance. Postage has been a
tax to me. You, in youjoway of dealing and thinking on.a large scale
do not realize this as I do. . . *. I have taken the office solely for the
sake oLavoiding for the present paying a post-office tax and corre-
sponding with friends unrestrainedly. ... To you I am glad f to
offer the first-fruit of the privilege." Separated a whole year from his
friend, Stebbins urged Whitney, "when you can, consistently with
your business, do (I ask it once for all) drop me everything of your

The World of Eli Whitney

pains & pleasures, as far as you deem it safe and prudent. . . .
Where do you board? How do you live? etc. etc. Tell as much as you
can."

Fortunately, Whitney wrote. *1 meet with many delays which I
did not expect but cannot avoid. I am many times impatient and un-
happy that I progress so slowly at other times I look around & see
that I have done a great Deal and feel more satisfied with the progress
which I have made. But my principal solace arrises from the con-
sideration that my machinery and modes of doing the work will cer-
tainly answer a better purpose than any heretofore devised. I shall
be able, by and by, to work well & to execute with Dispatch. My
works will be much superior to any in America & I have the vanity to
suppose they are equal to any in the world. But I have a great task be-
fore me and when I shall get thro' God knows. I live constantly out
at my place & tho I have at least forty People around me every day
I am yet a solitary Old Bachelor. I am incessantly occupied in my
Business and after laboring hard thro' the day I am obliged to leave
ten times so much undone (which ought to have been Done) as I
have in the course of the day accomplished, and lie down under a
load of cares already almost unsupportable & still accumulating. I
flatter myself that I shall not sink under it. I think I shall persevere
to the End. ... I am so totally engrossed at home that I am almost
entirely ignorant of what is passing in the world. I think of my old
friends sometimes sigh for their society hope, wish, and believe
that they are happy curse the stars that have imposed Ixion's task
& return again to the Wheel. . . ,

"Present my most affectionate remembrance to Laura tell her
to kiss the darling boy for me & teach him to couple my Name with
that of Friend of his Parents."

A few months later Whitney again described himself to Stebbins
as "a poor forlorn Old Bachelor making guns yet always in a
Dam'd hurry without bringing anything to pass." Something ro-
mantic was afoot that spring of 1800 to make Whitney apply such
a coquettish phrase to himself. Other letters written during those
months hint that Whitney and the Millers had been discussing some-
thing matrimonial. What, exactly? And with whom? Most likely it
was one of Catherine's two unmarried daughters, in whom Whitney

The Arms Manufactory at Mill Rock $05

confessed himself interested Cornelia, aged twenty-one, or Louisa,
the youngest, then about seventeen. For what other persons would
Catherine feel so "principled against using her influence?" How else
should Miller warn that "it is not always that young people think in
unison with their elders & we have had some remarkable instances
to the contrary of this/ 7 and still offer to ascertain for Whitney "what
place you would hold in the mind to which you would address your-
self." That it was marriage Whitney sought, and that the person was
close to Catherine and intimately known to Miller, is all that is clear.
Whitney's words have an uneasy sound as he accepts Miller's offer:
"I have the utmost confidence in your candour and wish you to
ascertain & inform me particularly & minutely what prospect I may
have of success. I will make great exertion & say I wish to come out
next winter, but if there be no prospect of obtaining the object of
my wishes, providence would perhaps dissuade me from the at-
tempt." And there the matter rested. Miller did not bid him come
posthaste, and when Whitney went south a year later it was solely
on urgent business for Miller & Whitney.

xv Jefferson

and a Practical Demonstration

|N November 8, 1800, Wolcott resigned as Secre-
tary of the Treasury. The vitriol, the violent
charges thrown at him were meaningless to Whitney. Had Wol-
cott's hatred of John Adams, his rage against Adams's policies, his
blind attachment to Hamilton had these passions so possessed Wol-
cott as to make him commit acts which approached positive treach-
ery? Whitney knew Wolcott as a firm friend, a faithful, farsighted
Cabinet member who had given valuable assistance to his efforts to
arm the young nation. The political convulsion meant only one thing
to Whitney; it broke the precarious ease he had enjoyed.

With Wolcott gone, written explanations and proposals, letters
conveying reassurance fortified by impartial recommendations,
bonds and sureties all the paraphernalia by which he had wrested
additional time and moneys from the government were useless';
their efficacy had depended upon one man in authority who "was
friendly to Whitney's talent With Wolcott gone, it was imperative
that Whitney present himself at the seat of government as soon as
possible. He was reassured by the progress he had made; he Would
not have to plead this time he could show those in authority what
he had been doing and the end to which he had worked. The muskets
themselves would convince the most skeptical.

As was his custom, before starting, he armed himself with lauda-
tory letters. Decius Wadsworth wrote at length: "I am acquainted^
with no person to whose care I should be so willing to entrust the
making of an experiment. . , . The arms he is making . . . will not
only exceed in point of workmanship the best which iave'been fab-
ricated for that use in this country, but even be superior to any
$06

Jefferson and a Practiced Demonstration 807

muskets for common use ever fabricated in any country." Wads-
worth thought it expedient to spend as much time commending
Whitney, the man, as Whitney, the gun manufacturer. He did not
dwell on what was known his mechanical invention, ingenuity, and
ability. Rather he listed the "less obvious traits. . . . Patient, pru-
dent, of mature reflection, diligent, economical, blest with sound
judgement, it is rare to find a man uniting so many excellencies, free
from striking defects. He is therefore entitled to the highest degree
of confidence. ... I entertain a hope that an institution so highly
deserving of national patronage and support, will meet with the
encouragement it merits."

En route to the new city of Washington, to which the govern-
ment had fust moved, Whitney stopped off at Philadelphia, where
from John Nicholson, Inspector of Small Arms, he obtained a cer-
tificate. Briefly, it stated that "specimens of Mr. Whitney's work . . .
meet my full & entire approvation & I do not hesitate to declare them
to be specimens of the best workmanship in the fabrication of War
Muskets which I have seen/'

Two and a half years before, Whitney had traveled the same road.
Then it was summer, and the miles between Philadelphia and New
Haven had been easy and swift; then he had with him the Charle-
ville muskets, and his mind was filled with a subdued excitement as
he thought of the great adventure on which he was about to start.
Now, in the cold, short days of late December, he was retracing his
steps. "It was long & tedious, the roads being very deep & bad & the
stages traveling very slowly. ... I carried on a musket of my manu-
facture & several samples of Locks &c." He was tired, but more than
the physical fatigue was the fear that the men with whom he would
now have to do business would not see what he was about to show
them. Habit, he knew, could make people as blind as prejudice, and
men could gaze on the face of tomorrow and swear it was a wishful
dream.

Whitney's apprehensions were ill founded. He found friends in
Washington; Wolcott was still there "Everything which I have
done was highly approved of by^Mr. Wolcott. This gave me peculiar
satisfaction as he has ever been a man high in my esteem** Elizur
Goodrich, his old tutor's son, was filling a term as congressman. With-

The World of Eli Whitney

out fanfare or extravagant notices, Whitney offered the government
officials a simple but impressive demonstration.

"Our friend, Mr. Whitney is here, and has exhibited his Works
and Specimens to the President of the United States [John Adams],
the Heads of Departments and many others of superior mechanical
information." Elizur Goodrich wrote to tell Baldwin, Whitney's
lawyer and friend, the events of that crowded first week of January,
1801. "They have met universal approbation & are considered as
evidence that this Country need not depend on a disgraceful recourse
to foreign Markets for this primary means of defence. All Judges &
Inspectors unite in a declaration that they are superior to any which
the artists of this Country, or importation have brought into the
Arsenals of the United States and all Men of all parties agree that
his talents are of immense importance, and must be exclusively se-
cured by and devoted to the means of defence. The arrangements
will be made perfectly satisfactory [to] him and he is requested
as the Artist of his Country to suggest from time to time all altera-
tions, improvements &c which may in his opinion, be useful in the
Armories of the United States &c.

"We last evening waited upon Mr. Jefferson, in pursuance of a
previous appointment. He had while in France & England, by direc-
tion of this Government particularly attended to the Manufacture
of Arms. On a very critical survey & examination he did not hesitate
to say, that he had in no instance seen any worker specimens equal
to Mr. Whitney's, excepting nrone factory in France in which the
owner had defined the various parts of his Muskets, on the princi-
ples of Mr. Whitney, that Mr. Whitney equalled his specimens
that his were gaged and made by Machinery . . . that by Authority
of this Country at great price he attempted to remove this Artist to
the United States but he was immediately taken into the service
of the Crown, and had since deceased. He observed that the manu-
facture of Arms, even at double expense, must be secured, that Arms
however of equal goodness could not be so cheaply procured from
any part of Europe. He observed that the State of Virginia had de-
termined to furnish at the expence of the State a Musket, to each
Militiaman in the State and to have an equal quantity in their

Jefferson and a Practical -Demonstration S09

arsenals that they had directed them to be exclusively of the Manu-
facture of this Country that they had good Work, but not so good
Work from the State factory in Richmond. He proposed to Mr. Whit-
ney that he would write to Gov. Monroe, advising him to contract
with him at the United States price for any number of thousands
which Mr. Whitney would undertake to furnish. Mr. W informed
him that it would not be in his power to contract, untill his con-
tract with the Government was more nearly completed and hav-
ing spent the evening on the subject of Manufactures &c we re-
turned"

What undercurrents were present when Whitney showed off his
musket and heard himself called "the Artist of his Country" are
suggested by the note which accompanied Goodrich's "observations
which are confined exclusively to that business of Mr. Whitney. As
he has had to contend with much ignorance, and some malice, I have
written it, with a view that you may read or show it to any persons
you think proper."

The malice seems to have been centered in Samuel Dexter, who
was named to replace Wolcott During President Adams's final months
of tenure in office, Dexter went from his post as Secretary of War
to the Secretary of the Treasury. Immediately after Whitney's tri-
umphant demonstration of his musket, when, by allowing the of-
ficials to assemble the parts of the locks selecting the constituent
parts at random he dramatized the concept of interchangeability
and made its advantages obvious, he wrote a long memorandum
to Dexter. He wanted to explain the conditions and aims of the
original contract and the reason for the delays he had suffered. The
story was always the same, yet the addition of significant details
makes his methods and basic approach ever clearer.

"I have been under the necessity either personally to form or to
be present during the formation of every Pattern, Model, Mould etc.
[his method for obtaining uniformity in the parts]. ... I had not
any exp^ience in the fabrication of Arms and ... I did BO| as-
sociate to mysell workmen who had been accustomed to their fabrica-
tion. This has, I imagine, been favorable to Improvement bet lias
been productive of some delay. [He did not want his workmen to

$10 The World of Eli Whitney

have to unlearn habitual practices.] I have endeavored to ascertain
the qualities of different species of iron & steel and other materials
most suitable for muskets." He had learned from the ginning busi-
ness the importance of testing and experimenting.

And then, having with candor admitted his, lack of experience
when he had commenced his task, he proceeded with authority and
assurance to discuss those "improvements in the construction which
in rny opinion may be adopted with advantage. The modern French
Locks have a brass Pan, which has the advantage of not being cor-
roded by the nitre of the powder, of being placed with greater facility
in a more favorable position to receive the Fire from the hammer;
& of more effectually securing the priming from the rain whidi
advantages I think wifl more than compensate for the expence of
the alteration [to the model musket]. ... I cannot introduce the
Brass Pan at all in the first 1500. But if it should be tho't advisable,
I will contract to make Brass Pans to the second parcel of 1500 stands,
for six cents each in addition to the contract price, and Brass Pans
with in alteration in the hammer etc so as to embrace all the ad-
vantages, to the remaining seven thousand stands -for an additional
to the Contract price of ten cents on each musket." Whitney's meth-
ods of estimating costs was as new as his system of manufacturing
and an integral part.

"My system I now consider as established and my theory success-
fully reduced to practice and in order to enable me to proceed, free
from those pecuniary embarrassments which are so destructive to
all manufacturing concerns, would respectfully solicit the follow-
ing modifications and arrangements of my contract." He asked for
"an advance of ten thousand Dollars and in three months from this
time a further sum of five thousand Dollars"; he asked "that the de-
livery time of any Arms may be suspended for the period of six
months that within that time I deliver five hundred Muskets and
receive five thousand Dollars on the delivery and the like sum on
the delivery of each quantity . . . the whole to be delivered within
two and a half years from this date [January 8, 1801] ." Whitney
had calculated that such a schedule of payments for muskets de-
livered would finance his business and allow him to repay the $30,000
advanced him.

Jefferson and a Practical Demonstration

To this the government agreed; now the original advance of $10,000
had been trebled, the original period had been stretched to five
years.

February had almost passed before Dexter felt he had protected
the Treasury to the degree that he could safely send Whitney his
$10,000. To Whitney, Dexter must have appeared unduly fussy in
insisting on certain safeguards, and unconscionably slow in answer-
ing letters. It was this that prompted him on April 4th to give Dexter
a fortnight's notice that the additional $5,000 due three months from
the agreement reached on January 8th last and accepted by Dexter
on the i6th would soon be due. To preclude further delay, he also
forwarded a bond to cover this final amount. On the isth Dexter
answered. He informed Whitney that the memoranda of the dis-
cussion held the previous January had been lost in the fire that
destroyed the Treasury building; he was suspicious of Whitney's
request and demanded further guarantees for the new sum. He de-
clared that Senator Daggett's recommendation of the sureties' ability
was too general; he was afraid to risk good government moneys to
further such experiments without really substantial security. Plainly,
Dexter stood ready to obstruct the agreement that Whitney had so
brilliantly maneuvered to obtain. Faced with such malice Good-
rich had translated Dexter's extreme prudence into an antagonism
Whitney found a powerful ally his second protective, understa.nd-
ing friend.

The previous month Jefferson had been inaugurated as President.
Jefferson had been present when Whitney had "exhibited his Works";
his prestige and enthusiasm, his unique familiarity with Whitney's
objective had he not searched the armories of France and Eng-
land for just such an artisan? had counted heavily in Whitney's
favor. The political change that came with Jefferson's advent to
power favored Whitney., Jefferson ordered "the business of the Con-
tracts for fabricating small arms" out of the hands of the Treasury
and its new head, Albert Gaflatin, opponent of large army appropria-
tions^ and transferred it to the War Department.

Henry Dearborn, the newly appointed Secretary of War, was the
official with whom Whitney would henceforth have to deal. Whitney
gained by this shift in administering the contracts. The emphasis

$18 The World of Eli Whitney

of the Treasury Department had been on the contractual obliga-
tions; those of the War Department would be on securing good
muskets. Of the 40,000 muskets due to have been finished and de-
livered by September 30, 1800, only a little over one thousand had
been received by the government; of the advances paid out, Whitney
owed the large sum of $30,000. Dearborn wrote to Whitney, as one
of the contractors of 1798 (June 16, 1801), asking why there were
no credits on Whitney's ledger and what plans he had for refunding
the money advanced. ^

Again (June 27, 1801), this time for Dearborn's information, he
reviewed his original aim in establishing a new system of manufac-
turing arms, the delays he had met, and the conditions of the agree-
ment made the previous January, reminding him that Jefferson had
been present at an examination of his muskets and that a musket
of Whitney's manufacture was in the Treasury office and could "be
examined again. He was able to add: "I shall have five hundred Mus-
ketts ready for delivery next month all the parts for several thou-
sands are in forwardness and some of the limbs for each of the whole
ten thousand are now made." After three work-filled, worry-filled
years, he could start making deliveries.

The question he then asked of Dearborn is characteristic of the
care and foresight he lavished on every detail: "I beg leave to ob-
serve that it appears to me the method of packing [the muskets] and
the materials of which the Boxes are made as well as the mode of
making them, is a subject which has not been sufficiently attended
to. In some instances they have been packed in Boxes made of Oak
boards, either green or but partly seasoned, & so slightly put to-
gether that they exclude neither air nor water. ... It is impossible
but Musketts put up in this manner must begin to be corroded by
rust in less than twenty-four hours . . . and in a short time be totally
ruined. On the contrary I have good reason to believe that arms
properly packed, in Boxes of well seasoned pine, made in such a
manner as to exclude the dampness of the atmosphere, will keep
and remain in perfect order for twenty years. ... I have spared no
pains to compleat my Musketts in the best manner & I feel unwilling
that they should be spoiled by being improperly packed." How justi-
fied was his concern that the muskets be properly packed can be

Jefferson and a Practical Demonstration

judged by a letter sent from the Springfield Armory concerning two
hundred muskets that, ^having been placed in green Chests have
taken Rust to the degree that in the opinion of the Supt. & Master
Armourer . . . they will co^t to have them put in proper State
$66.67."

When Whitney delivered the first batch of five hundred muskets,
properly boxed, inspected, and proved on September 26, 1801, his
account was credited with $6,700; he was remitted the $5,000 agreed
to. He had reduced the money advanced him by $1,700.

Just then, just wherjuhis production was moving along as he had
planned, Whitney received Miller's letter making it imperative to
attend the forthcoming meeting of the South Carolina legislature
to handle the sale of Miller & Whitney's patent rights. Here was a
sudden, indefinite delay. "I am litterally in the predicament of the
Old Woman who had so much to do, that she knew not what to
do first/' he wrote to Stebbins on September 25th. "I am a perfect
Ass between two bundles of hay or rather I am surrounded with
five or six hundred bundles all of which attract and repell equally.
I can't attend to this thing because that thing requires my attention
more. . . . I go on in a circle till I arrive at the point where I started.''
And then, having given a picture of a man riding off rapidly in all
directions, he asked Stebbins for specific information about Dear-
born. "He is from your country [District of Maine] & perhaps you
may know something about him. I know nothing xx him but expect
soon to have occasion to negociate soipe business with hirn & should
like to have some Idea of the cut of his Gib. Is he a man of talents?
Has he extensive information? Is he a man of integrity? in short has
he a soul?" *

The answers to these questions the anatomy of Dearborn's soul

* Henry Dearborn had lived a career that was romance itself. A village doctor
in New Hampshire, when the Revolution began he marched with Stark to Bunker
-Hill and fought there until his ammunition gave out; he endured the incredible
hardships of the march through the wilderness to Quebec, saw Montgomery
killed under the walls of the fortress, and was himself taken prisoner. Later ex-
changed, he wintered at Valley Forge, served at Monmouth, and witnessed Cora-
walHs's surrender at Yorktown, He succeeded Greene ^as quartermaster general
and gained firsthand insight into military administration. He was fifty wfoen
Jefferson appointed him to his Cabinet; in his handsome person he combined
highly desirable qualities Scientific twining, service as soldier and executive,
a fervid Republicanism.

214 The World of Eli Whitney

as described by Stebbins are missing. But Whitney need not have
asked them he had the support of Jefferson, and Jefferson's admira-
tion for his talents. Whitney spent the first week of November in
Washington; he had several interviews with the President, who
must not only have reassured Whitney that the government would
permit his attepding to his ginning business but who carried out his
earlier offer to write to Governor James Monroe of. Virginia on Whit-
ney 's behalf. Jefferson's introduction repeated his detailed under-
standing of the methods used in interchangeable manufacture.
|^Mr. Whitney," he wrote, "is at the head of a considerable gun
manufactory in Connecticut, and furnishes the United States with
muskets, undoubtedly the best they receive. He has invented moulds
and machines for making all the pieces of his locks so exactly equal,
that take 100 locks to pieces and mingle their parts and the hun-
dred locks may be put together as well by taking the first pieces
which come to hand. This is of importance in repairing, because out
of 10 locks, e.g. disabled for the want of different pieces, 9 good locks
may be put together without employing a smith. Leblanc, in France,
had invented a similar process in 1788 & had extended it to the barrel,
mounting, & stock. . . . Mr. Whitney has not yet extended his im-
provement beyond the lock. I think it possible he might be engaged
in our manufactory of Richmond, tho' I have not asked him the ques-
tion. I know nothing of his moral character. He is now on his way
to S. Carolina on the subject of his gin."

There was more than Jefferson's long-held enthusiasm for the new
method to plead Whitney's cause at each delay, each interruption.
Of the $400,000 Congress had appropriated that year for the pur-
chase of cannon and small arms, Dearborn notified the President that
as of November ist, exclusive of sums paid out by the Treasury De-
partment and those allotted for the national armories, his depart-
ment had paid out a mere |$6^>Oo^(Did this brief, informal memo-
randum of November 17th contain facts which, when considered,
set the policy for the questions raised by Whitney's request? ) Clearly,
the officials knew the need was for muskets, not moneys; they would
be patient, they would be generous with time. In all his dealings with
the Administration, there was not an inharmonious note.

Jefferson and a Practical Demonstration 815

With the patent rights successfully sold to South Carolina, Whit-
ney must have felt elated when he reached Washington (April, 1802) .
"General Dearborn, Secy of War told Mr. Whitney that if he would
deliver 4000 Stands of Anns (including 500 already delivered) on
his contract before the first of April next (1803) he might expect
an allowance & extension of time for the term of two years from said
ist of April for the delivery of the remaining 6000 Stands to corn-
pleat the number of 10,000 for which he originally contracted." (He
was allowed $2.50 per box, for the proper packing of the guns. } Again
he had had to ask for time, again it had been granted him.

That June, after Wadsworth had proved five hundred barrels and
inspected five hundred muskets, Whitney wrote to Dearborn: "I have
packed them up in suitable chests. ... I am happy to find that this
method promises to answer my expectations; the first parcel having
been put up in the Boxes one year, are now in the same perfect order
as when they were put up/* The following September, when trouble
flared up in another quarter "You are undoubtedly informed of the
hostile measures adopted by the Emperor of Morocco in relation to
the U. States" Whitney delivered another five hundred muskets,
"with Brass Pans at 13.46 ea per agreement."

For some years Whitney had to shuttle between his factory in New
Haven and his patent-right interests in the South, where opposition
to the sale made to South Carolina continued the protracted strug-
gle. Until that was settled, Whitney knew that much time would
be spent in the affairs of Miller & Whitney and that therefore he
must arrange a new time schedule for delivering the muskets. He
was exhausted by the severe, unexpected attack Miller & Whitney
had suffered. When he reached Washington, he made an agreement
with Dearborn (February 28, 1803). This final arrangement ac-
cepted the realities of the perplexed situation and set the tempo which
Whitney could maintain/ "In case Eli Whitney shall deliver on or
before the first day of May next, 500 Muskets in addition to those
already delivered, . . . then 'the said Whitney shall be allowed the
privilege of delivering two thousand stands annually, the terms of
the Contract notwithstanding."

Whitney felt these were very favorable terms. He wrote to Steb-

The World of Eli Whitney

"bins: "I have some business to negociate here which I have been
so fortunate to accomplish entirely to my own satisfaction. My con-
tract to manufacture 10,000 stands of Arms was really a very arduous
undertaking. There is yet much Jto be done to complete it. I have
hitherto gone no faster than I could go safely. It has been an impor-
tant object to persuade the Administration to allow me so much time
as to go on easy with it^till it is compleat. This they have done. I have
obtained all the time I wished. This has relieved me from a vast load
of anxiety. . . . Besides this will allow me leasure to attend to my
Patent concerns."

The glorious promises solemnly made in the summer of 1798 had
weathered the series of frustrations, and, after four and a half years,
Whitney and the government settled down to a routine which brought
quiet satisfaction to both parties. Whitney had never doubted his
ability to achieve his goal; he had always been fortunate to find
a staunch supporter first Wolcott, then Jefferson to indulge him
his need for time and money. The success^ this first exploration of
a new system of production rests both in Whitney's genius and the
government's understanding and support.

The first thousand muskets had faithfully copied the Charleville
models of 1763; the second thousand incorporated the brass pans of
the 1777 model; and,~b6ginning with the third thousand, Whitney's
muskets had "Brass Pans and other alterations complete at 13.50."
JBy October or[ 1803, a note of spacious ease can be felt when to Steb-
bins he writes: "My Armoury here has got to be~a regular Estab-
lishment & progresses tolerably well & I flatter myself that I shall
make something handsome by the undertaking. My works have con-
siderably excited the Public Curiosity & are visited by most people
who travel thro* this country. This, however, is not so flattering to
my vanity that L do not wish to be less thronged with Spectators."
Quite soon, his factory was mentioned even in travel books. Edward
Kendall, in his Travels through the 'Northern Parts of the United
States in the years 1803 and 1808, included-the factory and Whitney's
Htethod o manufacture: "For every part of the musket he has a
modid; and there is said to be so much exactitude in the finishing,
that every part of $ny musket may be adapted to all the parts of any
other*

Jefferson and a Practical Demonstration

?fT?rom 1803 on, a succession of muskets finished, proved, and in-
spected, in lots of 500, flowed out of Whitney's manufactory, and a
succession of $5,000 payments whittled down the advance he owed
the government. And then, in 1808, when he had almost completed
the contract, he received the first complaint from Dearborn. "In a
conversation with a Gentleman ... I mentioned your muskets as
the only ones I had seen, made by contract that were perfectly
executed. He being desirous of seeing one of them, I had one pro-
cured, he discovered that the pan did not set close to the barrel;
that the breech plate was not of the best kind; and then drew the
ramrod, which on trying its temper, was found to bend & remain
bent like common iron. I then sent for two others: and on taking
one into my hand, made a gentle effort to bend it It broke within
about 8 inches of the lower end, & the other part remained in a
curve. ... I hope the same defects will not be found generally. I
have given you this information that you may have the Boxes, now
at New Haven, opened and an inspection made under your own eyes.
These defects are serious evils, and occasion a new inspection of the
muskets received/*

These defects were serious, but they were not uncommon. Muskets
made at the national armories themselves were found to be defective.
Some made at Harpers Ferry revealed that "the steel was so bad it
ought to be rejected. The bayonet . . . was easily bent at the shoul-
der so as to be unfit for the charge. The lock . . . would not true up
to the hammer . . . the ramrod, bayonet and lock of the sample in-
spected were defective either in material or workmanship." While
of the "several thousand Stands of the Arms manufactured at the
Springfield [Armory] . . . fifteen out of twenty of them are de-
fective." Another private contractor was told of the guns he had
supplied that "some parts of the locks, particularly the hammers
and cocks, are extremely brittle: a great proportion of them break
in practising with wooden flints there must be some defect either
in the steel or in the temper, or both. Many of the screws brake. . . .
Nearly one-fifth part of the muskets have been rendered unfit for
use."

In those days before chemistry had transformed metallurgy
from a skill or art into a science* how could they know if the steel

The World of Eli Whitney

were true, the iron strong? It was hard to imagine that materials
properly selected might be defective; it was a reflection on a man's
experience and judgment to suggest that the metals might conceal
flaws; the only explanation was that the workmanship was at fault.

The answer, which Whitney wrote the same day the complaint
was received, shows how completely unreliable were the metal sup-
plies which they all used. "A ramrod will break with a slight applica-
tion of force after it has been passed by a careful and experienced
Inspector. I well remember an instance of a ramrod belong to a
Musket . . . sent from Harper s Ferry to the War Office as a speci-
men of their best workmanship I sprang it to no considerable de-
gree and it flew into three pieces." He mentioned the method by which
his inspector tested the elasticity of the ramrod: "If there is the least
defect in a Rod it will not ring & he makes it a point to reject all which
do not ring when thrown forcibly down the Barrel." He wrote that
the "ramrods have all been made at my own manufactory by persons
employed by the day not one of them has been made, nor any
opperation belonging to them, been performed by the job; so that
no person has had any inducement ... to practice any deception
about them . . . Those which I have manufactured for a long time
past are equal to any which have ever been made in any part of the
world."

^Whitney might exercise caution in purchasing his materials,
further caution in testing and experimenting; the government might
set up elaborate methods to prove and inspect a musket was no
better than the iron and steel that went into its making. Because of
this, it was not surprising that Whitney himself saw what happened
to a "Regiment of Soldiers stationed at this place [New Haven] who
were all armed with Muskets manufactured at the Armory at Spring-
field & tho* these muskets were in the hands of the soldiers but a
short time, there was a great complaint of the Ramrods a large
proportion of them broke."

Ten and a half years had passed from the time Whitney accepted
the first contract when, on January 23, 1809, he informed the Secre-
tary of War that *you will receive vouchers for a further delivery of
500 Muskets which compleats my Contract for fabricating 10,000
stands of arms for the Use of the U States. Upon the receipt of which

Jefferson and a Practical Demonstration

be pleased to Direct the sum of Six Thousand Dollars to be remitted
to me at this Place. I suppose the whole Balance due me from the
U States is about Eight thousand Dollars: ... I propose to come
to Washington in a few weeks for the purpose of Closing up my
accounts/' When Whitney deducted the cost of the stocks which
had been furnished him from the Public Stores, when he added the
price of the four hundred boxes he had made in which to pack his
muskets properly and the cost of a "Proof House & Battery" which
he had been asked to build at the government's cost, the balance
owed him on the 10,000 arms he had manufactured and delivered
was the small sum of $2,450.

He had succeeded. He had carried through a new system of manu-
facturing, a revolutionary system that replaced a skill with the uni-
formity of a machine; he had been able to give tangible expression
to an idea that could be adapted to other manufactures. He had, to
his own great satisfaction, established his own business.

When Whitney and Jefferson spent several evenings together in
leisurely conversation, discussing the problems and possibilities re-
lated to interchangeable manufacture, Jefferson related in detail how
in France he had seen that very principle worked out in the same
making of muskets. It was years before, in 1785, and he had writ-
ten about it to John Jay, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs for the
Confederation government. The details, as he summarized them then,
mentioned that "as yet, the inventor has only completed the lock
of the musket, on this plan. He will proceed immediately to have
the barrel, stock, and other parts, executed in the same way. Sup-
posing it might be useful in the United States, I went to the work-
man. He presented me the parts of fifty locks taken to pieces, and
arranged in compartments. I put several together myself, taking
pieces at hazard as they came to hand, and they fitted in a most per-
fect manner. ... He effects it by tools of his own contrivance,
which, at the same time abridge the work, so that he thinks he shall
be able to furnish the muskets two livres cheaper than the com-
mon price. But it will be two or three years before he will be able
to furnish any quantity. I mention it now, as it may have an influ-
ence on the plan for furnishing our magazines with this arm." Four

/ffOS.

sffov

***

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T- /&

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7/3>

a-

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7 ~

<>?*<.

0O0

DEBTOR, UNITED STATES, IN ACCOUNT

l/9
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&~004

JT000
3~000
$-00*

fQQQ

WITH ELI WHITNEY, CREDITOR

The World of Eli Whitney

years later he consigned "a box of officers' muskets, containing half a
dozen, made by the person and on the plan which I mentioned to
you." The whole idea seems to have remained with the muskets, shut
up in the box marked T.J. No. 36."

It would be hard to imagine that the conversation did not drift
into speculation: Why did Lablanc's method its problems of tooling
solved, its advantages appreciated die with its inventor? It could
not have been the Revolution that put a stop to the contemplated
establishment of "a krge manufactory for the purpose of putting it
into execution." A government that was concerned with standardiz-
ing weights and measures would be interested in standardizing the
manufacture of arms provided it served a practical purpose. The
French Republic had need of muskets with which to arm her mo-
bilized citizenry, but she had only to take the great stores of arms,
made and ready for use, in the royal arsenals. In the face of such
lavish stockpiling, there was no urgency to develop the newer method.
France had a large corps of highly skilled workers she felt no need
to rely on machinery to produce muskets in quantity. It may have
been that these workers themselves opposed a system of manufac-
turing that violated their habits and traditions and threatened their
very livelihood.

The concept of interchangeable manufacture was being experi-
mented with in Europe before Whitney started his work. It was an
idea that took very limited hold in France, where it was first worked
out, while in England it was solely applied to lowering the costs
on the pulleys made for the navy. In America, however, it was ap-
plied to the mass production of more and more objects clocks and
watches, hardware and sewing machines because it solved the short-
age of workers. The American system was eminently fitted to use
the waves of agrarian immigrants who, innocent of the language or
of industrial skills, could tend the machines that made goods shipped
all over the world.

XVI

The Master Manufacturer

NOW Set Down to Let you know that I am in good
helth and i hope you engoy the same. I have not
ben to school Sense I hav ben here and I cannot read nor write one
Half as well as i did when i came heare To lieve and i do not wish to
live heare."

So, shortly after his arrival in New Haven, ten-year-old Philos
Blake wrote to his younger sister. Philos was Whitney's nephew,
oldest son of his sister Elizabeth and Elihu Blake. Soon after Whit-
ney established himself in the house near the mill, he sent to West-
borough for Philos as he was later to send for the younger sons,
Elihu and Eli Whitney Blake.

For Whitney, the first decade of the nineteenth century contains
years filled with concentrated work and clouded with anxieties, years
made taut by the pull of disjoined efforts the exertion to create
a northern business and the fight to save the energies invested in the
southern venture. It is hard to equal those years, before or after, for
intellectual and physical activity. And yet in the dead center of that
whirlwind there was an oppressive stillness. "You will find me a
solitary Being," he wrote Stebbins, "without a companion & al-
most without a friend employed in this smutty occupation of Vilean
& living on plain fare in a humble cottage. ... If I had a house,
a wife & a home " The cry of a heart that was empty, that recog-
nized its emptiness by the constant use of "Old Bachelor," sounded in
all Whitney's letters to Stebbins. His capacity for affection could
not be denied and, since he had no wife and no home., he reached
back to the home of his childhood to find there someone on whom
to lavish care and thought and love.

24 The World of Eli Whitney

With a child's candid eye Philos mixed the wonders of his uncle's
manufactory and those of the port of New Haven: "Thare is a dril-
ing machine and a boureing machine to hour berels and a screw
machine and too great large buildings, one nother shop and a stock-
ing shop to stocking guns in, a blacksmith shop and a trip hammer
shop and five hundred guns done. I seen a great menny ships sinse
i have ben here and i have seen the sea and i have seen the cannon/*
It was September, 1801; his inventory must reflect the items his uncle
stressed either by tone or manner. The "five hundred guns" were
the first to be finished; the machines enumerated were those his
uncle must have taken pride in explaining when the little boy asked
his what-fors. It is unique, the only precise record of what Whitney
had in his "manufactory."

For though Whitney showed off his buildings and machines to
hundreds of persons, and dozens of written records are left, they
all conspire to speak in general terms; they marvel, they explain, they
summarize the techniques. Timothy Dwight's Travels in New-Eng-
land and New-York is a typical example. "In this manufactory mus-
kets are made in a manner, which I believe to be singular. . . . Ma-
chinery moved by water, and remarkably adapted in every instance
to the purpose in view, is employed for hammering, cutting, turning,
perforating, grinding, polishing, &c." And so, when Philos was two
years older and his spelling and syntax were impeccable, he aban-
doned the sure bold pen of his childhood, and wrote to his sister, "I
wish I could give you as particular an account of our manufactory
as you have given me of Westborough, but I am such a blunderhead
that I cannot describe even those things which I perfectly under-
stand"

Elihu followed Philos and, later, EH, his namesake, joined his
brothers in their uncle's home. Seeing Whitney through his nephews'
eyes is to catch unexpected glimpses of him, and, seen thus, Whit-
ney's expression is changed. The focus was not on the inventor, not
on the industrialist, but on an uncle, preoccupied, frequently away
from his house, who tried to satisfy the thousand different demands
upon his time, an uncle generous and caring. In 1811 Philos re-
ported home that "Uncle has a widow and an old maid to keep house
for him; has got nine apprentices. . . . You ask me why I cannot

The Master Manufacturer

mention Elihu's wants to Uncle, I have a great many times but
I have teazing enough of my own to do."

Or there was the catch-as-catch-can sequence of events that lasted
many months when young Eli entered Yale in the fall of 1812. "Uncle
said he was very glad I did not come before for he had but fifteen
minutes before arrived from New York. . . . Went back to Mr,
Goodrich's for tea and Uncle came there likewise to tea. . . . Uncle
was so much hurried that he could not attend to getting me my
bed and told me I might continue to sleep at Mr. Goodrich's & he
would call for me in a few days and see about it. ... Uncle re-
turned from New York some time but did not call at my room un-
till last Wednesday. He called and stayed a few minutes and told
me to come out to his house Saturday and he would talk to me
about a bed. ... I accordingly went out yesterday about 3 in the
afternoon but did not find Uncle at home because two of his boys
[apprentices] ran away in the night before & he was putting hand-
bills in circulation &c. But I stayed ... till halfpast 8 and then he
came home. I stayed about an hour and talked a with him. Which
time was as good as it was short. He said he did not know where
he could get me a bed but he would do the best he could about it."

No one but Whitney himself knew how burdened he was with
the time-consuming, anarchic trivia connected with running a house.
For an unmarried man to assume responsibility for two nephews
(Eli was away at school) and at least nine apprentices was a task
in itself. Whitney's household Expence Book lists the details that
had to be attended to; it also states explicitly what a housekeeper
undertook and why, for the seven-year period covered, almost thirty
different names are entered some for a few days, some for many
months. A recurrent item concerns the clothes the housekeeper was
expected to make and keep in repair: thus for making four pairs
of trousers and four jackets and mending ten coats and one pair of
pants the housekeeper was paid $6.28. Always she had a helper,
since the sewing was added to cooking and baking 3 washing, clean-
ing, making fires and fetching water and nursing any who were
sick. A Mrs. Mallery "came to take charge of the house 6th May
1812." In August she ^agreed to Continue here until Spring. Her
wages to be erne Dollar per Week. Betsy to coBtimie here and work

The World of Eli Whitney

with her mother for some time, except she is to go to school for
three months when the weather is so she can go, in which time she
is to work mornings and evenings & I am to pay for her schooling
which together with her board is to be the compensation for her
work. Mrs. M is also to have the priviledge of doing her husband's
washing here." There is the notation about Patty Johnson, who "came
to work this afternoon, Thursday, Sept. 21." The very next day, "It
appears that Patty had the Disentary at the time she came here, on
which acct. She went to her sister's this day & in consideration of
destitute situation, I gave her three dollars to be repaid by work
when she is able."

Of the three Bkke brothers, only young Eli was sent to college.
("I do not know what Uncle's ideas are with respect to me, whether
he means I shall go to colledge or not, however I think he means* to
try me to see whether it is worth it or not") First, he was sent to
Leicester Academy: "I have been studying there about a year and
a half the Lattin and Greek languages only, in which time I have
made myself fit for Colege."

After their father's death in 1807, Whitney and his brother Josiah
watched over their sister Elizabeth; 'each, in his own way, acted the
role of father to her. Josiah was constantly driving over from Boston;
he fussed over her, the children, the problems of the farm; he was
endlessly preoccupied with health. Each year he went to fashionable
Saratoga Springs or Ballston Springs for the cure each year for
a different ailment; once "to get Clean of the Bile & Dermacrotick
Blood contracted in the warm climate of Gal" Whitney, on the other
hand, was always intending to visit his sister, always promising, and
always forced to cancel his plans. Instead he would arrange with
Josiah, "if sister Blake or Eliza are in want of any money this fall,
I wish you to pay it to .them & charge it to me. You will. state this
to them. I am excessively pressed at this time with business." By
letters and trips, by visits arranged and moneys sent, the family ties
were refreshed and strengthened.

A constant exchange of letters passed between the brothers,
lengthy, loving discussions of the needs and achievements, plans, and
health of Elizabeth's children. Even when Whitney was harassed
by those who sought to destroy his business, he found the time to

The Master Manufacturer

satisfy a wish that was important to a nephew. Philos, he wrote
his brother Josiah, now established as a merchant in Boston, had
been made "the youngest Lieutenant in the Artillery Company of
N Haven. ... It is undoubtedly much the most respectable com-
pany in this state. . . . [He] is extremely anxious to be perfect in
his uniform, to complete which, he is in want of a sash an article
which is not to be obtained here and as I presume only at an ex-
travagant price anywhere. He wishes for a good one which I sup-
pose will cost from thirty to forty Dollars." Before such a request,
Josiah was not easily satisfied with what was available, though "it
is as good as the Commander of any Company in Boston has land]
can be had at twenty-seven Dollars, not less." He was delighted,
a few weeks later, to find. "a Sach, imported for a particular per-
son . . . and frpm your Letter Judged it best to purchase it for
Philos. Paid, for it the Big Price of Forty fiv Dollars and have charged
the same to you in account with me." Or, there was their niece Eliza,
whose, delicate constitution worried Josiah; she "has a wish, if per-
fectly agreeable to you, to pass the comming winter at New Haven
with Mrs. Goodrich. . . . Eliza conducted herself at the Springs
[Ballston jSpa, where her Uncle Josiah had taken her for the cure]
with .her Usual Degree of prudence and was .decidedly as much
respected as any one of her age."

Persistently mixed with the love and care so generously given is
a didactic tone. Under the uncle's watchful eyes the young Blakes
were coached in dress and manners and speech; they were being
prepared to associate easily with, the children of their uncle's friends.
Whitney had taught himself the essentials that allowed him to move
unaffectedly in society. His sister's children were molded in the same
image. Whitney's attitude toward his nephews' deportment, the de-
tails he valued and stressed, are explicitly stated in a most remarka-
ble letter. Written to a sixteen-year-old, it is a little essay on the
constituents of elegance and respectability.

"It is my wish that your studies be so directed as to prepare you
to enter Y. College next Sept [1812].

"I am pleased to observe that you improve in your handwriting
there is, however, much room for further improvement & now is yotir
time to learn. ... If you indulge yourself in writing a careless,

The World of Eli Whitney

slovenly hand untill it becomes a confirmed habit, it will be very
difficult for you to improve. If you should live to be settled in busi-
ness it will then be too late to acquire this desirable accomplish-
ment Your hand writing will probably then grow worse instead
of better. You make many of your Capital Letters too large, and of
unequal size. The capital letters in an epistle, or any other piece of
Writing, should all be of the same height & their height should only
be a little more than twice the height of a small m. . . . Your small ds
are awkward & badly made.

"My avocations are such that I have less leasure to give you direc-
tions & instructions than I could wish: you must therefore, let my
instructions sink deep into your mind & not let me have occasion to
repeat them.

"You will make it a solemn point ... to avoid the use of profane
language. Such a habit is not only criminal but it will forever pre-
vent your becoming interesting and respectable in conversation. If
you contract the habit of using bad words you will have no stock
of good ones at hand. . . . You will also be careful to avoid all ob-
scene language as equally improper & disgusting, & as more indica-
tive of the clown than the polite Scholar.

**In reading, Speaking & in all your Conversation, let your Voice
be audible & your pronunciation clear and distinct. Strive to render
your voice harmonious and pleasant; but let ,it be natural. By. all
means avoid affectation. Nothing can render a person more unpleas-
ant to others than Drawling, Muttering or an indistinct articulation
& nothing is more painful than to be obliged to ask a person three
or four times over what they have said & perhaps not find out at last.

T[ am extremely sorry to learn from your Uncle Josiaji that you
have contracted a habit of sitting, walking & standing very crooked.
You must make a fixed, unalterable resolution to change this habit
if you do not you wilLruin your breast and be in great danger of
bringing on a consumption. By a .little exersion you can mend of
this habit & the longer you practice . . . the mpre easy and familiar
It will be to you & tho* it may cost you a little pain at first, you must
at all events correct yourself in this particular,

TE wish you to read this letter over attentively, at least once a week,
for tibe aext three months and in addition to that, to hand it to

The Master Manufacturer

your preceptor for his perusal & ask him to have the goodness to
admonish you whenever he observes you deviate from the instruc-
tions herein contained. All your exersions to improve will be highly
honorable & advantageous to yourself & your proficiency will be
viewed with peculiar satisfaction by all your friends & particularly
by Your affectionate Uncle."

By such tokens a man was judged. Through eyes conditioned to
these standards, Whitney had viewed Paine when they had met
in the Washington public house. When writing young Eli, he had
sketched in the edifying elements of respectability; his description
of Paine, as he wrote it to Stebbins, expressed Whitney's automatic
feeling of disgust for a man who lacked those fundamentals. "I should
judge from his appearance that he is nearly 70 years of age. . . .
He is about five feet 10 inches high his hair three fourth white
black eyes a large bulbous nose a large mouth drawn down at
the corners with flabby lips with more than half decayed, horrid
looking teeth his connection of a brick colour his face & nose
covered with carbunkles & spots of a darker, hue than the general
colour of his skin his dress rather mean & his whole appearance
very slovenly his hands so convulsed that while his expansive lips
almost encompassed a wine glas, he could hardly get the contents
of it into his head without spilling it ... In short he is a mere
loathsome carcase, which has withstood the ravages & rackings of
brutal intemperance for an uncommon length of time & from which
(were it exposed on the barren heath of Africa) the Hyena & Jackals
would turn away with disgust

"He observed that he had dined with Mr. Jefferson yesterday &
the Day before & I make no doubt he is a Twosome friend' of the
President . . . Tho' some of the democrats^will swallow common
carrion with a good rellish, I thinlgmost of them will loath the putrid
rattle snake which has died from the venom of his own bite. * . ,
I have consumed more time on this horrid subject than it deserves
& will leave it"

Faithfully Whitney echoed the conservative and clerical diatribes
directed at Paine; fulminations which filled long columns in New
England papers and repeatedly asked: Why "insult the sense and
virtue of the country by prof essioos o affectionate attachmeiit to

30 The World of Ell Whitney

a man so offensive to decency, so smitten with the leprosy of scorn,
the natural enemy of every virtue?" Decency. Virtue. Respectability.
The very words tolled like church bells calling New Englanders to
conform. Whitney lacked the sharp, clinical eye of Senator Mitchill,
who thought Paine looked "as if he had been much hackneyed in
the service of the world his eyes black and lively." Only in viewing
his special world of mechanics and technology was Whitney willing
to accept any deviation from the orthodox.

It would be an error to classify this letter as anti-Democratic, to
find therein Whitney's true ? concealed political orientation. The date
at which he wrote those phrases makes such an easy assumption
dangerous; it was November, 1802; he was most dependent on Dear-
born, Jefferson's Secretary of War, for patience and grace.

From politics, the topic that crowds the diaries and letter books
of the important men of that time, Whitney remained aloof. Whether
because of indifference or extreme discretion, it is impossible to say.
Letters written from the new city of Washington to Stebbins, or
to his brother Josiah, contain not a comment to color his clean im-
partiality. His intimate circle of friends included Pierpont Edwards,
the ardent Jefferson adherent, and Oliver Wolcott, Hamilton's pro-
tege. The year 1801 is hard to match for tense political passions; yet
Whitney, in a few words penned from his manufactory, showed
he was immune to the national fever: "Parties are warm in N Haven
but I live out & take more pains to avoid being a polititioner, than
to know anything about it" These words were written shortly after
the demonstration he had put on to convince government officials of
the practicability of his method pf manufacturing guns. That meet-
ing had taught him >vhat his attitude must be. Gathered together
were men who belonged to opposing political parties; side by side,
discussing his work and his methods, stood bitter political foes; Whit-
ney saw that if he was to achieve his purpose, he was obliged to be
friendly with both sides. To become partisan would be fatal.

Whitney was a product of the New England world, a churchgoer
and a substantial contributor to the New Brick Church in New
Haven; if he was on friendly terms with the militant Timothy Dwight
and other ministers, it is clear that he was content to take faith on
faith, Ip 1801, when Dwight, president of Yale, jubilantly shook half

The Master Manufacturer

his students into formal conversion, Benjamin Silliman was touched
by the vibrant atmosphere: "Yale college is a little temple, prayer and
praise seem to be the delight of the greater part of the students, while
those who are unfeeling are awed into respectful silence." Whereas
Whitney, engrossed in his nearby gun manufactory, packed the spir-
itual upheaval into a single sentence at the end of a letter to Steb-
bins: "You have doubtless heard of the N Haven Remonstrance if
you have not I have no time to tell you." Silliman's letter is part of
a life compounded of science and sermons, in equal parts; Whitney's
reveals a man wholly absorbed in business.

To his family and friends, Whitney always used the words "busi-
ness pressures" to explain his inattention to their demands, or as the
excuse for his inability to visit. But whereas the pressures were con-
stant, the composition of his business activities changed. Until the
close of 1802,, three themes dominated his time and energy: the cot-
ton gin, muskets, and his. restricted personal life. After 1802 new
small, transient phrases, some indistinctly heard, some introduced
suddenly and as suddenly lost> add richness and variety to the major
themes.

His dealings with the War Department widened. Dearborn asked
him to advise with Colonel Christian Senf about the government
establishment to be installed at "Rocky Mount, S.C., on the Cataba
River." He explained that he particularly wished him to 'look for
a convenient site for the water-works, at as little expense as possible,
safety from freshets, the .sites for the- principal buildings, military
stores, house for Superintendent, barracks for Workmen." Very little
of this enterprise is clear; the few details that exist are found in
the bill Whitney handed to the War Department: "My travelling
expences from Raleigh to Rocky Mt $26.50 [He was in Raleigh ar-
ranging the sale of his patent rights]; Expences while at Rocky Mt
$31.25; Chairmens Bill $9.75; Expences in returning to Raleigh
$24.25; Hire 2 Horses & Chair, 36 days at $2.00 per day $72,00;
Hire of servant $15.00; Whitney's compensation from Dec. 20, 1802
to Jan. 25, 1803, Inclusive, 36 Days at $3.00 per Day $108.00." *
Whether he ever went there again is doubtful. Mount Dearborn,

* Whitney seems only to have collected $50 against this bill.

The World of Eli Whitney

as the establishment was called, was soon abandoned. In 1820, when
South Carolina petitioned for permission to cut a canal through the
lands belonging to the government, the buildings already had be-
come quite dilapidated and had been "plundered of everything that
could be taken away"; six years later the recently formed Ordnance
Department had no record whether it had been originally designed
for "an armory or an arsenal/*

Dearborn's continued confidence is shown by his inquiry if Whit-
ney would assume the position left vacant by "the death of Mr. Per-
kins, Superintendent of the Armoury at Harpersferry." Dearborn
hoped, as his letter makes clear, to transplant Whitney's method
to a national armory: "It may be convenient for you to transfer a
considerable number of workmen now employed in your works,
together with some part of the machinery and tools attached to your
manufactory."

Whitney declined the position. In the early years of his contract,
he might have accepted such an offer it would have relieved him
of worries while he carried out his grand purpose. When he received
the letter, in January, 1807 (it was forwarded to him in Savannah)
he had completed two-thirds of his contract, the sale of the patent
rights to South Carolina had been reinstated, and Judge Johnson's
decision which he had just heard had established the way for
Miller & Whitney's collecting damages from Georgia trespassers. All
this was implied when hs told Dearborn that the superintendency
"would not be disagreeable to my inclinations; but rny present situa-
tion is such that I cannot discharge the Duties of that important of-
fice without a ruinous neglect of my private concerns." James Stub-
blefield was appointed Superintendent of the Harpers Ferry Armory,
and in the following year he presented himself at Whitney's manu-
factory. The introduction he carried from Dearborn noted that he
"waits on you by my desire, for the purpose of seeing your improved
Machinery for Manufacturing Arms."

That October, 1807, Dearborn asked Whitney if he would manu-
facture four thousand horsemen's swords and four thousand artillery
sabers with hilts and scabbards. Whitney in his reply tried to ex-
plain that it took time to get a factory tooled to make a specific article:
T should have no objection to enter into the contract proposed, pro-

The Master Manufacturer 33

vided sufficient time could be given to make those arrangements (as
to materials and machinery). ... In order to manufacture Swords
& Sabers well, a regular & well systematized Manufactory of those
articles would be indispensible and to indemnify the expence of
such an establishment, it should be carried on for several years. . . .
A substitute for European skill must be sought in such an applica-
tion of Mechanism as to give all that regularity, accuracy & finish
to the Work which is there affected by a skill. ... As to the price,
it must depend on the model & the severity of the Proof to which
the Blade is subjected. ... I have no doubt of the practicability
of manufacturing in this Country, Swords which would bear re-
spectable comparison with the celebrated Blades of Toledo & Damas-
cus, to which the Age of Chivalry & the less Advanced State of Sci-
ence in those times has affixed so high a value/' The horsemen's
swords were to have a blade "two feet ten inches in length and about
one inch and a half in width with suitable thickness . . ,,so tem-
pered as neither to break nor bend, tty a full stroke of a strong arm,
and with such an -edge as will cut bone without injury to the edge!"

And then, answering Dearborn's query about the method sug-
gested by a Daniel Pettibone for making such swords, Whitney wrote:
"Mr. Pettibone has been several times at my Manufactory in my
absence. ... I am informed by some of my principal workmen
to whom he has communicated his process, that it contains noth-
ing new or important. I have been in the constant habit of welding
& working Cast Steel since 1793 & I cannot but entertain some doubts
as to the preference to be given to Cast Steel as the most suitable
material. ... An apparatus sufficient & the number of Workmen
requisite for manufacturing from 2000 to 3000 Swords pr. year would
be an establishment upon as large a Scale as I should be willing to
undertake, unless the exigencies of the Country required a great ef-
fort"

Whitney noted in his answer that he had intended going to Wash-
ington to see Dearborn he had his y own urgent reasons for wanting
to talk to the Secretary of War. When he had visited with Dearborn
on his way hpme from the South, it had been early spring; now it
was November, and during the intervening months he had delivered
fifteen hundred muskets; he had only an equal number left unfin-

SS4 The World of Eli Whitney

ished on his contract He feared having his machines stand idle, hav-
ing his pay roll continue or, worse still, seeing his unused machinery
deteriorate and being forced to let his workmen drift away into other
employment. His anxiety prompted him to write to Major Hezekiah
Rogers, a friendly official in the War Department. Whitney men-
tioned his wish to be at his factory when Dearborn visited New
England, and inquired when Dearborn could be expected at New
Haven. "Having been appointed by the Legislature of this State on
a Committee to consider the Expediency of erecting a Bridge across
the Connecticut River opposite the City of Hartford ... I fear I
may be absent when the Secy comes on. It would give me much
satisfaction to shew him my manufactory & give him a fair Oppor-
tunity of seeing the manner in which his work is executed/'

To Whitney it was very important to show the Secretary of War
his establishment and explain the marvels wrought by his machinery.
Now, now he must plan for the future! "I am now so far through
with my present Contract that I wish soon to determine whether
to continue the business of manufacturing muskets, after that is com-
pleated, or not. I should prefer continuing the business provided
I can do it on such terms as to make a reasonable profit. Indeed I
would be satisfied with a Moderate profit but I certainly will not
continue the business without a prospect of making something by
it The interest upon the Capital which must necessarily be vested
in the business will amount to at least one Dollar on each Ten &
the insurance against fire is a serious Item in the calculation & one
very proper to be taken into account." Whitney remembered how
the loss of his own workshop by fire had added intolerably to the
debts of Miller & Whitney; he had heard of the huge sums spent
by the government to restore the loss suffered when the Springfield
Armory burned in January of 1801.

At a time when expenses were estimated on the basis of labor costs
plus the costs of the raw materials with a dollar or so added on
to cover all other items he insisted on including interest on the in-
vested capital and insurance charges as part of the cost of a musket.
He was as much an innovator in his method of estimating costs as
in his system of production.

The urgency of his need to do something when the contract was

The Master Manufacturer $35

completed revealed itself in every detail he wrote to Major Rogers:
"I am now thro' with more than half the various branches in com-
pleating my present Contract Three hands will compleat all the
forging except the Barrels in Sixty Days from this time. I can manu-
facture other articles at my works to a much greater profit than to
make muskets but the payments in return will not be as sure & regular
which is an important consideration. ... I would contract to de-
liver 2000 or 2500 pr year for seven or ten years."

In the summer of 1807 he was already apprehensive about keep-
ing his manufactory in production; by April of the following year
he was, with good cause, angry and distraught. Since January he
had been in Washington, trying to interest congressmen to extend
his patent rights; about the middle of April he was invited to pre-
sent his arguments to the committee considering his case. During
the same weeks he had been negotiating with Dearborn for a new
contract. His efforts were futile. "The Patent Law is laid over till
next session & I fear there is not much prospect of success then/'
he wrote to his brother Josiah, "& I have wholly relinquished the
idea that it will be possible for me to make any contract with the
present secretary of War."

It is possible that Dearborn tried to explain that the Administra-
tion had decided that the two national armories, each with an an-
nual production of close' to 10,000 muskets, could now handle the
needs of the regular army and that it .would be left to the individual
states to supervise the arming of the entire militia. It is possible that
Whitney, conscious only of his dependence on a government con-
tract, could not accept such a change in policy; or it may be that
Whitney would not accept the low price offered by the government.
On April 23rd, 1808, the day after Whitney wrote so bitterly to his
brother, Congress voted $200,000 for "the purpose of providing arms
and military equipment for the whole body of the militia of the
United States. . . . That all the arms procured in virtue of this act
shall be transmitted to the several states composing this Union.** How
that sum would be spent, what agencies would be responsible for
making contracts, were matters left to the separate states. Whitney
left Washington conscious only of the double defeat he had suffered.

Whitney had predicated a business on government contracts and

236 The World of Eli Whitney

government financing. Soon and each delivery of five hundred mus-
kets advanced the date he would be without that solid founda-
tion. The months that followed brought back the same unhappiness
that had held him tightly during the period before he started the
contract He felt that Dearborn had betrayed him. "A number of
serious disappointments in matters of business together with my
long absences have so deranged my affairs that my utmost personal
& mental exersions have been inadequate. ... I have for the last
Eight months been trifled with by certain persons whose elevated
station ought to have placed them above such conduct I have been
held in a state of suspense & uncertainty which prevented making
general arrangements & I have been obliged to have recourse to
temporary expedients,"

Again the hopeless mood was broken. The moneys voted by Con-
gress were soon allocated. In October 1808 Whitney signed a con-
tract to manufacture two thousand muskets for the State of New
York, with Wolcott acting as Whitney's loyal intermediary in deal-
ing with Governor Daniel Tompkins. Whitney's relief at having se-
cured this new customer was profound. Though he still had five
hundred muskets to deliver to the army, his new order provided,
as he reckoned it, a year's work, a slight morsel to feed a factory
accustomed to the steady diet of a large contract. For he remarked
to Major Rogers, who later approached him to make musket bar-
rels for the Department of State, "As I have no extensive engage-
ments on hand, I could undertake to furnish the number required . . .
within twelve months." Whitney made nothing for the State Depart-
ment; to manufacture only musket barrels, "it would be necessary to
enlarge one branch or curtail the others either alternative would
be attended with inconvenience."

At the end of May, 1810, he was still busy with the New York
State muskets, and he was still the victim of unforeseen delays. "Sev-
eral of my workmen on whom I relied at the time I contracted . . .
have been enticed away to Springfield, a circumstance which to-
gether with my own ill health & the sickness of the man on whom
I depended to forge the Bayonets, has prevented my completing
the Contract sooner. The 2000 Muskets are nearly finished. . . .
My whole exersions, so far as my health would permit, have been

The Master Manufacturer 237

devoted to this undertaking, since I closed my Contract with the
U States." By November he had finished the entire lot and planned
to visit New York "for the purpose of receiving 5000 Dollars to
which I shall be intitled for the Muskets now inspecting & more
particularly for the purpose of closing a further Contract/' Two
years later Whitney wrote his staunch friend Wolcott that "Gov. T
may be assured that . . . although unavoidable disappointments will
prevent my delivering the arms at the precise times specified, I shall
approximate nearer to strict punctuality than any other person he
could engage to perform the same work in the U. States. I shall be
in NYork if my health will permit/'

In addition to the New York State contracts, Whitney secured or-
ders for smaller amounts from Connecticut. Two sheets from Whit-
ney's ledger tell the amounts and dates of this transaction. The first
contract must have been agreed to in February, 1810, for he re-
ceived a cash advance on the 24th of that month. By May 11, 1811,
he had completed "7 Muskets for the use of the State of Con-
necticut, at 12.50 each as per Contract," and that very same month
he signed a second contract for an equal amount. He made final
delivery a year later, in May, 1812.

It was out of funds providing for the arming of the state militias
that Whitney kept his manufactory alive after his Federal contract
had expired. It is hard to name the article he might have made had
he failed to secure these orders for the manufactory which he had
created out of his energy and genius.

In the fall of 1810, Whitney was seriously ill. For years he had
been driving himself mentally and physically; only a prolonged sick-
ness could have forced him to yield. To Lemuel Kollock, a doctor
by training (a founder of the Georgia Medical Society), Whitney
gave the details of his illness: "I was attacked with so much severity
as to confine me to the house & with symptoms so alarming as wholly
to unman all my Resolution & I intirely gave up the expectation
of being able either to travel or attend to any business this winter.
After a fortnight, however, I was in great measure relieved, flat-
tered myself that I should regain my health & resumed my inten-
tions of going to Georgia. But my intervals of convalescence have
continued only for short periods & I am now altogether unable to

. The World of Eli Whitney

travel. My face is at this time so much swolen that you would not
recognize it, but cramps in the stomach & breast are more painful
& excite more apprehension."

Kollock had been an old friend of Miller's; after his death he
helped Catherine handle her affairs the estate of General Greene
was tightly snarled with that of Phineas Miller; she was an executrix
of both. Gradually, Kollock had relinquished most of his own ac-
tivities to care for hers: "I have entered upon the business of as-
sisting her all in my power." Whitney, reading the letters they wrote
him, may have considered how Catherine's never ending crises had
absorbed the bright, kindhearted doctor. By 1810 he had become
her arm and her voice and her legs writing the letters that de-
manded to be written, speaking for her in the litigation which filled
her days, running her errands, and when she lay ill with fever, car-
ing for her. Here was proof that Catherine knew how to bully those
she loved.

Business pressures and his own ill health made for Whitney a
fortress behind which he could remain free and still her friend. She
accepted his apologies: "For indeed my beloved Mr. Whitney, your
interest is rny interest your health my health your happiness my
happiness." He was forced to decline her repeated invitations to
visit, as well as her desperate appeals to help her settle a dispute
or fight an enemy bent on ruining her. She might scold him for under-
taking new ventures even as she implored him to take charge of
straightening out the tangles left her by old ventures. And though
she berated him for not writing, for not coming to see her, he was
always conscious of her great goodness. Long ago he had warmed
his hands at it and, reading a letter she had dispatched in haste, he
knew it was that ageless quality that made men happy to serve her.
She had "picked up on the Road [between Charleston and Savannah]
two little English Boys 10 and 13 years old they are, sons of a Black-
smith who were coaxed away by expectations of picking up hats
full of gold in America. The Embargo induced the Captain to throw
them upon the world, I found them starving and brought them home.
They are fine Boys and I think will be useful to you and themselves
if you will consent to take them. One of them can make a good key
to any lock now, and both have great ambitions to excell in this mode.

The Master Manufacturer

Point out the best and cheapest manner of Conveying them to you
for you Must take them."

^JCollock's devotion to Catherine invited Whitney's friendship. He
was glad of an opportunity to buy the doctor a "Watch Engine
[which] exactly met my wishes," and exerted himself to secure for
him "a pair of Full Blooded Spanish Merino Sheep . . . bought of
Coin. David Humphrys at Humphry's ville in this State who did
himself import the Stock direct from Spain. I have paid 150 dolls,
for each of the Full Blooded & notwithstanding that this price may
appear enormous for these dirty looking animals, I have been of-
fered four hundred for the pair. . . . You may justly consider these
Sheep as a very valuable acquisition there being no more to be
had here at this time at any price; they .will doubtless be higher
next year as the demand is much greater than can be supplied." The
"Merino enthusiasm/' as Kollock called it, was then in full swing.
After the Embargo the mills were forced to rely on domestic wool,
and the price of wool jumped and kept mounting. Merino wool
brought $2 a pound, and speculation in the sheep assumed fantastic
proportions; $1,000 was considered a good price and a safe invest-
ment. War, and the continued absence of British woolens, kept the
prices up; the bottom fell out when England flooded the American
market with low-priced woolens. ( Whitney had an amused, disdain-
ful description of Miller & Whitney's agent, Russell Goodrich, who
had "turned Shepherd has a flock of Merinos about 50 miles from
Augusta dresses altogether in homespun and is mighty near if not
quite a democrat.")

In that decade of business worries and triumphs, Whitney received
recognition as a man of science and a man of affairs. He^vas a charter
member of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and .Sciences, started
in October, 1799, and was admitted to membership in the United
States Military Philosophical Society. He was Justice of -the Peace
in Hamden, the village where his manufactory was located. As an
outstanding "artist" in the mechanical arts, he was asked to help
"Chauncey Whittlesey, Esqur. He has for some time been afflicted
with a painful tooth-ach I have taken the liberty to recommend
him to you for relief in the last resort." Fame brought him an odd
assortment of honors.

The World of Eli Whitney

Despite the apprehension that is repeated word, phrase, and
mood, like a stencil in Whitney's letters, their contents reflect his
improved circumstances. After 1803, when the delivery schedule
for muskets was arranged, his tone is calmer; after 1805, when he
received the large sum from South Carolina for the sale of Miller &
Whitney's patent rights, his business ventures widened. His new
subsidiary interests centered largely around Oliver Wolcott. After
Miller's death Wolcott became the man to whom Whitney was
drawn both as friend and as businessman. Wolcott was careful, sys-
tematic, hard-working; his home had an elegance and brilliance that
reminded Whitney of Mulberry Grove, where Catherine attracted
distinguished visitors; his knowledge of banking practices and his
connections in financial circles gave him a secure place in the world
of trade and commerce; and his dry wit, reserved for those to whom
he felt close, made his company delightful. "The Jacobinical affec-
tion in my bowels," he reassured his wife, "has been cured by small
doses of rhubarb & drinking camomile tea." When he had held a high
government office he had shown respect for Whitney's capacities
and sympathy for his disappointments; shortly after he stepped out
of public office he invited Whitney's friendly confidence and busi-
ness.

Oliver Wolcott & Company organized in New York City in March,
x8o3 acted as fiscal agent, private banker, and investment broker.
He had correspondents in the principal cities of the United States
and connections with the great banking houses of London, Liver-
pool, Paris, and Amsterdam; he could handle the transfer of funds
to his clients and for his clients. Through Wolcott's firm Whitney
could receive the moneys due him from the South and pay the obliga-
tions he had out of town. Whitney turned to Wolcott when South
Carolina deposited money to his credit in Charleston: "$15,000 is
the sum which I wish transferred from thence to N. Y. I leave it to
you to prescribe the most eligible mode." And when his money had
arrived, Wolcott was instructed that "Ten thousand Dollars of the
sum * . is made subject to your order. I propose to vest it in the
India concern, as I mentioned when I saw you last."

The pages in Wolcott's account books that detail Whitney's ac-
count (1805-1814) depict the kinds of transactions but not their ex-

The Master Manufacturer

tent. Wolcott was Whitney's financial agent; he was also his partner.
They invested together in the China trade, importing teas and nan-
keens, and seem to have enjoyed immensely profitable returns. Their
correspondence is equally inconclusive: it suggests a variety of busi-
ness adventures, but as it is punctuated by "as I mentioned when I
saw you last/' or "I shall have the pleasure of seeing you as I intend
to be in NYork within a few weeks," the revealing, critical details
were cautiously reserved for personal talks.

"I have just returned from the scramble for the- Stock of the Derby
Bank," Whitney wrote to Wolcott in January, 18 10; he had at his
request subscribed for him. "Everyone is greatly disappointed in the
amount of the Stock which he meant to have obtained." The rush to
open banks was on. Two years later the Eagle Bank Whitney had
been one of those who petitioned the state to establish it com-
menced subscriptions for its stock. "The crowd of subscribers was
so great that the subscription did not close untill the afternoon of
the following day. The amount subscribed is vastly beyond my ex-
pectations." In 1813 Whitney purchased forty shares of the New
Haven Fire Insurance Co., paying $4,000. He was becoming a man
of considerable property.

Mysterious allusions to "the Spanish Ship Anna Maria" drift in
and out of letters during the summer of 1813. Whitney wrote Josiah
that "the whole of the Capital & half the property and profits of
this ship and cargo are mine. These circumstances, however, I will
thank you not to mention it will be well to hold up the Idea that
no person in the U States has any interest in the property. I consider
her safe arrival as a fortunate circumstance for me as I have a large
stake in the concern of Wm. Wallace [the ship's captain] exclusive
of this Ship and Cargo." The cargo was landed at Boston and passed
through the customhouse. Josiah assured his brother that it would
be "disposed of without loss of time." And then, Josiah reminded
Whitney that "I have never undertaken to transact any Business in
Boston at a Less Commission than 2% pr. Cent. ... I consider the
services of Mr. Sherman Entitled, to One pr. Cent, consequently I
shall make no charge for my attention, at the same time it should be
understood that I cannot at any time hereafter undertake the Man-
agement of the Sales of any Goods at a Less Commission than 2% pr.

The World of Eli Whitney

Cent." A few days later the ship Anna Maria and her cargo dis-
appeared from all letters, Josiah remarking, "I think best to defer
the subject until I have a Verbal Conversation with you, which will
occur by or before the isth of Sept, say in 50 days because if you do
not come to Westborough by that time I shall probably be at New
Haven."

Josiah, five years younger than his brother, must have well con-
sidered the advice Whitney had given him when he became a com-
mission merchant: "Let me advise you not to be over anxious to
dive very largely into business at first. Take care to establish your-
self on secure & solid foundations. A small Edifice founded on a rock
is far preferable to a large Building placed on sand. The regular
bred, experienced Merchant is cautious how he trusts his property
in the hands of a young man who branches out largely & dashes away
on his first going into trade." And now it was Josiah's turn to caution
his brother "that Capt. William Wallace has in several Instances
attempted too much. If he would have only one ship and keep with
her all the time himself, I am of the Opinion the Nett Gain would
be more. ... At the same time he wants Experience to enable him
to transact the Business of a Ship & Cargo in a Foreign Country or
in this to the interest of the owners."

In investing money, as in politics and religion, Whitney remained
rooted in the practices and attitudes of the community of which hp
was so much a part. His own hard-earned money went into the reg-
ular channels of trade and commerce: the purchase of stocks of banks,
insurance companies, turnpike companies; in real estate, both resi-
dential and farm; in small local paper mills. There was nothing un-
usual in his staking young Captain William Wallace, a typical Yankee
trader who tried to make a fortune out of nothing. Such men cut ice
from New England ponds, packed it in, sawdust, sailed around the
world, and sold it to Indian princes who wanted to chill their drinks;
or they dug up the root of the ginseng that grew wild along the
eastern coast and traded it for teas and nankeens and silver pieces
to the merchants of Hong Kong. Whitney's money was put out for
profits on a particular venture, not for interest in industry.

To ask that Whitney should have expressed his genius in other
fields is to expect the impossible; it is enough that within the limits

The Master Manufacturer

of his talent he created boldly and surely. As soon as he went into
manufacturing, he came face to face with the problems characteristic
of modern industry how to raise capital and how to figure costs,
how to recruit and train workers, how to experiment and devise in
order to operate most efficiently. From the very beginning he ap-
proached manufacturing in terms of new problems presented by
new necessities; not in habitual practices and contemporary think-
ing. It is possible to place Whitney in a larger context in the intel-
lectual history of modern times and see that his method extended
into industry the rational approach that had marked social and sci-
entific thinking.

When he was exploring this unknown territory of industrial meth-
ods, he was, as any explorer must be, alone. Miller, and then Wol-
cott, and his other friends and business associates, knew the many
moods that beset him in the course of his task, but only Stebbins
"My dear Unforgotten and never to be forgotten friend" was shown
Whitney's portrait of himself. "You ask how I am & where I am.
Do you remember that you & myself went one afternoon onto the
mountain east of N Haven from which w saw a small house in the
little valley to the westward that often losing our way in desceqd-
ing the mountain & having many apprehensions that we should be
benighted we crossed the small river at the foot of the Mountain
& at. last arrived at this, sd little Ijouse in -the valley where we in
vain tried to obtain. some refreshment. It is in the same sd little
house that I now write to you & do enjoy a tolerable share of health.
. . . Now if you would know what I am I mu,st tell you that I am
an Old Bachelor, overwhelmed in business, constantly forming reso-
lution to curtail my business concerns & like other fools, as con-
stantly plunging deeper into scheams of business; constantly re-
solved to marry without allowing myself leasure to take one step
towards carrying that resolution into effect"

xvii The Feud with Irvine

o

N June 18, 1812, the United States declared war
on Great Britain. Eleven days later Whitney
wrote to the Secretary of War, describing himself as one with "twelve
years' attention to the subject of Manufacturing Fire Arms"; he spoke
with the assurance of one who believed "himself to have possessed
greater advantages for obtaining information on this subject than
any other individual in the United States." Whitney remembered the
political fevers that had prevailed at the time he secured his first
contract. Now a state of war existed; the country was brutally un-
prepared; it was an auspicious moment to suggest that the govern-
ment give him a second contract. To that end his "Remarks" were
directed. For all their seeming discursiveness, they were pointed and
convincing.

For the benefit and education of the Secretary of War, he ex-
amined the situation in Great Britain, where, about 1796, the govern-
ment "raised the price of arms and engaged all the workmen in the
kingdom to deliver to the government all they could make in 14
years and about the same time they imported into England 50,000
muskets from Germany. Since that period the term has been ex-
tended . . . and a premium is constantly offered by the Govern-
ment to any subject who will leave the occupation to which he was
bred and work at certain branches of this manufacture. So great
is the difficulty in fabricating good muskets Locks,, that even in
G. Britain where there are the greatest number of workmen whose
occupation is most nearly connected with this branch, the Govt.
find it impossible to extend the manufacture to meet their demands.
*44

The Feud with Irvine

Twelve months ago the British Govt had on hand 200,000 Musket
Barrels which could not be made up for want of Locks, etc/'

In the United States his great objective had been "to substitute
correct & effective opperations of machinery for that skill of the
Artist . . . which is not possessed in this country to any considera-
ble extent/' Muskets could not be made "in this country without the
aid of a variety of heavy and expensive machinery, moved by water.
As waterworks are expensive and soon go to decay, the machinery
should be so proportioned and the extent of each establishment
such, as to keep all the machinery constantly employed. Any attempt
to carry on such a Manufactory without a solid, fixed and sufficient
Capital must be abortive. The amount of the capital must be at least
equal to double the value of the Arms delivered in one year [in
modern terms, Whitney turned his capital over once every two
years] and this amount will not be sufficient unless the finished work
be turned in & payment for the same reed, every ninety days [in
order to supply the current funds to meet pay rolls and purchases].
The establishment of such a Manufactory is ... a progressive op-
peration & can in no case be accomplished in less than two years
and should be continued at least twenty years to warrant such an
investment of capital/'

Whitney asserted that his was now "the most respectable private
establishment in the United States for carrying on this important
branch of business . . . and he feels himself warranted by his own
experience and success in believing that the New Methods which
he has invented . . . are practically useful & highly important to
his country. He would further state that the principal part of his
property is vested in Buildings, Machinery etc . . . which cannot
be converted to other use without a great sacrafice & he therefore
wishes to continue in the business and begs leave respectfully to
submit . . . whether it be for the interest of the United States to
give him employment for such length of time & upon such terms
as to afford a fair prospect of a reasonable profit for his labour."

Whitney's second contract was for fifteen thousand muskets. It
was signed on July 18, 1812, with the Secretary of War, William
Eustis. Deliveries were to start "on or before the first of May 1813,"
and were to be made thereafter at a yearly rate of not more than

$4,6 The World of Eli Whitney

three thousand, nor less than fifteen hundred; the whole amount to
be delivered before the end of 1820. "The said Muskets shall be ...
in all respects conformable to the models of the musket which the
said Whitney hath heretofore manufactured for the State of New
York excepting only as to the length of the Barrels, which shall
be Forty inches in length." His advances and payments generally
followed that of the previous contract, Whitney and Oliver Wolcott
signed the $30,000 bond required by the government and had no
difficulty in finding sureties to underwrite the "faithful performance"
of the contract.

Whitney considered the contract most favorable. The government
had accepted the same model he was then making for New York
State. (He further obligated himself that very October to manu-
facture an additional two thousand for Governor Tompkins. ) This
meant there would be no long preparation, no retooling of the fac-
tory, no unsolved problems to delay the actual manufacturing. Be-
cause he was in full production, he stipulated that the first five
hundred guns would be finished by the following May. The price
of the musket $13 was the same as he was receiving from New
York and Connecticut not the unreasonable price of $10.75, a figure
set in 1809 and 1810, for contracts let out for 85,000 stands qf arms.
Nothing in the terms of his contract gave him cause for apprehension.

He expressed concern over a very different matter: that young Eli
Blake pass his examinations to enter Yale, come properly introduced
"relative to your character and qualifications," and be adequately
provided with clothing. "Your Uncle Josiah will furnish you, on my
acct. with as much money as will be necessary to pay off your Bills
and expences & bring you on here." And when his nephew was finally
"located to my satisfaction," his greatest worry was to get quick de-
livery on a quantity of emery. He wrote Josiah to make certain that
"it should be forwarded as soon as possible as the winter will soon
set in and . . . besides, it may be captured on its passage and the
want of it will be ten times more than the worth of it. ... I am,
at this moment, subjected to much inconvenience for the want of
the Emery & it is of serious importance to me that I should receive
it within ten days."

The autumn months passed peacefully by. To Whitney the war

The Feud with Irvine

was remote, the conditions it imposed hardly differing from those
of the disturbed peace that had preceded it. The tight blockade that
Great Britain enforced came to him faintly, indirectly, as an echo.
'The British armed forces in the Sound who have made some slight
attacks on the coast of this State has excited some alarm here &
thrown me into some embarrassment relative to getting on some
material for my manufactory from Pennsylvania."

More immediate than the war, infinitely more disquieting than
the British frigates, was a warning he received. The master armorer
at the Springfield Armory "called at my works & told me that Coin,
[at the time only Captain] Irvine was very sorry to hear that I had
got a contract, because he and Mr. Wickham * intended to intro-
duce a New Model for the Musket." The war itself was, for Whitney,
overshadowed by the campaign directed against him by Callender
Irvine.

On August 8, 1812, Captain Callender Irvine, who had served as
Superintendent of Military Stores, was named Commissary General
of Purchases. His office replaced that of Purveyor of Public Sup-
plies, a position that for nine years had been filled by Tench Coxe.
It may well be that Coxe was one of Irvine's victims. There was a
plan already set in motion when, the previous January, Coxe, as
Purveyor, asked Irvine, ^then Superintendent of Military Stores, for
specific information requested by the Secretary of War. Irvine by-
passed Coxe, communicating directly with the Secretary. This de-
liberately hostile tactic made Coxe protest to Eustis (how prescient
he was!), "The tendency of such things, which have been stated
in his conduct as Inspector, if allowed, will, in my humble opinion,
retard, disorder & injure the service." Eustis's inquiry had concerned
some Whitney muskets that a field officer had reported to be defec-
tive: "3 ramrods and 2 locks broke in manual drill . . . and a bayonet
used to strike a man on the cheek, did not damage the skin but bent
the bayonet almost perpendicular!"

Tracing back into the records of these guns, Coxe found they were
contracted for in 1798, before his tenure, inspected by an office other

* Marine T. Wickham was employed at the Philadelphia Laboratory of the
War Department. He designed a new gun in 1812. According to Major Hicks,
its "only important innovation was fixing the bayonet to the barrel by means of
a screw."

The World of Eli Whitney

than his, and that the inspector had since been removed from his
position. Examination convinced him that "tho there is much good
work, the ... faults in the necks of the bayonet and ramrods are
very bad facts." Somewhat prophetically he remarked that the whole
episode "will show that a contracting officer, like the Secy of War,
may have his designs frustrated as well as a Purveyor. Patterns &
Inspectors are of infinite consequence."

When Irvine took over the contracts Coxe had made with nine-
teen small-arms manufacturers during 1809 and 1810, he found but
little more than a third of the 85,000 muskets had been delivered
and that rising costs made it unlikely that more would be finished
at the stipulated price. In January, 1813, General John Armstrong
replaced William Eustis as Secretary of War; the new Secretary
relied heavily on his subordinate officers.

Whitney knew nothing of the Coxe-Irvine struggle, and his rela-
tions with the arms inspectors had heretofore been pleasant; but he
had reason to fear trouble when, in March, 1813, he received a rou-
tine notice from Armstrong advising him that "a copy of the con-
tract and bond will be forwarded to Callender Irvine, Commissary
General of Purchases, at Philadelphia, with whom you will in future
correspond/' The warning Whitney had received had been a friendly
act, truthfully reported; but it was too limited, for Irvine's plans
extended much further than Whitney.

In the light of subsequent fast-moving events, Irvine's ultimate
goal becomes very clear: he wanted control over the allocation of
funds, supervision of the musket models and their manufacture, and
direction of personnel so that the Wickham model, in which Irvine
had a stake, might replace all others. To this end he decided to
eliminate the private contractors and extend the public armories in
size and number. But first he had to undermine the Ordnance Of-
fice or make it subservient to his authority. His first success had
been to obliterate the office of Purveyorship and Coxe with it. The
Ordnance Department, of which Colonel Decius Wadsworth had
been made chief (July 2, 1812) was his next target. He did not
attack Wadsworth directly; but by attacking the quality of the mus-
kets made at the Springfield Armory Irvine intended to make him
appear incompetent and frighten Wadsworth into submission, or

The Feud with Irvine $4,9

at least into passive acquiescence. Retracing his machinations step
by step, reading the interoffice memoranda of that distant time, one
becomes uncomfortably aware of the presence of a boa constrictor
the swift lasso of the powerful coils, the gentle, quiet, fatal squeeze,
and the final mighty swallow of the broken, still-warm body. It is
not a pretty sight. And reading thus, one feels a rush of relief when
an intended victim suddenly becomes alert to the deadly danger.

On March 12th Wadsworth answered a report made by Irvine on
the bad results shown when the musket barrels at the Springfield
Armory were proved. "It is well known that charges [of powder]
may be increased so as to burst any barrel," he wrote to Armstrong,
"the deficiencies attempted to be shown tend rather to show the
insufficiency of the established proof than to reflect on the character
of the superintendent, whose duty it is to cause the barrels to be
proved agreeably to the instructions received from his superiors."
And then Wadsworth protested the animus that Irvine, through his
inspector, seemed to have betrayed for the Superintendent, and
indirectly, toward him: "It must be impolitic, I humbly conceive,
to empower persons to overhaul, criticise, and censure work executed
there [Springfield Armory], who have before been in subordinate
stations at that ^armory, or others who are strongly suspected and
accused of entertaining sentiments hostile to that establishment and
its superior officers. Such a proceeding must have the effect of pro-
ducing irritations/' In another communication (the same day), he
explicitly stated that a "pattern" offered by Irvine was badly de-
signed the "fixing of the bayonet was particularly objectionable,"

But Wadsworth had been very disturbed by Irvine's manner and
method. Writing Whitney, the next day, about some special equip-
ment, he added a postscript: "Great complaints are made relative
to the Springfield Arms, please let me know your real opinion of the
Quality."

^Sjn April, Irvine began harassing the small-arms manufacturers who
Bad taken contracts in 1809 and 1810. He \yas very shrewd in the
way he explained the situation to Armstrong. "These contracts were
founded on imperfect Muskets as standards and at prices for which
it is impossible to have made good muskets. So .that if the. contracts
are complied with strictly . . . the Govt, will be saddled with so

250 The World of Eli Whitney

many defective arms of which there are enough already in store . . .
furnished under contracts made with & under the eye of Tench Coxe.
. . . What cost the Govt about 60,000$, not one arm of the whole
is fit for service, or worth one cent but what they may bring as old
iron or brass at auction." When one of the contractors, Joseph Henry,
of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, objected to Irvine's highhanded pro-
cedure, Irvine, in forwarding the manufacturer's letter to the Secre-
tary of War, sent it with one of his own he presented the case in
the terms he desired Armstrong to see it.

"I have proposed to all contractors as they complain of having
a hard bargain, that they may pay up the advance money or deliver
as many arms as will be equal to the advance and the contracts
shall be rendered void. Some have acceded. . . . Others have re-
fused. ... It is to .me clear that some of these gentry did not in
the beginning expect to comply with their engagements, nor do they
now Intend it. Their JBrst consideration was to get possession of the
public money, and their desire is to retain it as long as practicable.
Many of them were unacquainted with the manufacturing of arms
expended the whole advance money in the erection of buildings &
machinery. . . .

"We cannot rely upon Contractors for a supply of arms. These
private contracts are exceptionable in maijy ways & every respect.
Better to increase the number of our public establishments & the
number of hands at those already in operation & bring the whole
under the superintendence of one judicious & independent man/'
There: it was out. This was Irvine's goal, and he himself was the
"judicious & independent man." Yet his argument was disarmingly
impersonal; it was on a lofty, patriotic, and managerial plane: "It
will be safer for the Govt. to expend two or three hundred thou-
sand dollars on building armories than to advance so much money
to individuals who will expend it in erecting buildings & machinery
for themselves and disappoint the Govt. as to a supply of arms
confidently calculated to be received within the period specified
in their contracts." It is impossible to say whether Irvine did not
know the genesis of the private contractors or whether he deliberately
obscured it. In seeking to promote the musket model he and Wick-
ham had made, he showed himself indifferent and callous to Whit-

The Feud with Irvine %51

ney's influence in the public armories. Not once, in all his memoranda
to Armstrong about Whitney, did he mention that the superintend-
ents of both armories had been directed to visit Whitney's manu-
factory in order to copy tools and observe methods, to learn from
him, to incorporate his newest improvements in their work.

Instead, by the end of June, Irvine was ready to go after Whitney.
His belligerence sounds bugle-sharp when he notifies the Secretary:
"Mr. EH Whitney ... has not delivered a single musket, tho' he
should have delivered on or iefore the ist of May last, at least
500 muskets. [At that writing Whitney was seven weeks late on his
delivery.] When the engagements of these contractors are not com-
plied with as to time, I recommend that the contracts shall be can-
celled. I have written today to Mr. Whitney stating that I have
a general authority of that kind & that I will most assuredly exercise
it. The^Govt. has been trifled with long enough, in all conscience,
by these contractors." On receipt of his letter, Whitney knew that
Irvine was determined to use his power to ruin him. He went to
Philadelphia. He wanted to talk to Irvine, to assess him. At that
meeting they agreed so Whitney thought that when Whitney sent
a musket from the lot being made for New York State to Irvine
he would immediately receive "the further advance of five thousand
Dollars mentioned in my contract" By November he was writing
to Irvine, "You will easily imagine that after a delay of a Month, I
am greatly surprised and disappointed at receiving the contents of
your letter instead of the promised remittance."

The letter Irvine wrote October 26th was concentrated venom.
It itemized the shortcomings of Whitney's musket: "The bayonet is
2 inches too short . . . the lower part of the butt is too long . . .
the barrel is very crooked, and the britch is not water tight . . .
the main spring is very indifferent, and the toe of the hammer too
sharp otherwise the lock is not to be complained of. ... These
defects must be remedied, or the Muskets will not be received or
paid for by me/'

Whitney separated the insults from the threats and answered both.
He reminded Irvine that Eustis, with whom he had contracted, had
selected that particular model, though Whitney had offered him
the choice of "any he had seen elsewhere. On the Model, workman-

The World of Eli Whitney

ship and Dimensions (with one single exception) of those Muskets,
my present contract with the U States is predicated. . . . From this
standard I consider myself as having no right to deviate without
the consent of the Government, & I humbly conceive that the Gov-
ernment have no right to require a deviation without my consent."
His premise stated, Whitney discussed the defects Irvine had enu-
merated. His tone was patient, his analysis painstaking: " 'The Bayo-
net is i inches too short/ The opinions of Mankind are very various
as to what is the most proper length for a Bayonet. Agreeable to
the Standard length of a French Bayonet, which is about 14 inches,
the Bayonet in question is too long. Some have supposed that a Bayo-
net ought to be thirty inches long. And several thousands have been
made of that length. . . . There is almost as great a variety of opin-
ions on this subject as there can be variety of lengths between 14
and 30 inches." Point by point, conscientiously and fully was he
also pointing up the fool? Whitney answered Irvine's criticisms.

He was not to be intimklated by threats. "As I understand it, if
I will make such alterations in the Model and consequently in the
Contract as you may please to direct, the contract will, in that case,
be fulfilled on the part of the United States and not otherwise. . . .
I am willing to make alterations in the contract, provided I receive
a suitable remuneration therefor: but I think it should be done by
Agreement and not by Order. ... If you suppose the U States can,
at any price, obtain a supply of Muskets, all of which shall be
made with the same punctillious exactness which appertains to the
Model which has lately been constructed under the direction of Mr.
Wickham, you are certainly deceived. It is on that Model, I pre-
sume, that your ideas are formed. And I will venture to assert that
there never has been a Musket made on that Model . . . which did
not cost more than forty dollars." He reminded Irvine that the failure
to send the remittance promised him "must occasion a serious em-
barrassment to a person who has fifty people employed/' The boa
constrictor and the lion had met; Whitney's reputation, his strong
conviction in his own achievements, his unequaled knowledge of
mechanics and manufacturing, stripped Irvine of everything save
his hostility and his great power.

It would not be easy to defeat such an enemy, and the struggle

The Feud with Irvine 53

became doubly painful because Whitney was sick. rt My health has
been bad for the last three weeks past/' he wrote to Catherine Miller
on November 2Oth, "& I am sorry that it is not in my power to say
it is mending." (Previously, Josiah had sternly counseled his brother
about his attacks of ill health: "Your complaint I think is Rheumatism
and if it is not soon removed will become nervous, and a nervous Rheu-
matism, is the mother of the most dangerous disseases.") Another
letter from Irvine it contributed little toward easing his physical dis-
tress expressed Irvine's version of the agreement they had reached:
"I requested that a Musket ... be forwarded to this office, that
I might be satisfied with the sufficiency of those making by you
for the US or, if found defective, for the purpose of suggesting any
alterations not attended with much expence. ... I did not point
out the exceptions to your musket with a view to consult your opin-
ion, which would have been improper for two very obvious reasons.
First you are not a practical Gun Smith, as I have been informed,
and again, you are too deeply interested in the matter. Therefore your
opinions and Criticism . . . have little weight in my mind.
W'Lhave neither the leisure or time to spare for an Epistolary con-
troversy with you or any other man. Your contract with Govt was
transmitted to me. . . . You have said that Govt has no right to
ask or expect an deviation on your part from the letter of that con-
tract. This being admitted to the fullest extent I have to reply to
it. That Govt hacl a right to expect and will insist upon a compliance
in every respect with the terms of your contract . . . You have failed
to execute your engagements. ... It is therefore my duty to re-
quire of you to refund promptly, the money with interest, which has
been advanced you by the United States, which I now do."

Irvine had made a sad blunder in estimating that the carefully
dressed, elegantly spoken gentleman who had called on him could
not possibly be a "practical Gun Smith." On this point Whitney un-
deceived him: "I can, with my own hands, in the first place make
my tools and then from the raw materials make a musket with as
much precision, exactness, and finished workmanship as belongs to
any Musket which I have ever seen and I have seen and examined
with attention the muskets made both in this Country and the princi-
pal Countries of Europe. I have had more practical experience in

World of Eli Whitney
Musket making than any other man in America. . . . I did not under-
take the manufacture of Arms, relying on the skill and experience
of any man or number of men I might employ. All my workmen
without an exception, were . . . and have always been almost wholly
of my own instructing. I am indebted to no man for planning or
executing any part of my Machinery. I have always directed in per-
son the intire detail of the business both as to the forms and modes
of working. The more difficult branches I have executed myself. After
having pursued the business for fifteen years ... my ignorance of
the subject should be ascribed to a want of capacity rather than a
want of experience!"

After this proud statement of his mechanical qualifications, Whit-
ney pointed out his legal rights. He noted it "to be a clear princi-
ple that the nonfulfillment of a particular item of a contract does
not vitiate the contract itself"; he advised Irvine (Whitney had con-
sulted his lawyer, Baldwin, and his other .well informed New Haven
friends) that "I cannot comprehend ho^one party can have a right
to revoke the contract, which does not equally appertain to the other
party."

Once before, Whitney had had to fight to maintain his rights in
a contract to collect moneys lawfully due him once before he had
marshaled facts and courage and won; he would teach Irvine tha^
if he could have triumphed over the hostility of the southern planters,
he would not take defeat now without a determined struggle.

Did Irvine suddenly sense the stature of the man whom he was
trying to discredit? There is a wry acknowledgment of the position
into which he had maneuvered himself when he summarized the
situation for Armstrong and, indirectly, asked the Secretary for help:
"Whitney's contract is vague on its terms, very advantageous to him-
self and the reverse to the Govt. . . . The best musket he could
select, is exceedingly exceptionable, . , . He has not complied with
his engagements as to time. ... I have accordingly told him that
I consider his contract at an end. He is in high dudgeon and we are
at loggerheads; this I don't regard a straw. He has imposed on the
Govt. and people long enough. I have informed him we do not want
any more apologies for arms, having plenty such already."

As 1813 came to an end, Great Britain was able to take the war

The Feud with Irvine 55

with the United States more seriously. When they had defeated
Napoleon and forced his abdication, the British could spare troops
to send to America. Immediately they prepared to intensify the
war. None of this, seems to have made the slightest impression
on Irvine, sitting in his Commissary's Office in Philadelphia, intent
on his own private war against Eli Whitney, whose factory in New
Haven was making arms for the United States Army.

For several months everything was quiet on the surface. Irvine
delayed doing anything while he tried ,to have Congress pass a law
placing the public armories and private contractors under a single
superintendent. Wadsworth warned Whitney of this: "A few ex-
periments in relation to small arms as bold as have been made of
late in the Organization and Discipline of our Armies, will give the
finishing stroke to our Military Character." The bill was lost in the
Senate Senator David Daggett, one of the men who had signed
his name to Whitney's original bond, had spoken against its passage.
The winter months passed. When Whitney asked that an inspector
be sent to examine the muskets, Irvine did not answer; he had taken
his stand that Whitney had failed to deliver as he had agreed to in
his contract.

Finally, Whitney took measure to force acceptance of the finished
guns. In May he went to Washington and carried letters of praise
and recommendation from Wolcott and Governor Tompkins of New
York both these men could speak personally of contracts under-
taken and satisfaction given. On the iSth he addressed himself to
Armstrong: "Immediately after entering into his present existing Con-
tract with the U. States ... he proceeded to erect, in addition to
those which he had before in operation, two new sets of water-works,
one at Salisbury and the other at Haddam, for forging the Barrels;
but that owing to the severity of the succeeding winter, these Estab-
lishments did not get into effective operation as soon as was ex-
pected. In the mean time he was successfully employed in ...
laying in an ample supply of materials & going on with the other
branches of the work. He has now on hand nearly a thousand fin-
ished muskets and the principal parts of from two to three thou-
sand more in great forwardness." Since all tnis was done "solely for
the purpose of supplying Arms to the Government," breaking the

$56 The World of Eli Whitney

contract "will subject the Subscriber to great losses and a total de-
rangement of Ids affairs"; he respectfully solicited the Secretary of
War "to make such dispositions and give such directions, as shall
enable him to proceed in the regular execution of his contract."

Whitney had come to Washington a few days too late. Irvine had
succeeded in convincing the Secretary of War that the proper course
was to request the Comptroller of Public Accounts "to report the
state of Mr, Whitney's accounts ... to the end that a^ suit may be
brought against him for non-fulfillment'* It was not to find such a
decision that Whitney had come all the way to Washington. For
six weeks he stayed on, intent on undoing what Irvine had com-
mitted Armstrong to do. He went from the Secretary of War s of-
fice to the Secretary of State's; and James Monroe, who remembered
how Jefferson had commended his genius, laid the matter before
President Madison, "with both of whom I had several interviews."
In the end he got the answer for which he had been looking: "The
Secty of War paid me the 5000 Dollars due me and directed Irvine
to send on a man to inspect the muskets 1000 of which were due for
delivery."

Poor Armstrong! His was the unenviable position of the command-
ing citadel for which opposing armies battle to capture and control.
Shaken in his trust in Irvine, his Commissary General, he solicited
an opinion of Whitney from Wadsworth, Chief of Ordnance. Wads-
worth, in a long, scholarly argument, reassured Armstrong. "I think
his arms as good, if not superior, to those which have in general
been made anywhere else in the United States." He reminded the
Secretary that since the first contracts were given out "more men
have failed in consequence of abortive efforts to manufacture arms,
in proportion to the number engaged, than in any other branch of
manufacture attempted in this country. The business is not yet so
firmly established as to endure the incision-knife and caustic in cur-
ing its defects. Tampering and trying experiments with it will be
premature and hazardous until it takes firmer roots."

Every consideration national security, contractual obligations,
technical factors^ an established official leniency toward delivery
schedules, official regulations, th policy* of encouraging domestic
manufactures everything was on Whitney's side. Irvine had only

The Feud with Irvine

his vindictiveness and his need for vindication; he decided to bow
to the storm so that he might still hold tenaciously to his position
and purpose. When Armstrong ordered him to 'let Whitney go on
with his contract," Irvine snapped to attention, agreed with the or-
der, and then, acting as if the change in policy had changed the
situation, he stubbornly, monotonously repeated his old conclusions:
"I would recommend that Whitney's Contract be rendered void. If
not, please to inform & I will do the best I can!"

"The best I can": the words sounded ominously like a promise
Irvine was making to himself to find some way to bring Whitney
to terms. Coxe had said, "Patterns & Inspectors are of infinite con-
sequence," and both sides knew the truth behind those words. Whit-
ney, as well as Irvine, appreciated that the Secretary's decision had
determined nothing but policy and that the policy could be circum-
vented and negated even as it was seemingly obeyed. Whitney, on
his part, had learned from the sale of the gin rights to South Caro-
lina that a sale was not a sale until one had received the cash. Until
his moneys had been paid him, anything, at any stage, was possible.

Foreseeing that the proof and inspection would be the weapon
used against him, Whitney asked Wadsworth what official regula-
tions governed these steps. "The one regulation in the United States,
bearing the Stamp of Authority, relating to the mode of proving
Musket barrels," Wadsworth answered his query, was that "pro-
mulgated by the Secretary of War about the year 1798 and was
literally translated from the French, the only difference being that
which subsists between the avoirdupois & the French weights." He
discussed minutely the quantity and potency of different powder
charges, and added: "Within a past few years, I understand, there
has been a deviation . . . which consists in substituting the British
proof charge of powder -for Musket barrels in lieu of that prescribed
by the regulation of 179$. . . . This alteration I have not been able
totracetoanycompetentauthority.lt . . . has probably taken place
on the suggestion of some of the Inspectors, who have been em-
ployed in examining the Arms fabricated ... on Contract. It has
not been yet received at the Springfield Armory, where they still
adhere to the regulation of 1798." In order to get outside the area
governed by the Springfield Armory standards, Irvine suggested to

258 The World of Eli Whitney

the War Department that Whitney send his muskets to New York
for inspection and proof. But on the point that the inspection was
to be done at his manufactory, Whitney's contract was specific.

The careful preparations, the strategy and counterstrategy, are
eloquent of the high stakes involved. Irvine was intent on removing
the one person who stood between him and his ambition; Whitney
was determined to save his manufactory the child of his brain and
hands, his sweat, his lonely purpose, his long years of concentrated
effort. Both had pride; each wanted to maintain his preeminence in
his own special world. The whole violent action, so tightly com-
pressed, was like an explosion; it occurred during a few torrid days
in August, 1814.

Irvine was not actually present. He was represented by Wickham
and another inspector, H. H. Perkin. Both men by word and let-
ter were advised of the special nature of the assignment: Wickham

was told to take "powder with you of approved strength" (the
strength of the powder used had not been standardized and varied
considerably); and Perkin, warned that Irvine expected difficulty
with Whitney, was directed to support Wickham, who would "give
you my ideas generally in relation to Mr. Whitney's Contract, manner
of inspection, &c." In addition, Irvine deliberately delayed a full
month before sending the inspectors to New Haven. Did he hope thus
to harass and infuriate Whitney to the point where he would throw
up his contract?

The sound of the explosion can still be heard. "Wickham came
here the evening before the last," Whitney wrote to Wadsworth on
August 13th, the handwriting betraying the fury that still shook
him, "apparently under the strong bias of prejudice & passion he
has left this place this morning still more under the influence of pas-
sion than when he came without doing anything. My embarrass-
ment is very great I have not time to write you in detail. ... If
you can prevail upon the Secretary to fix upon a fair proper and
uniform mode of proving musket Barrels, you will render the pub-
lic a great service & relieve me and many others from the most vexa-
tious and ruinous embarrassment. . . . Immediate and great exer-
,-sions will be made to induce the Secretary of War to establish the
-proof [greater than that prescribed by the regulations] which has

The Feud with Irvine

improperly been presented by subordinate officers of the Govt. No
time should be lost in your application. I wish for nothing but that
which is fair and proper."

After agitated conferences with his attorney, Baldwin, Whitney
wrote Wickham (though they were in the same house, Whitney, on
Baldwin's advice, communicated only in writing), "I now again Re-
peat the tender of 1000 muskets to you for your inspection and de-
livery, agreeable to the terms of my contract . . . and hereby give
you notice that if they are not now received, they will be hereafter,
at the risque of the United States and that if they are destroyed by
the enemy or fire, the loss must be theirs." Wickham's reply, sent
back immediately, fills the scene that had taken place with the sound
of cold fury: "I can only repeat to you what I have frequently done
since my arrival." He insisted he would "make use of the Harpers
Ferry proof charge, which are made use of at their Armory, at Phila
also . . . with the exception of the Springfield Armory." He pro-
tested against the number of barrels "which you tendered on Satur-
day for proof in the presence of Judge Balding [Baldwin] and Mr.
Bishop" because "you acknowledged to me this morning that they
were not ready for proof. I propose leaving town at 2 oclock provided
you will not agree to my propositions." He left at "a Quarter past
two without receiving Mr. Whitney's reply."

What happened can be seen through the eyes of both men. Whit-
ney wrote his version to Secretary of War Armstrong, and Wickham
sent in a report, with his opinion of what would be the outcome, to
Irvine. ("Were I compelled to inspect, pass & certify muskets agreea-
ble to Mr. Whitney's construction of the contract, the U States had
much better save the trouble and expence of an inspection by Tak-
ing Mr. W word for the quality &c of the arms.") The letters, long
and detailed, continued the struggle and brought it right back to
Armstrong. No longer was he called on to determine policy; now
he had to provide ways to make certain his policy was carried out.

Whitney's letter of August i/th is less a letter than a brief. He
told the Secretary that he asked Wickham the "Principles & Rules
by which he proposed to be governed in the proof and inspection
of the arms He appeared to be averse to a free communica-
tion. I will state the leading views of Mr, Wickham so far as I

The World of Eli Whitney

understand them: with my objections thereto." And he summarized
their differences : the strength of the proof charges, the variations
in the caliber, and the responsibility for the cost of proof and in-
spection. Such technical disagreements were bad, but far worse was
that Wickham, "as he himself acknowledges, received instructions
by which his decisions ... are to be regulated, and from which
he feels himself bound not to make the least deviation; which in-
structions he refuses to submit to my inspection. ... I can never
while I retain my senses, under any circumstances, consent to be
bound by an instrument, to which I am not a party which I have
never seen and which I must never be permitted to see/'

Whitney did not linger over the legal and technical aspects of
their differences such matters were for experts to discuss and re-
solve. He desired to make it very clear to Armstrong that he would
not tolerate the climate created by Irvine and that behind his talk
of methods to prove and inspect muskets Irvine was waging a nasty,
unprincipled fight against Whitney personally. He repeated con-
versations with Wickham to illustrate the unfair treatment they had
prepared for him, "I proposed the following case. Suppose we pro-
cure from the State of N.York a Box of the same identical Mus-
kets refered to in the Contract, and I present you an equal number
of Muskets precisely similar in form and quality, will you accept
them? No, said he, unless they correspond with my ideas of what
a musket ought to be. I then enquired of him whether ... a musket
might be made which would cost the maker from 25 to 40 dollars,
and still that musket be conformable. . . . TTes/ said he, 'from 50
to 100 dollars' and remarked 'that muskets might be made at all prices
from five dollars to one hundred Dollars each & all of them be-ex-
actly conformable in all respects to the model . . . made f OF* the
State of N York. From such a construction, it results that I have
undertaken for a definite sum to perform a thing which is altogether
indefinite, and am wholly at the mercy of the person who may be
sent to receive the arms. . . . You will readily perceive the impos-
sibility of my doing business with men under such circumstances and
entertaining such views.

*It is reported here that the enemy have declared 'they will de-
stroy my Manufactory let it cost what it will/ Whether such a decla-

The Feud with Irvine 61

ration has actually been made or not, I consider the danger very
serious and am, on that account, extremely anxious that the arms
should be removed; tho I consider the 1000 Muskets ready for de-
livery now at the risque of the U States. They are well made and
such as I contracted to make. ... I hope you will think proper
immediately to appoint some competent and unbiased person to
receive the Muskets."

To Wadsworth, with whom he was joined not only in friendship
but in common defense against Irvine, Whitney repeated the sub-
stance of his letter to Armstrong and spoke openly qf his antipathy
and fear. "This m$n Wickham seems to have set himself up as a
Supreme Dictator as to everything relating to the Manufacture of
Arms. As to Irvine, I consider him the mere mouthpiece of Wick-
ham. . . . They have already ruined every private manufactory in
the U States except mine by their impositions and exactions. ... If I
will submit impjicitly to his dictations and promise never to dis-
pute his authority in the future, he will proceed to inspect the Mus-
kets & not otherwise. If I do not submit ruin is inevitable. My situa-
tion is truly embarrassing." This evaluation of the roles of Wickham
and Irvine may well have been valid; or it might have reflected Whit-
ney's growing fear at the power and determination shown by his
enemies, his clash with Wickham having a more sinister expression
than his earlier unpleasant encounter with Irvine. As \^hen with Miller
he had fought a conspiracy of the southern planters, so now (with
Wadsworth's help) he struck out against this new conspiracy. For
the second time Whitney battled to save for himself the fruits of his
genius.

Four days later Whitney again wrote to Armstrong. Day after
day the same situation persisted: the manufactory, geared to high
production, was turning out musket barrels. He wanted to make it
very clear that inspection fitted into the production schedule itself .
"Musket Barrels are bored to the proper caliber cut to the given
length ground so as not to exceed a given weight breeched
and in that state,, it is the universal practice, to prove them. Great
inconvenience would result from proving them in any of the sub-
sequent stages of their manufacture." Irvine knew this, and yet
what better instance could Whitney give of Irvine's outrageous, high-

The World of Eli Whitney

handed behavior? almost ten months had passed since Whitney
had notified him "that I should shortly have a number of Barrels
ready for the proof and requested him to inform me who would
perform that service. To this request he has never thought proper
to make any reply. After waiting some weeks for his answer, it be-
came necessary that I should either discharge my workmen and stop
the Manufactory, or adopt some method of proving the Barrels. As
the former alternative would amount to an entire breaking up of the
Manufactory, I adopted the latter.

"The Barrels of the 1000 Muskets which I have now ready for
delivery, have all been proved by James Carrington Esq, who was
specially appointed by the Secretary of War to prove the greatest
part of the 10,000 Muskets which I formerly manufactured for the
U States. ... It is true that Mr. Carrington has not been specially
appointed to prove the barrels made for my present contract
and therefore I do not object to the Barrels being proved over again,
but as it was not my fault that the barrels were not proved at the
proper time, I do object to my being subjected to the extra expence
of proving the barrels over again, now the guns are finished. This
extra expence will be at least $500 upon 1000 muskets."

The struggle was not over; rather it was getting worse, since, daily,
the manufactory was finishing barrels that would need proving. And
so Whitney ended his letter, not to report what had occurred but to
remind Armstrong that this would be, until cured, a chronic condi-
tion. "I have several hundred Barrels in a proper state to be proved
and the embarrassment arising from there not being some person,
residing near the Manufactory, appointed to prove them, from time
to time as they are prepared for that operation, still subsists/'

The climax came swiftly. The official war against the British and
Irvine's private war against Whitney each going its own independ-
ent, unrelated way collided. A few days after Wickham walked out
of Whitney's manufactory, the "British came to Washington and Blew
Up Armstrong." So Whitney, with a 'certain grim pleasure, summed
up the events some years later. "The business of the Armories &
contracts for arms was placed under the care of the Ordnance Dept.
& I have heard nothing further from Irvine." (Josiah uttered senti-
ments common to New England when he wrote, "The late destruc-

The Feud with Irvine $63

tion of the City of Wash is Considered by all a National disgrace,
at the same time it is thot the seat of Govt will in consequence be
at Phila, and the~interest of the Country so much improved by the
change that the Loss of Wash will eventually prove a blessing to the
country.")

Whitney never knew that Armstrong had ordered the words
were written on the back of Whitney's last letter to him "Let Bom-
ford * send a man of competent knowledge to prove Whitney's mus-
kets. Let him prove 100 of the 1000 taking those to be tried from
the heap. When proved the arms should be sent to N.Y. without
delay." Poor Armstrong! He was very glad to be relieved of his of-
fice. On September 2/th James Monroe relinquished his Secretary-
ship of the State Department and took over the demoralized post
Armstrong had vacated.

Irvine had been defeated.

How thoroughly .became clear over the next few months. A change
could first be sensed in the War Department's attitude toward Whit-
ney's manufactory, which, haying stood off Irvine's attacks, became,
in the glare of the appalling realities of the burning of the Capital
and the bombardment of Fort McHenry, an establishment at once
vulnerable and^ valuable. A CoLpnel Staples was dispatched to New
Haven to install a shore battery because, "The British have lately
captured the Revenue Cutter of this Port, which leaves us with-
out the least floating defence whatever." (The thousand muskets
which Whitney had feared might be captured by the enemy were
bought and paid for by Governor TompHns of New York; Whitney
received his contract price, and New York assumed the costs of prov-
ing and transportation. )

In Februa s ry, 1815, Congress passed an Act which embodied "all
such provisions as the experience of the war had shown to be neces-
sary/' The activities and jurisdiction of the Commissary's Office and
the Ordnance Department both created in 1812 were finally given
specific definition. "I have good reason to believe," Whitney wrote

* Major George Romford ( 1782-1848) at that time was assistant Commissary
General of Ordnance. Well educated and an able engineer, he became the out-
standing authority on ordnance. Colonel Bomford was appointed Chief of the
Ordnance Department on May 20, 1832.

$64 The World of Eli Whitney

to Colonel Roswell Lee, who was appointed to the Superintendency
at the Springfield Armory, "that it was in consequence of the nefarious
conduct of Wickham & Irvine that the business of the Armories &
contracts for arms was put over into the charge of the Ordnance
Dept. & it is nothing strange that Irvine should have a grudge against
me as I certainly had no inconsiderable agency in deflating his abom-
inable projects/*

Whitney could not yet rejoice; he was not free of Irvine. Arm-
strong's directive of March, 1813, notifying him that Irvine had been
entrusted with the supervision of his contract, had not been super-
seded. Quite soon Whitney would have another thousand muskets
ready. Who would inspect them? And to whom should he apply
to have this situation corrected? Men seemed to be flitting in and
out of the office of the Secretary of War: James Monroe had left,
and now Alexander Dallas had assumed the office in addition to that
of Secretary of the Treasury.

Whitney wrote directly to James Madison, -the President. "The
Secretary of War has signified his willingness that the contract may
go on; but . . . insists on leaving the business in the hands and under
the control of Mr. Irvine." Whitney sent his correspondence with
Irvine for the President to read, and asked "whether considerations
of justice as well as delicacy towards Mr. Irvine may not render it
proper that this business should be placed in the hands of some other
officer or agent of the Government.'*

Peace had already come when, in June, 1815, the government paid
Whitney for the first thousand muskets it received on his contract.
From that time on he made regular deliveries and regularly received
his moneys; the whole of the fifteen thousand was completed in July,
1822. Long, long before, manufacturing the muskets had become
quite routine. James Carrington, who had proved and inspected the
greater part of the muskets Whitney made on his first contract, stayed
on to serve in the same capacity for the second. For his own use he
transcribed from the Proof Book the number of musket barrels he
proved: 14,158, the number burst, 606, and the cost involved, $833.

Out of Irvine's petty machinations, the United States, but newly
entered on the production of small-arms, had been forced to define
more exactly the function of agencies responsible for proper stand-

The Feud with Irvine 65

ards. In his efforts to attain his own end, Irvine had touched on
a problem that has persisted to the present day, a highly controversial
problem: public ownership of industries deemed vital to the national
welfare. In his day, and long afterward, public ownership was limited
to certain manufactories of arms for the nation. In the beginning
Whitney, and only Whitney, argued for the private producer. Forty
years later the pendulum had swung to the opposite extreme. The
Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, was asked to report to Congress
whether it would not be "more economical, proper and advisable to
cause all the arms of the United States to be made on contract."

After studying the situation, Davis concluded that the national
armories worked cheaper and established the prices to be paid the
private contractors but that private contractors constantly tried to
improve the models and experimented with new materials and con-
struction. Therefore, he felt it would be as inadvisable to make all
the small arms by contract as it would be unwise to restrict their
manufacture to national armories.

xviii The Rise of

a National Arms System

A:

GOOD Musket is a complicated engine and diffi-
cult to make difficult of execution because the
conformation of most of its parts corresponds with no regular geo-
metric figure. Being familiarized to the musket from our earliest
childhood, we are not aware of its complexity, tho' each musket, with
Bayonet, consists of fifty distinct parts."

THE WHITNEY MUSKET MADE ON
THE CHARLEVILLE MODEL

These words, sonorous, suggestive,^stand at the beginning of Whit-
ney's request for the second contract for the government. They
stand apart from the context in which they were placed, claiming
attention; they stand outside the orderly line of facts marshaled for
the Secretary of War; they belong to Whitney's own particular
concentrated stream of thought They are weighted with the long
brooding he had given to the shape and function and construction
and mass production of a musket. They defined a need. They formu-
lated, in positive terms, Whitney's way of saying that the lathe

The Rise of a National Arms System 67

designed for turning an involved outer profile or for boring a true
inner surface could not cope with the irregular shapes demanded
in the making of a musket. They referred to the major problem that
had eluded solution: devising a tool to machine those .parts which
did not conform to a "geometric figure." By 1812 he had advanced
far enough to phrase the requirements of a machine tool soon to be
worked out and perfected the milling machine.

Whitney bitterly resented Irvine's machinations because they
robbed him of the time and freedom to think about this problem.
Writing to Stebbiris of those harassed years in which "a poor, pitti-
ful, villianous piece of a thing, in the place of a public officer, set out
systematically to break me up in the Manufacture of Arms," Whitney
complained that he "prevented me from executing several projects
which I had in view. ... I have been so fortunate as to, defeat his
purpose. To accomplish this, however, has occupied a- large portion
of my time for mostly. two years & I regret that it should, have been
in his power to have cut so large a portion out qf the little patch
which constitutes the period of human existence."

The full measure of Irvine's defeat was not merely that Whitney
could complete his contract, but that under the reorganized War
Department for the first time he enjoyed fruitful cooperation with
men concerned with the same problems. In this new atmosphere of
shared endeavor, Whitney, deserves high recognition because he
made his milling machine quickly and freely available to the
national armories.

The cooperation started as soon as he had freed himself from
Irvine's jurisdiction, in June, 1815, and received permission to work
under the Ordnance Department. Wadsworth conferred with *Mr.
Prescott and Lt Colonel Lee, the late and present superintendent at
Springfield, with Mr. Stubbleffeld, the superintendent at Harpers
Ferry, and with Mr. Whitney . . . [to] establish a pattern of a
musket in our several armories, public and private [the want of
which] has long been perceived. ... No deviation from these pat-
terns to be tolerated after the work now in hand shall have been
finished."

Whitney knew all these men. Wadsworth was an old acquaintance,
a classmate and friend of Miller s from Yale; he had .served in the

$68 The World of Eli Whitney

army at the time of the crisis with France, and resigned, when the
country was "in prospect of peace"; for a few years he found it more
remunerative and adventuresome to engage in Astor's northern fur
trade, going back into the army when war was declared against
Great Britain. Stubblefield had taken the post at Harpers Ferry that
Dearborn had offered Whitney and, since their first meeting, at the
Secretary of War's suggestion, their relations had been cordial and
helpful. Roswell Lee, named Superintendent at Springfield (June 2,
1815), was a very capable, conscientious mechanic whom Whitney
had employed, after Miller s death, to keep gins sold to important
clients in operation. On Whitney's recommendation Wadsworth had
taken him into the Ordnance Department his long and distin-
guished tenure as head of the Springfield Armory .was proof of his
abilities.* x

The letters that passed continually among them official letters,
mostly, to be found in the records of the Ordnance Department or
the Springfield Armory are compounded of business, shop talk,
office rumors, and personal matters, Werp there signs that the Con-
necticut iron ores were becoming exhausted, they acted together
to investigate the Pennsylvania market. Did Lee hear^that the govern-
ment might recompense Simeon North for his improvement in pistols,
he urged Whitney to apply for the same premium: "While I en-
deavor to be faithful to my trust, I feel disposed to aid in rewarding
the realy meritorious.'' Lee and Whitney worked together in pur-
chasing anything from wooden stocks to imported steel, in setting
prices for contract work, and in lending each other the services of 'a
skilled trip-hammer operator or bayonet maker for a few weeks or
months.

Together they held a tight control over the labor market. "In a late
struggle for the superintendence between the workmen and myself,
I have discharged the following men," Lee wrote to Whitney, listing
the malefactors; he also notified him when the wages at the Armory

* Running a national armory was an important administrative task for those
days. More than 250 men were employed, and Wadsworth wrote to the Secretary
of War that "to provide stock, tools and materials for keeping them employed;
to preserve order, subordination and regularity of exertion ... to retain every
branch of the business in a relative state of progression with the rest, is a task
very few men can be found equal to/*

The Rise of a National Arms System %69

were to be cut. Or Whitney might ask Lee to hire some workers for
him: "Smart men who will mind their own business. As for the cabol-
lintf, grumbling, trouble-making fellows I do not want them having
enough such already." OIL Whitney, with considerable approval, re-
ported to Lee: "Several .of our workmen were taken rather suddenly
with the HarpersJFerry fever and started this day week for that
place. They have now returned home. I believe perfectly^ cured with-
out the aid of medicine."

Concerted action among these jmen was not liinited to setting
the prices for raw materials, labor,^and subcontractors. They were
forever discussing technical details, and in this Whitney was their
mentor. "If any alteration should be made in the Pattern Lock,"
Wadsworth wrote to Whitney after each part of the lock had been
discussed and experimented with, "we ought jto introduce the im-
proved Bridle you invented some time ago, together with a Seer
like Mr. Baker's and a better Seer Spring. I want you to undertake
the construction of a Lock combining such properties, and as an
inducement I presume it will be in my .power to obtain for you some-
thing in the way of a Compensation for this, as well as the other
Trouble you have had in this matter." Lee adopted the method
Whitney had worked out to increase the efficiency of the trip ham-
mer in welding barrels. "Tfee trip hammers operate extremely well,
the barrels now cost 30 cents lss. The hammers can give 400 blows
a minute."

A few years later Whitrjey offered Lee a machine for, turning
musket barrels, "If yours . . . should not answer the purpose I have
one which I invented more than ten years ago which I am confident
will answer well." And then, reacting to the injury he had suffered
long before, when his cotton-gin was pirated and he was impov-
erished, he added: "I would 'put it into operation if I could see any
prospect of a fair remuneration for the invention & expence & risque
of the Experiment But the probability is that some person would
contract to make the barrels & not only take advantage of my inven-
tion but intice away the workmen whom I had instructed in the use
of the Machine before I could be half compensated for the expence
of making it."

Exactly when Whitney made his milling machine cannot be deter-

$70 The World of Eli Whitney

mined. There was so much visiting between the men, so many con-
ferences, so much demonstrating of new tools and methods, that
the written records are, at best, useful for -their implications and'sug-
gestions. From the beginning Whitney had" used "filing jigs" and
"filing fixtures" work-holding, to^l-guiding devices that imparted
a uniform degree of accuracy to successive pieces of work. Whitney's
skill in toolmaldng was embodied in his jigs and fixtures; through
them his skill was transferred to each piece of work thus machined.
They were the basis of his system of interchangeable manufacture.
But more and more this controlled hand method became the bottle-
neck in producing individual parts fully one-third of the operations
were of this nature. It was to solve this urgent problem that Whitney
developed the plain milling machine. At first glance it seems to have
derived from milling cutters used about 1780 by the great French
mechanic Jacques de Vaucanson. But the early French milling ma-
chines could not have had a strong influence on future designs, for
they were "rotary files/* not true "tooth-type" cutters.

By 1818 Whitney had thought out and made his milling machine.
His first specific reference to it came only in 1823, when, forwarding
to Calhoun, Secretary of War "an improved Model of a Guard for
the Musket," he referred to milling. "Both ends of the Bow of this
Guard can be forged in a pair of matched Dies, each having a simi-
lar, circular, concave impression. Dies of this description are more
easily made & more induring than any other they leave the fire in
a firm, solid state & the work more free from scales & without any
fire. Both ends of the Bow can then be finished by Milling or Turn-
ing, with more expedition & accuracy than those of the other form
can be filed." By that time milling operations were already common
at the Springfield Armory. A detailed cost analysis sent by Lee to
Bomford shows milling was routine both in shaping the muzzle and
milling and slitting the many screws which held the fifty parts solidly
together.

Whitney could look back, as he was finishing his second contract,
to the time when he had begun the "invention of new & complicated
machinery" and his system had been regarded "as altogether Utopian."
Writing in 1821, when already few were left who remembered the
hesitating first steps of an infant industry, he recalled that he had
started his manufactory at almost the same time as the national

The Rise of a National Arms System

armories. "Mr Nicholson an experienced Gun Smith who had resided
for some years in Philadelphia,- was sent to the Armoury at Spring-
field to instruct them how to proceed in the execution of the work,
& Mr Hoskins, an Englishman who had been thoroughly used to the
manufacture of Arms in his native country was sent to erect & super-
intend the Establishment at Harper's Ferry. So strong are the prej-
udices of Education^ & force of habit that although several of the
Machines & many of the improved modest of working, invented by
your Memorialist hact from, time to time been introduced into the
public Armories, it was not untill he had demonstrated the superior-
ity of his System by a successful and uninterrupted experiment of
ten years continuance, that it was adopted into the Public Armories.
Since that period the quality . . . has been greatly improved with-
out increasing the expence."

Twenty-five years! Whitney could remind the government officials
that the road so many now u^ed had been a path, but before there
had been a path he had gone ahead to mark out a trail.

And Whitney could also look forward. In 1821, he went to Harpers
Ferry, having been told of the "New System being adapted there." He
would have been pleased to see how his principle was being devel-
oped and interested in the direction his work was taking; but "the
Clerk who has been appointed to keep accounts relative to all the
multifarious details arising out of the proposed new system, was then
very sick."

The new system referred to was the work of John H. Hall, who
in 1811 had been granted a patent for the first breech-loading fire-
arm. In 1819 the government had given him a contract to manu-
facture his rifle so that its parts would be thoroughly interchangeable.
All the equipment at Harpers Ferry was at his disposal, and he had
only to concern himself with designing machinery to achieve the
highest possible precision. In every way Hall profited by Whitney's
work. The principle of interchangeability had been firmly estab-
lished. Whitney had had to devise, by an elaborate system of guides,
patterns, templates, gauges and jigs, ways whereby unskilled labor
could reproduce faithfully and in large numbers a musket designed
to be made by skilled craftsmen. In addition to a contract which
bound him to a set time and a fixed price, Whitney was further
hampered by having to conform strictly to a model not of his own

272 The World of Eli Whitney

making. Hall built his own model designed for precise-machine
production and was weighed down neither by time nor price.

Many years later Eli Whitney Blake felt called upon to correct
a false impression, which Hall himself had knowingly or inad-
vertently promoted, that lack of skill had prevented earlier mechan-
ics from achieving the degree of interchangeability embodied in
his rifles. "It is not a deficiency of skill, but the peculiar construction
of the Musket, which has prevented the accomplishment of this
object/' Blake asserted. "Mr. Hall is himself the inventor of the
Rifle which he manufactures, & the Government has with great
propriety allowed him to form, fashion, model, & construct it in every
respect according to his own good taste, judgement & discretion. He
. . . has modeled & fashioned it with express reference to making
it susceptible of being manufactured with such degree of uniformity
& precision that the parts may interchange; nor has he been limited
, . . but from time to time as difficulties have occurred which he
could not surmount by improvements in his machinery, he has obvi-
ated them by a change in the model of his Rifle." Not so the mus-
ket makers. "A model, got up by others without any reference to this
object [interchangeability] has been placed in their hands to be
copied. In the form & construction of the musket they have been
permitted to exercise no discretion or judgement whatever, but on
the contrary are forbidden to deviate from the model in any re-
spect. . . . Certainly there are mechanicians among them who, with
liberty to construct their own models & with the use of the Public
purse, will do all for the musket that Mr. Hall has done for his rifle,
in the way of making the Limbs to interchange, taking as the basis
of their operations the system established by Eli Whitney & borrow-
ing none of those peculiarities which may have been engrafted onto
that system by the truly original & inventive genius of Mr. Hall." *

On August i, 1822, Whitney reached an agreement with "Lt. Col.

* Henry M. Leland, the man who applied precision concepts and techniques
to the automobile industry, had worked at the Springfield Armory during the
Civil War and later at the Colt Arms the two shops where the Whitney influ-
ence was greatest. It was the precision-machine work in those armories that gave
him his basic orientation and experience. In 1906 he took three Cadillacs to
London and, repeating Whitney's great demonstration with muskets, disas-
sembled the cars, scrambled their parts, and then reconstructed three new auto-
mobiles. Here was proof that "a producer of the automobile had mastered the
principle of 'interchangeability of parts/" Ford became Leland's "most dis-
tinguished disciple."

The Rise of a National Arms System $73

George Bomford acting with the consent and under the direction
of the Hon. J. C. Calhoun," to extend the fifteen thousand muskets
manufactured under the terms of the second contract the last of
which he had only delivered to the government by another three
thousand: "For Two thousand of the said Three thousand Muskets
the said Whitney shall be entitled to receive Thirteen Dollars
each. . . . And that for the remaining One Thousand Muskets, he
shall be entitled to receive only Twelve Dollars each. . . . Whitney
shall deliver the said Three Thousand Muskets within Eighteen
months from the date hereof."

Two weeks later, August i$th ? Whitney signed his third contract
for 15,000 muskets *with the War Department. It differed from the
preceding ones. Starting in January, 1824, it called for an annual
delivery of three thousand muskets during the next five f years. The
model, over whose design the Ordnance Department and the heads
of the public and private armories had fussed and consulted, the
blessed offspring of many minds, became the standard musket for
the Army. The price schedule was quite new. Whitney was to be
paid at the rate of $12 per musket; but "it is provided that when the
actual cost of manufacturing Muskets at theTpublic armories shall be
satisfactorily ascertained, that then the, said Whitney shall be en-
titled to receive . . . the same sum to which the actual average
Cost of manufacturing a Musket in the two Armories of the U States
shall amount in lieu of the Twelve Dollars aforesaid, said Average
cost to be ascertained within one year from the date thereof. It
being fully understood . . . that the interest in the Entire Capital
employed at the Armories, insurance -against all risks, with the addi-
tion of such further percentage for wear and decay, as shall be
sufficient to preserve the said Capital unimpaired, shall be charged
as making a part of the Cost of Manufacturing arms at the United
States Armories."

The contract vindicated Whitney's argument at several critical
points. Bomford and Calhoun had accepted Whitney's method for
determining actual costs; they also accepted as governmental policy
"to renew contracts where ^former contracts have been satisfactorily
filled, provided terms were as low as any other bids."

Stating Whitney's oft-repeated arguments in his own words, Bom-
ford gave as the reason for this procedure that "without such induce-

The World of Eli Whitney

ments, contracts upon reasonable terms could not have been ob-
tained; because the U States was the only customer the contractors
could have. . . . In 1798, when the first attempt was made [tcTestab-
lish the manufacture of small arms] there were but few persons in
the country acquainted with the business; and but one of these
(Eli Whitney of Connecticut) who embarked in it succeede,d; all
the rest were either ruined by the attempt or found the busiifess so
unprofitable and hazardous as to induce them to relinquish/it. In
1808, after the passage of the law making a permanent appropriation,
a renewed attempt was made, and many of the contractors who were
then engaged in the business have also failed. The steady support
and patronage given by the Government since that time to the eon-
tractors whose skill, perseverence and capital saved them from early
failure has resulted in the firm establishment of several manufactories
of arms, and preserved to the country establishments of great impor-
tance to its security and defence."

The Ordnance Department had not only designed a new musket,
it also made inspection and proof uniform. The Regulations for the
Inspection of Small Arms, issued in 1823 the first official change^
in twenty-five years described each step in detail and established
the standards inspectors were "strictly enjoined to conform to/* De-
signed to achieve precision and uniformity, the tolerance permitted
them was, by modern standards, but little advanced from the "thick-
ness of an old shilling" that Wilkinson had obtained fifty years before
when making Watt's cylinder. The Regulations instructed the inspec-
tor to "stretch a line through the barrel, and apply it to at least four
sides of the bore, to ascertain if the interior is straight." Limit plug
gages verified the caliber of the bore: "The small plug should pass
freely through the barrel, and the large plug should not enter its whole
length. If the barrel will not receive the small plug, or^if it will admit
the large plug, the barrel will be rejected." Porpt by point, the barrels
and locks, the stocks, the* mounting, the ramrods and bayonets were
carefully examined and subjected wherever possible to a s^et of gages.

By the third contract Whitney undertook to make muskets that
would pass such rigid inspection and proof; his profit was to be had
by operating more efficiently than the national armories. To this hew
problem he was committed.

XIX Catherine and Henrietta

Catherine Miller had written, "My heart
was never formed to hear of the sudden death
of any person of my acquaintance." At the very time Whitney was
most harassed by Irvine, his brother wrote to him that "our friend
Mrs. Miller died on the 2nd [of September 1814] with a fever after
an illness of Six days." That, Josiah wrote, was all that he had heard.

When is death not sudden? Twp years before, KollopljThad pleaded
with Wliitney to abide by his oft-repeated promise to visit Georgia;
he had warned him not to postpone too long. Whitney had under-
stood the full meaning of Kollock's admonition how does one tell
such things to the heart?

Two years; an opportunity forever gone: this was a large part of
the price Wliitney had paid to defeat Irvine. "It seems to be in-
variably decreed that -disappointment shall be my perpetual lot,**
Whitney had written Catherine just the February before she died.
'1 calculated to have set my affairs in order, provided for those who
depend on me for bread and before this time have paid my expences
to Georgia. But . . . my whole property and business, in which I
have made large^ expenditures, has been thrown into a state of cpm-
plete confusion and uncertainty by an upstart , coxcomb of a public
officer, who has no moral sense and not above half common sense.
With a large stock on hand, no funds on hand, and a, hundred per-
sons dependent on me I can assure you these are very serious em-
barrassments. As soon as these can bejshakeii off to allow me a
respite to come to Georgia, and jeturn you may expect to see me
there if I do not. stay more than one week/* And now he reread her
answer to him the last but one of her letters in w^iich she lamented

75

276 The World of Eli Whitney

Whitney's "disappointments of every kind but more particularly the
Old one of Seven Years standing." Seven years since he had seen her
seven years!

During the first of those years, she had been impatient: "I pray
you to say in your next when I may expect you. . . . My patience
is ou t_ You will say that I have no right to be vexed with you but
I say I have and I will be vexed with you and so good night I can-
not help adding God bless you notwithstanding." Afterwards she
chided him, and gently upbraided him: "I write this letter merely
to complain to you, and of You In the first place I complain of the
breach of Promis contained in your last letter saying 'that you would
write to me often Especially if you were sick/ Now shall I go far-,
ther and make my Own angry comments? or what I believe will be
a better course to leave the matter to your Own Conscience which
I hope will give you some smart twinges and Make you remember
how disappointed I am every Friday which brings not with jit some
account of you."

Scattered throughout her letters, her anger against him lies in am-
bush, concealed and ready to wound. She never called him heartless
or suggested that he had become forgetful or mercenary; she merely
repeated an adjective that had been used by his brother Josiah, or
her daughter Louisa, o^ their mutual friend Goodrich in order
to be able to tell him how she had silenced the voice that dared make
such an accusation within her hearing. The little scenes, as she
reported them to her dearest friend ? Mr. Whitney, always con-
cluded with her loving defense of him, her constancy in believing his
promises, her unwavering faith in his friendship for her.

Catherine Miller was a gi^at lady in a day when ladies expressed
themselves within the formulae of their class. It is told how Aaron
Burr called on her when he traveled southward after his fatal duel.
("The feelings of the whole community are agonized beyond de-
scription. . . . Our friend fell by the first fire," Wolcott had written
of Hamilton's death. ) And since she and Burr were among the few
who had stayed through the winter at Valley Forge, she offered
him the hospitality of her house; but, to rebuke him for having killed
her friend Alexander Hamilton, she herself left. Not^even her sure
style, her aura of qhann could blind Kollock's medical eye to the

Catherine and Henrietta

fact that suddenly she had grown old old and tired and negligent.
That was why he had warned Whitney (as 1812 began) that
Catherine was "enfeebled & is descending into the vale of years."
Twice widowed, she spent her last, years among the multifarious
complications willed her by the two active men who had died still
young and in the midst of activities. There was the estate of General
Greene and there was Miller's estate; there was the Yazoo purchase,
the ginning business with Whitney, the several side ventures en-
gaged in with Josiah Whitney. These had all to be settled and ap-
portioned among the Greene children, now grown up and, save for
Louisa, the youngest, now married.

More and more the unhappy, unloving hand of Louisa can be
felt, manipulating her mother's decisions, embittering Catherine
first against one child, then another. Catherine had been brought to
disapprove of her daughter Cornelia's marriage to Edward Little-
field; there is a glimpse of Catherine how dreadfully changed!
arranging to have her ^son-in-law, who had decided to leave Dunge-
ness for distant Tennessee, "arrested and detained in Savannah with
his wife, children, Negroes, Waggons etc etc for a number of days,
... to give Bonds fo be answerable for his Proportion of any De-
mands that might hereafter come against the Estate of Genl. Greene/'
Josiah, who heard of the incident from Georgia friends, added the
local reaction " all of which was thought to be an Ill-natured act
on the part of Mrs. Miller " and commented that "Mrs. Miller's
friends in Rhode Island generally ar^ of the opinion that she has
been Hard and unkind to all her children except the youngest."

Finally Louisa tried to step between her mother and Whitney.
She transposed the tone of anger she had heard her mother use and
keyed it to her own pitch. But where Catherine's displeasure had
been a surface vexation, an arch pique employed to whet her friend's
affection, a sentiment intensified to bridge the intervening miles,
Louisa's discontent became an ugly weapon. To Whitney it was in-
distinguishable from Irvine's animosity. It did not woo him, rather
it brought to the fore the bitterness he felt toward those who would
attack him. "I confess I felt wounded by the threat contained in the
letter of my worthy friend Louisa," (Whitney wrote directly to Cath-
erine, disregarding the daughter who must have suggested that "the

78 The World of Eli Whitney

only method of settling the affairs of M & W is by a suit at Law.")
"I propose to set out for Georgia. To be arrested on my arrival there
and held to bail & be subjected to the fatigues vexations & torments
of travelling five or six thousand miles to attend a Georgia Court, is
a situation of all others I should wish to avoid."

Catherine, unaware how she had been betrayed by her daughter's
attitude, was aghast. She cried out: "The idea you suggest of going
to Prison gives a shock to my heart, . . . good god what has this
world come to? I who have always loved you and still love you . . .
is it Me that is to put you in Prison. ... No dear Whitney Your
own Mother would not shield you from every Evil with more tender-
ness or More anxious solicitude than your sincere friend Cath
Miller." But Whitney never did get to Georgia; for even as Louisa
was trying to uproot the delicious friendship for Catherine that had
flowered in his heart for twenty years, he was forced by Irvine's
strategy to stay on in New Haven.

The pathetic crisis Louisa had concocted was dispelled by Cath-
erine's words. Closer than ever before she hugged his friendship
and her disappointment to her heart. Her last letter to Whitney,
written two months before she died, showed that the bond between
them had never been broken and that to the very end her warm
charm stayed with her. "You will see by this that My salvation as to
this world rests intirely upon the success of the Yazoo that Yazoo
which for so many years has been tl^e torment of My life. . . . We
have a party of Eighteen to eat Turtle with us tomorrow I wish you
were the nineteenth our first begins to flow in upon us. ... I long
for you and a few other friends to partake with us Our Crops look
well. ... I am sincerely your friend C Miller."

And now she was gone she who from the time he had left college
had commanded and dominated his affections. All that was left him
was her letters. Who had ever reached out tojiim in worHs as Cath-
erine had? "As we have not heard from you this week, I begin
to fear your poor head does want the lap of friendship to rest upon
if not the lap of Venus I wish to god my dear friend you were mar-
ried. ... I am prepared to love any woman who would make you
happy.

Catherine and Henrietta 879

". . . . I am provoked for letting you take off My picture and have
a good mind to come by way of N Haven to get it from you.

". . . . Never Never shall I Cease Considering you My Son
and never never Cease lamenting that you were not born so.

". . . . I wish also to whisper other secrets in your Ear which
I certainly should do if you were seting by me for it is true what
Louisa says that I would tell you Every thought of my soul I also
wish to consult you about finishing my house. ... I comfort myself
sometimes in looking at your picture and mentally conversing with
it and sometimes in the Lover stile give it a kiss.

". . . . You see how little I can do without you and I can see
how much I could do if I had your advice and assistance for a
month. . . . Save my life in saving your own for I find I can not
comfortably be in this world if you are not #f it.

". . , . Your picture ornaments my toilet table It is eyery day
looked at and some limes kissed that is txTsay when you are sick," 1

Catherine's letters to Whitney still pulse with her emotion; it can
be felt under her conglomerate, instant outpourings. Her impulse
gives life to the details of friendship, business, family, trips, affec-
tion, personalities, marriages, lawsuits, conviviality, crop estimates,
advice for his health, the weather, births details rush out indis-
criminately. Her moods provided color and variety; she was gay,
imperious, loving, hurt, provoked, forgiving, delighted, solicitous.
Written long, long ago by a woman in her mid-fifties, they are
alive atid carry the sound/bf her voiced How potent they must have
been when they were still warm from her hand! If time has not af-
fected their power, distance could hardly have touched them, and
Whitney, reading them, was held fry the heart that penned them.

Had Whitney, in his grief for Catherine, forgotten that he had
other friends? In May of 1815, Stebbins wrote him; the brevity of
his note, its direct demands make it clear that he had heard of Mrs.
Miller's death and was worried by Whitney's silence. This sheet is
only to salute you as one of the few friends, faithful, worthy, and
beloved whom this $ dreary .world has^ given me and whom I shall
nevgr recollect without gratitude that I have known them. Take up

%80 The World of Eli Whitney

your pen and tell me whether any thing good or bad has fallen your
lot, beyond the ordinary course of things."

Whitney had badly needed just such a summons from Stebbins,
It gave "a sort of fillup to my resolution & I now sit down, on Sunday
afternoon, after church, the weather being very pleasant, to comply
with your request & gratify my own wishes." He then summarized
the Irvine fight that had engrossed him for more than two years. He
did not mention Catherine or Louisa or his thwarted efforts to go
South, but he implied much when he mentioned that his health
"had been bad for the winter past I was confined to my room for
more than six weeks/*

Was it health or mourning that kept Whitney shut in his -room,
alone?

Illnesses the causes, the cures provide one of the sharpest lines
dividing Whitney's time and the present. Sometimes, from descrip-
tions, it is possible to suggest a modern medical diagnosis, so that
one can safely assume that General Greene died of a heart attack,
or that Paine, when he disgusted Whitney by his convulsive efforts
to drink wine, suffered from Parkinson's disease. But what was 4 the
"Hypo" which afflicted Whitney in his youth "and to which his sister
so casually referred? Yellow fever, dysentery, influenza, and many
other names were properly given to epidemics that recurrently held
a town or a whole region in sickness and death. But with what was
Whitney afflicted when he wrote to Stebbins, half truthfully, half
Jestingly, in the fall of that year, that he was "still affected tho' not
so much distressed as I have been witfi the same epedemic Disorder
which has now become almost universal in this part of the country.
It is a singular circumstance that I find my stomach every morning
filled with Salt Water. Yet I always sleep at least twenty feet above
the highest Tides I can, moreover, assure you upon my honor that
I have neither swallowed any part of Tom Jefferson s Salt Mountain
nor committed adultery with Lotts Wife. Now if you can explain this
phenomenon I shall pronounce you a great Philosopher/'

The recital of aches and pains has a certain morbid charm; it also
presents such intimate scenes as to erase the long, intervening dec-
ades. A little mealtime drama becomes vivid when Catherine re-
counts how "My ever dear Mr. Miller when I first knew him was

Catherine and Henrietta $81

dreadfully afflicted with an assid stomach. ... I prevailed upon him
to live cheafly upon beef and no vegetables, his bread was Crakers
by these attentions to his diet he recovered sound health and good
spirits." Similarly, no adjective Whitney could use presented as
lonely a picture as his account of his self-administered doctoring.

"I speak from experience," he wrote to Stebbins, who complained
of a troublesome knee, "having been myself several years exercised
with a bad feversore where the bone was seriously affected. Many
are the hours which I have spent in rubbing my leg with my hands
& numerous are the instances in which I have relieved myself from
a pain which was so severe as to prevent me from sleeping. Move
your hands with a moderate velocity & a moderate degree of pres-
sure. . . . Continue it for half an hour & repeat it several times in
each 24 hours. This will press forward & force the animal fluids thro'
the vessels in which they ought to circulate. If at the same time you
bathe your knee jn some kind of ardent spirit, it will not be amiss.
. . . Something to lubricate & in some cases something to relax (per-
haps Opadilack) Opadilack, I take it, consists of Soap Camphor
& a little laudanum.* Wash your limb for % of an hour with strong
Soap Suds . . . the alkali of the soap will aid the water to dissolve
the matter of perspiration which may have become indurated and
sealed up the pores of the skin. Animal healtL& life cannot long con-
tinue if the pores x>f the skin are obstructed sick pigs are plunged
in soap suds &^crubbed & almost always cured. I think in most cases
of sick children this simple remedy would be equally efficacious. 3 *

But Whitney did not, in his letters to Stebbins, linger long on ill-
ness. Like the rest of New Haven, he was, that summer of 1815,
actively engaged in building. "In addition to my ordinary business
of manufacturing Arms, I shall be occupied this summer in erecting
some additional buildings near my manufactory."

He made detailed inquiries of Stebbins about lumber the quality
and price, quantities^and freight costs from Wiscasset to New Haven.
"I suspect that the principal part of the Lumber which we get at
N Haven comes ^from that part of Maine," Whitney wrote, and de-
scribed the quantities that had been used. "About two years ago N

* The first pharmacopoeia, written by Doctors John C. Warren and James
Jackson for the Massachusetts Medical Society, was published in 1808.

The World of Eli Whitney

Haven folks were seized with a violent f erver for pulling down their
Meeting Houses & Building New Ones. Since which there has been
a very handsome New House erected nearly on the site where the
Old Brick stood. Fair Haven is pulled away & a new one nearly
finished in its place. The New Episcopal Chirch is placed direbtly
south west of the State House & in a line with the other two houses
of Worship; which are Brick. . . . They are all Elegant Buildings
& the three when finished will have cost about one hundred thousand
Dollars. In addition to these a considerable number of new Dwell-
ing Houses & Stores have been put up in the town.

"Give me a particular account of One Judge Stebbins, who I un-
derstand lives in your part of the Country. He has been for a long
time an old friend of mine."

Stebbins's tone, so light and warm, had smoothed the way for
Whitney to renew correspondence with him; his letters, rambled on,
deceptively simple^ a remark or a question inserted so as to give no
offense. It was the blandest kind of talk, spoon-fed to a stricken
heart. Did Whitney confine his remarks to procuring Maine shingles,
Stebbins cautioned turn that "Shingle weavers, their appellation with
us, cheat by habit, and~are cheated in their pay by habit; good pay
would do something towards getting good shingles"; then disarmed
Whitney with his forthright statement, "I would rather correspond
with you on business, than not at all"; and at the end, grodded him,
"When you are quite, at liesure, tell me what you are about; and
what and where you are building and anything else short metre,
or long."

Keeping the same easy, leisurely manner, Stebbins ventured to say
something important hidden jin his banter was concern and advice
for his friend. "When I wrote you . . about lumber and things in
general, I had in my head the notion of your building a mighty coun-
try seat, outhouses & inhou.ses, in the^ple^sant prospect of East-Rock:
and such a notion, including a notion that you had renewed your
gallantry, and some foolish girl was going to take the pig for the sake
of the stye, set me out of all reasonable calculations."

The months passed, the aimless, innocuous exchange continued.
Stebbins confessed "to be very sober and sentimental, I do love such
letters, provided always they are f romjolks that I love." In February,

Catherine and Henrietta $83

1816, Whitney proudly noticed in the "Boston Weekly messenger,
which I received regularly that 'the Honbl. Josiah Stebbins Esq* was
by a very unusual Majority Elected one of the Gov's Council . . .
from which I infer he is now in Boston. ... I presume your knee
is better or you would not have travelled to Boston." Stebbins's reply
inquired about Whitney's method for warming rooms. (Warming
was the best they could have hoped for, and would be several de-
grees under heating.) Whitney had worked out a special kind of
fireplace: "They have a cast-iron hearth or pavement under the fire.
The Jambs should be eitherjjasJLiipn or hewn stone because I know
of nothing else which .will last & appear well. . . . My fireplaces to
which you allude answer well they equal jny expectations I "am
fully satisfied with the principle as I stated to you when here."

And then, casually slipped in among suggested treatments for
aging bones, smoky fireplaces, and passing mention of town doings
and Council duties, Stebbins wrote, on November zgth, i8i6:/l
am glad to learn that your secular business has been compelled to
give way long enough for you to contract matrimony. I hoj>e it may
be a contract worth the making. You know I was ever an oddity, go-
ing by the rules of contraries. Others would say a congratulation con-
jugal would hardly dp to mix with an inquiry about smoke & flues
and chimney backs; But I say, what is so natural to connect as mar-
riage and housekeeping?"

"Married. January 6th [1817], In Bridgepoart, Eli Whitney, Esq.
of Hamden to Miss Henrietta F. .Edwards, daughter of the Hon.
Pierpont K" That is all to be found on Whitney's marriage. Stark,
laconic, impersonal, the newspaper item states the salient facts; but
the host of questions which would be asked by even the most in-
curious, still sound, unanswered. Whitney's, letter to Stebbins an-
nouncing his impending marriage, with whatever details he included
for his friend's eye; the letters^he sent to his sister Elizabeth and his
brother Josiah, telling them of his projected step of these not one
remains among his papers.

Henrietta Edwards was thirty-one when she married Whitney. He
was twenty years her senior, a friend of her father's; he was some-
one she had known since she was a little girl.

284 The World f Eli

Although no evidence exists for assessment, it could be assumed
that Henrietta was on the frightening threshold of becoming a
spinster and seized an opportunity to be mistress of her own home.
Equally well it might be assumed that it was difficult for Pierpont
Edwards's daughter to relinquish the elegant, urbane home of her
father, a center that attracted men of learning, men of power, to
become the wife of a young man, untried and perhaps unfitted for
that brilliant world. Or, if one would view the marriage as the
culmination of a romance, it might be that as a young girl she had
found Whitney endowed with such excellencies that she would have
none other and that she bided her time convinced that a day would
come when he would find her, the daughter of his friend, desirable.
Without facts, any theory is possible, any premise tenable.

Whitney's position is clearer. For twenty years, perhaps, Cath-
erine's image so possessed him that even when he had established
himself financially and could have married, he was unable to give
himself to another woman. Only Catherine's death could end the
spell; once it was broken, the part within him that had resisted Cath-
erine healed and sought the home he craved and which before had
been impossible. Was Henrietta old? She was but half Catherine's age.
Like her, she was by blood and breeding and participation of the
great world in which he now moved. Whitney, at fifty-one, was look-
ing for the mother of the children that had so long been denied him
and in Henrietta he found her.

Pierpont Edwards's friendship had aspects to which Whitney had
to adjust. As the son of the great Jonathan Edwards and the great-
grandson of the mighty Solomon Stoddard, he belonged to the highest
New England aristocracy. In his own person he was intelligent, cul-
tured, and charming; a successful lawyer. His home always de-
scribed as a mansion was a New Haven landmark, and his hos-
pitality was dispensed on a grand scale. The more charitable people
called his conduct erratic a way of saying that in his thoughts, his
actions, his way of life, he followed his own standards and was not
obedient to those prevailing. In that Federalist stronghold he was an
active Jeffersonian; in a land solemnly committed to steady habits
he freely spent the large sums he earned on fine foods and lusty
women. "Respectable" was the only adjective not associated with his

Catherine and Henrietta 285

name; he seems to have tried deliberately to efface all memory of
the austerity and sanctity of the frontier mission in Stockbridge where
his boyhood was spent everything but his father's massive intellec-
tuality and integrity.

Edwards early discerned Whitney's great talents: he was one of
the ten men who signed the bond the government required; and to
his friend James Madison, Secretary of State, he described Whitney
as "a gentleman very highly respected by all who know him and con-
sidered here as a very able Mathematician & the first mechanical
genius in New England." Whitney was grateful for Edwards's sup-
port, honored to be counted among his friends, and delighted by
his brilliance and learning. Under the aristocratic bearing he recog-
nized the stubborn, dedicated fighter who in the end led his party
to victory over the entrenched oligarchy. Yet he could write to Steb-
bins in 1802, when Edwards was a widower, "P. Edwards has broke
up housekeeping, lives at Wallingford with his Doxy." (This must
have been Mary Tucker, whom he subsequently married. )

Henrietta was fourteen at the time of her mother's death (1800),
and she may then have gone to live with her older sister Susan, who
had married Samuel William Johnson and lived in nearby Stratford.
In 1806 her father was appointed Judge of the District Court and
took up residence in Bridgeport. Whether she moved there with him,
or whether she alternated between her sister's home and her father's,
is impossible to know. But it was in Bridgeport that she and Whitney
met again he was accustomed to call on Judge Edwards when in
his vicinity; it must have been there that he asked her to many him
for he passed through Bridgeport on a trip to Philadelphia late in
the autumn of 1816; * and it was from her father's home that they
were married in January, 1817, To Henrietta, his wife, Whitney gave
the same abiding devotion that had characterized his relationships as
son, brother, and friend.

* A letter Whitney wrote on December 25th, 1816, says that he "returned home
. . . from Philadelphia, after an absence of nearly six weeks. I was one of the
persons deputed by the Citizens of N. Haven ... to solicit the location of the
U. States Branch Bank at this place & was in Phila. attending to the business of
that appointment before the Citizens of Hartford began to make any movement."

xx Into New Hands

r

rN May, 1818, Whitney felt he could no longer at-
tend to everything himself. He asked young Eli
Whitney Blake to spend his vacation in New Haven to aid him in
"getting on with my affairs which have been so numerous, embar-
rassing and oppressive that I am almost driven to delirium. I find
that it is absolutely impossible for me to accomplish one half of that
for which there is the most pressing necessity." The affairs which,
curiously enough, suddenly overwhelmed Whitney were not the
patterns for a new, cast-iron pump commissioned by Wolcott, nor
the intricate chemical apparatus required by Professor Silliman, nor
even his own milling machine, which occupied much of his attention;
they were concerned with the long-delayed, final settlement of trie
Miller & Whitney ginning business.

Preparing for the settlement might have induced a reaction^ of
subdued melancholy, reviving memories of a quarter of a century
before, when Whitney and Miller and Catherine Greene had merged
their fortunes and destinies to create Miller & Whitney. Of the three,
Whitney alone was now alive. The firm had ceased functioning
long ago, and Whitney could have been annoyed at being asked to
retrace details intricate and half -forgotten but the sums involved
were significant. Whitney's excited anxiety seems to have been the
measure of how deeply he was disturbed at the prospect of having
Catherine's executor, Russell Goodrich, present in New Haven.

Two months later he again entreated Blake to help him: "I am
exceedingly pressed with other business more than I can do, but
if there is no other way I shall dismiss my workmen & relinquish
all other business until this, with the Estate of Miller is settled. . . .
286

Into New Hands 287

I have for many years been distressed by the situation in which I have
stood relative to the Estate of Miller. A large amount will be claimed
from me, which in equity & good conscience I ought not to pay but
now is the time & the best time to settle this business & I would
rather sacrifice three thousand Dollars than it should remain unset-
tled another year. Mr. G. . . . will be very impatient & is in many
respects a difficult man to do business with; but on the whole it is
vastly better for me to close it with him, than with any other person
connected with Miller's Estate." *

The final settlement of December 5, 1818, is a coda it intro-
duces, surprisingly, the "principal points about which we disagree";
it offers the last statement made by the participants in the complex
affairs of the firm.

For five days the referees Simeon Baldwin for Whitney, Nathan-
iel Rossiter for, Goodrich heard the arguments, examined the "ac-
counts & books and the several claims of each partner" before they
resolved the disagreements. Whitney, they found, was entitled "to
his expences & compensation for five journeys at the rate of two
thousand Dollars each & for one by water & for a shorter time, one
thousand, making the whole eleven thousand Dollars." That Whit-
ney should have put in such a claim reveals that the fatigue of
those dreary annual trips had never been forgotten. Long before,
he had written Stebbins: "The fates have decreed that I shall be
perpetually on the wing. Wild Goose like I spend my summers in
the North & at the approach of winter shape my course for the
regions of the South. But I am an unfortunate goose. Instead of
sublimely touring thro' the aerial regions with a select corps of
faithful companions, I must slowly wade thro' the mud & dirt, a soli-
tary traveller."

Whitney's second major claim was not unexpected. Miller's Yazoo
gamble had always aroused mixed reactions in Whitney; at the be-
ginning he had questioned the cost to them in cash and credit and
good will, later he had assessed the amount lost by having the
animosity of the Georgia planters transferred to their enterprise, and
most recently he was aware that whereas Miller & Whitney had been
penalized, Miller's estate had profited hugely when, in 1814, Con-

* See Appendix C and Appendix D.

%$$ The World of Eli Whitney

gress appropriated $8,000,000 to compensate the Yazoo speculators,
who, at most had laid out but $500,000. These reasons influenced the
referees to award him damages to "the sum of Fifteen Thousand Dol-
lars." This amount and $11,054, the sum given to each of the partners,
can be considered the profit Whitney received from Miller & Whit-
ney.

The few figures mentioned in the final settlement indicate that
the moneys taken in by the firm added up to about $90,000, while its
total costs for manufacturing the machines, installing and maintain-
ing the ginneries, legal fees, and traveling expenses, came close to
$47,000, On the face of it, this would seem not an insignificant re-
turn. There is no indication of how much Miller (and the Greene
estate) actually had invested at any one time; but an estimate can
be had from Millers statement, made in 1799, when ginning had
come to a complete standstill, that *in making, perfecting and bring-
ing into use this valuable invention, we have expended more than
$20,000 not more than one half of which have our profits * yet re-
turned to us." It seems fair to assume that at that point the invest-
ment lay somewhere between $10,000 and $12,000; at that time it
could be written off as a dead loss and Miller & Whitney dismissed
as a spectacular failure.

This situation continued with no relief it might even have grown
worse as the firm required further expenditures for legal services
until Whitney closed the South CaroMna sale at the beginning of
1805. From then on, Miller & Whitney's finances swung to the other
extreme $14,060.85% in royalties from North Carolina, an unspeci-
fied amount from Tennessee, and damages from Georgia were wel-
come additions to the ledger sheets. The change was sudden; more
than three-quarters of the total income came in the final two years,
and transformed a twelve-year history of struggle and loss into an
eventual profit

It was this timetable of loss and profit that made Whitney seek to
have his patent rights extended, as it was for this same reason that

* The profits might though it does not seem likely refer to the only figures
relating to income other than that derived from the^arrangements made with
North and South Carolina: $4,322 collected by Goodrich at an unknown time
from unknown sources, $1,100 for gins sold to a Mr. Hardin, and $4,175.65
taken in by Miller at the Mulberry Grove ginnery.

Into New Hands $89

the southern congressmen thwarted his petitions. Whitney knew
that had the Circuit Court sustained him in the beginning or, at
the end, had Congress renewed his patent, his returns on his inven-
tion would have been greatly increased. This was the yardstick
by which he measured the failure of Miller & Whitney.

When the settlement was finished and Miller & Whitney had be-
come just a name, Goodrich and Whitney, their differences adjudi-
cated, were aware that "these things and these times have passed by;
and other folks and other times, have succeeded."

Miller & Whitney, the small, adventuresome firm that had pio-
neered modern business, was soon forgotten. Forgotten too was the
small independent farmer who had seized on the gin. Both had been
succeeded by something of different magnitude and composition:
a society that rested on cotton cultivation and because of this de-
pendence developed its own economy, its special political and social
structures, its particular mores and ethics and myths; a society where
wealth and power came from a single-minded devotion to the grow-
ing and ginning of the green-seed short-staple cotton; a society con-
vinced that the plantation system and slavery were imperative.

Because of the critical part Whitney inadvertently played in
slavery's consolidation and expansion, his omitting any reference to
it is striking. During his early years such silence is understandable,
for until he went to the South he had had little or no contact with it.
It must seem that he deliberately did not choose to consider it in
terms o good and evil. It was the same kind of reasoned inaction,
of refusing to take sides that had characterized his avoidance of
political partisanship. Business has always been concerned with
the rituals of ethics, the scrupulous observing of contractual obliga-
tions, not with its dogmas, man's relation to man.

How ironic that Stiles, who abominated slavery and labored to
end it; who in Newport, where slaves were a valuable commodity,
had helped found the American Colonization Society; and later in
New Haven had continued his agitation that Stiles should be the
one to send Whitney South! In June of 1792 Stiles recorded his joy
at the news that "Mr. Wilberforce advocated a Bill in Parliament
for total abolition of slavery amended to gradual Abolition passed
150 Majority. Wonderful,** By contrast the situation in America was

290 The World of Eli Whitney

not bright: "Lately an insurrection of 6 or 700 Negroes in Virginia
East Shore. Where will this end?" That same year, in September,
Stiles urged Whitney to accept the teaching position in South Caro-
lina; it was he who introduced Whitney, the ablest engineer of his
day, to Mrs, Nathanael Greene, at whose plantation he invented the
cotton gin which fastened slavery on the nation.

Blake, who had come on a temporary basis to help his uncle pre-
pare for the Miller & Whitney settlement, stayed on, taking over
much tedious detail, assuming greater and greater responsibility in
the manufactory, as Whitney increasingly suffered from illness.

"My health has been very poor for two months past," he had writ-
ten Josiah in November, 1820. "In addition to my other infirmities
I have for the last five weeks been struggling with an unusually
severe attack of influenza. For a week past I have been almost wholly
confined to my house. ... It is almost nine weeks now since my
manufactory has been wholly stopped during which time I have
been anxiously engaged in rebuilding the Dam. This has been an
arduous task, especially considering my bad state of health and
it will be now, I expect, ten Days before the works will be in opera-
tion. ... I wish you not to fail to send me a Barrel of good cran-
berries"

It was at this time that Whitney endorsed Ithiel Towne's lattice-
truss wooden bridge, a structure that was to become a commonplace
feature of the New England scene. The first one built (1823) was
covered, and its one-hundred foot span crossed Mill River at Whit-
ney's manufactory. Whitney recommended it because "its simplicity,
lightness, strength, cheapness & durability are, in my opinion, such
as to render it highly worthy of attention."

In January of 1821 he announced to his brother the glad tidings
that "We had a Son born on the 24th Nov. [Eli Whitney, Jr.] He has
never had a sick hour Thrives very well &, of course, is a very prom-
ising boy. . . . My family & our friend here are all in good health
my own health not so good as it was some weeks ago." *

* This is the only birth date of any of Whitney's four children that can be
stated with certainty. Frederick C. Pierce, in The Descendants of John Whitney,
does give Nov. 13, 1817, as the date of the first daughter, Frances Edwards, but
omits any date for the second daughter, Elizabeth Fay (named for Whitney's

Into New Hands

Early that June Whitney heard that his good friend Wadsworth
had resigned as head of the Ordnance Department and that Colonel
George Bomford had been named to succeed him. This change did
not mean a renewal of the struggle for power, but was made neces-
sary by the fact that his friend had been forced, by illness, to quit.
Whitney went to Washington, partly on business to meet with
Bomford and John C. Calhoun, the Secretary of War and partly to
satisfy himself that Wadsworth was not suffering from inattention
and neglect. Whitney knew what it meant to be without family or
proper home; he brought his dying friend back to New Haven and
located him in very comfortable lodgings at the house of Elisha
Lewis, where he will probably remain till his fate is decided. I am
not without hope that he may recover, but I think the chance is
much against him/ 7 Summer passed and autumn came in violently
the great September gale blew down hundreds of chimneys as
though they had been cornstalks and the Indian summer days that
followed golden but short and sad witnessed the swift ebbing of
Wadsworth's strength. Though Whitney himself was ill enough so
that he could "attend to business but very little," he visited him daily
and was with Wadsworth when he died. "He retained his senses &
the recognition of his Friends until a few hours before his exit." Whit-
ney was gratified that "the funeral which took place yesterday, was
very respectably attended."

"As to myself," Whitney wrote Stebbins as 1822 was starting, "my
health is but indifferent much as it has been for two or three years
past. I live in the town of N Haven and continue to carry on my
Manufactory as heretofore. I contrive many new mechanical proj-
ects & execute but few of them much fewer than I should if my
health was good. My family are, & have uniformly been blessed with
good health I have four children the third is a son, the other three
are Daughters they are all now in perfect health. I live in a small
hired house, where it would give me large pleasure to see you.**

mother), Whitney, in a letter dated April 8, 1819, mentions "the situation of my
family" as an excuse for his not having answered earlier; it would seem safe to
assume that she was bom in March, 1819. For the third daughter, Susan Edwards
(named for her mother's older sister), Pierce gives January, 1821 obviously an
error. She was probably born in December, 1821; she died when she was only
twenty-one months old.

The World of Eli Whitney

His words have the quiet contentment of a traveler who has re-
turned to familiar scenes of which he dreamed when far from home
in strange, distant lands. In the invention of the cotton gin, in the
countless devices he had created to carry out his system of mass
production, he has satisfied the demands of his society and his own
genius; here, in the hired house with Henrietta and his four chil-
dren, he had happily fulfilled the long-postponed needs of spirit and
body. He had established his own family.

1822 had come in with a serene happiness it ended in a pro-
longed, discordant crash of pain. "On the 22nd July I left this Place
[New Haven] for Washington City," Whitney wrote to his brother
at the beginning of September. "I sustained the journey as well
as I expected the first 14 days after I arrived there, my health was
as good as it has been at any time for two years past. I returned to
this place on the 22nd Aug. & suffered much on the journey home
for the last three weeks my health has been very poor I am
however more comfortable than I was a fortnight ago. My success
in the accomplishment of the business which carried me to Wash-
ington was equal to my expectations, which were not great I have
made some engagements relative to the manufacture of muskets
which it will require five or six years to fulfil & tho' the terms are
not such as to afford much profit it is better than to let my works
lie still."

Always Whitney had been a fighter. He had fought to get his
education, he had fought the southern planters for his patent rights,
he had fought to save the manufactory from Irvine; and now, with
the same steadfastness, the same courage, the same optimism, he
fought to live. His five years of happy marriage, his still young chil-
dren, his third contract just entered on made him struggle to sur-
mount pain and replenish his own diminishing strength. Only an old
warrior would have stayed on, fighting his great suffering.

Denison Olmsted, professor of Natural History at Yale, who wrote
a short biography of Whitney in 1832 and called on many friends
to embellish the bare outline of Whitney's achievements, relied
on **a near friend and eye witness" for the sequence of Whitney's last
illness. *In September, 1822, immediately after his return from Wash-

Into New Hands %93

ington, he experienced the first attack of his complaint, which
immediately threatened his life. [Whitney was suffering from an en-
largement of the prostate gland a condition that was then recog-
nized but for which there was no cure.] For three weeks he suf-
fered paroxysms of pain, of from thirty to forty minutes continuance,
severe beyond description. These were repeated six or eight times
in every twenty four hours. For six weeks he was confined to his
room, at the end of which time he was able to walk about the house,
and to enjoy the society of his friends. "

During the following months Whitney alternated between the
dread attacks that held him in a vise of pain and periods of compara-
tive ease when he could enjoy the sweetness of the life around him.
In mid-November he wrote Josiah that "my health has improved
since I wrote you last & I think is improving tho* I am still confined
to my House. . . . Judging by the price which you pay for my wine,
I think you are disposed to have^me live rather extravagantly. . . .
We shall be very glad to see you here whenever you can make it
convenient to come. Your sister Henrietta, has lately taken the strange
freak into her head of offering you to every Old Maid she sees
They all say yes & thank'y too. I have no doubt that they will, every
one of them, be greatly disappointed & that she will get herself
into a sad scrape." It is the postscript that suddenly makes the sick
room, the doomed man, the happy innocence of his children, the
gracious sunlight of that late fall afternoon fuse into an unforgettable
picture: "Fanny and Elizabeth have just returned from school &
Fanny says 'give my Love to Uncle Josiah & tell him he must come
& see me * Elizabeth [in the serious solo of a two-and-a-half -year
old who listens and repeats her older sister's words] 'Give my Love
to uncle Josiah & tell him I want to see him very much/ "

In January, 1823, he had a bad relapse. Eli Blake, who the previous
summer had married, settled in Whitneyville so that he could super-
vise the manufactory for his uncle. For a week it was feared that
Whitney could ^ot survive; but he did. James Carrington, the in-
spector, wrote to Lee at tba Springfield Armory that "his mind seems
much more occupied with x the cares and business of this world
than with any apprehensions respecting the future." A few weeks

Tlfie World of Eli Whitney
later he noted that "Mr. Whitney is supposed to be better and is in
fact more comfortable, but yet suffers much and is very apprehensive
that he has got to suffer more."

And then, as soon as he was granted some relief, his children
were in his room. A friend of Josiah's "called this afternoon about
an hour & an half before sunset & brought the little Books which
you are so good as to send. They were all greatly delighted & have
been wholly occupied with them till they went to bed. Eli could
not consent to go to bed without taking his into bed with him
Fanny & Elizabeth have directed me to give "their love to Uncle
Josiah & tell him they thank him very much for the beautiful Picture
Books which he has been so kind as to send & that they will try to
keep them nice & clean till he comes to N Haven again.' "

Back and forth, back and forth the indicator swung erratically
between the extreme of pain and the quiet pleasures of children and
family. If, as he once said, it was like suffering "the rack of the
Inquisition/' he examined his particular rack as earlier he had studied
the intricacy of the musket. In this he was helped by his doctor,
Nathan Smith, one of the great men of his profession. The fifth
graduate of the Harvard Medical School, he had subsequently
studied at Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London; he started the Dart-
mouth Medical School, later established a medical department at
Bowdoin, and came to Yale in 1821 to organize the medical school
there. Of him Oliver Wendell Holmes said that he did not occupy
"a chair, but a whole settee of professorships" teaching anatomy,
surgery, chemistry, and clinical medicine. Dr. Smith told Whitney
exactly what his condition was, and Professor Silliman, who was a fre-
quent visitor, remembered that Whitney "examined with great care
and coolness the best medical writers on his disease; he inspected
their plates, ... he critically recorded such facts in his case as
interested him the most and . . . acted rather as if he himself had
been the physician than the patient. During this period, embracing
at intervals several years, he devised and caused to be constructed
various instruments for his own personal use."

Silliman was awed by a mind strong and heroic enough to mobilize
its creative gifts to solve a desperate problem. "Nothing that he ever
invented, not even the cotton gin ? discovered a more perfect com-

Into New Hands 295

prehension of the difficulties to be surmounted, or evinced more
efficient ingenuity. . . . From his sick bed he wrote both to London
and Paris for materials important to his plans, and he lived ... to
apply them in the way that he had intended. He was perfectly suc-
cessful, so far as any mechanical means could afford relief. ... I
urged Mr Whitney, and the late Dr. Smith [he died in 1829], his at-
tending physician, to make sure of these inventions * while it was
possible, but I believe no record was ever made of them, and it is
but too probable that the instruments were lost."

The years of his last illness saw no decline in his extraordinary
mental powers. It might have been then, when he was confined so
closely to his room, and noticed how his children naturally wanted
to explore where they were not supposeH {^^^
reaus which removed temptation from the very young: the drawers
were opened or locked by a single key in the top drawer. The mech-
anism is the same as that found in every modern business desk where
one drawer locks and opens all the others.

In the summer of 1824, the superintendent of the Springfield Ar-
mory asked his advice on a series of problems, and Whitney, who
had "for two or three days been more comfortable," apologized that
he could only "make some desultory remarks." He noted that "it is
five or six years since I originated the plan of driving a trip hammer
by a Belt or Strap. [Lee had suggested refinements in the 'space
between the Cogs or Cams/]. ... It is found in practice to answer
remarkably well & I have no doubt that it is a very great improve-
ment. I believe that a hammer of 500 to. 1000 wt. may in most situa-
tions be driven by albeit with great advantage upon the Principle
a number of Tiammers, say 8 or 10, may be operated by one wheel
with great convenience. . . . This principle opens a great field for
improvement in the hammer itself & renders every moving power
applicable to driving hammers with great advantage & convenience.

"I have a further invention for drawing, forging & fashioning
Metals which is ba$ed on a principle entirely new & from which I
have great expectations. If my life should be spared ... I shall test
the principle by actual experiment in the course of this present year.

* It is most probable that Whitney designed a flexible catheter for his use.
Benjamin Franklin, about 1784, is said to have made the first one.

$96 The World of Eli Whitney

If it answers my expectations it will form a new era in the business
of forging Iron & Steel. . . . When will you be here? I wish to con-
verse with you on several different subjects. My health is very infirm
otherwise I would come to Springfield."

His life was not spared him. In November, young Letitia Morse
wrote to her gifted husband Samuel, to whom Whitney and his wife
had sat for their portraits, that Mr. Whitney's "disorder has taken
a different turn and is attended with considerable fever. Dr. Smith
who seldom speaks discouragingly, told Mr. Silliman last week that
if Mr. W wished to make any arrangement as to his worldly affairs,
now was the time, for he was past medical aid. Mrs. Whitney's chil-
dren have been threatened with the croup, they are getting better
but the alarmmg illness of Mr. W weighs heavily upon her spirit.
Father and Mother called there this afternoon but saw none of the
family." On that same afternoon Whitney's will, which Simeon Bald-
win had drawn up after several discussions, was signed in the pres-
ence of witnesses.

Terrible days and nights dragged out into weeks. Susan Johnson,
who came to be with her younger sister, wrote to her husband of such
a day and night. "Mr. Whitney continue4 quite comfortable until
four in the morning, when he had a slight chill which was followed
by a pain in his head, but that mitigated and there was a prospect of
a quiet day, but soon after noon he grew rapidly worse, and the
evening passed in a very distressing manner. Between 9 and 10 there
was every appearance that a dissolution was at hand, his distress was
very great, and he did not know his wife. This w^s agonizing to her,
and she was obliged to leave tie room;^ he continued in this state till
% past 11 when his fever mittigated and his mind was clear and
calm but very feeble. he was however so comfortable, that Henri-
etta persuaded me to go to bed, and I lay down with my clothes on
about 12. I was not called up Dr. Smith sat up untill one, and
Henrietta and Mr. Sabin by turns the rest of the night and he was
tolerably quiet About 8 this morning he had another severe ague,
which the Doctor found he could not support, but it had gone off and
the fever is now increasing and we know not what the next hour
may bring. The Dr. says he may live thru the day and probably will

Into New Hands

but thinks he will not continue thru the night. There now seems
no interval of ease to him."

Still he was not ready to die. Pain, fever, delirium were pushed
aside for moments of clarity and concentrated thought; he had
made his will, but its terms did not satisfy him. It almost seems as
though for six weeks he held off death so that he might make his
final wishes equitable and just. The long codicil that he signed on
Friday, January 7, 1825, expressed these final wishes; it also in-
sured the continuity of his manufactory, [See Appendix E.]

He died the next day. "To the last," Silliman wrote, 'lie maintained
the observance of order and proper attention to his person/'

Whitney's death only marked the end of the first phase of the busi-
ness he had established. Its continuance was assured by the energy
and competence of his two nephews, Philos and Eli Blake, to whom,
during their childhood and youth, he had been a father. In the mass
production of muskets, they made the critical transition from those
manufactured under Whitney himself to those manufactured by
the Whitney method. Under their guidance the momentum generated
by the man who had founded the system never slackened; the manu-
factory remained productive until its direction could be assumed
by the gifted, the able, and equally ambitious Eli Whitney, Jr.

'This sketch was made by Mr. Whitney but a few days
before his death, & is believed to be the last sketch ever
made by kirn. " (Eli Whitney Blake)

The American Scene
after Eli Whitney

Whitney's life and work. His talent for
\J( originality, his ambitions, and his solid, mer-
ited success are easily encompassed; equally understandable are
the directions and limitations imposed by the needs of his society
and the tools which previous artisans had put into his hands con-
sider all this, and add the colors proper to his personal pilgrimage,
and still his life and work appear remote. They seem to have been
finished long ago; they are even pervaded by the condescending
quality of quaintness. These are tricks wrought by time and modern
complexities.

His career had been short only thirty years of intensive effort
but it was to have a long sequel.

Whitney began his work in a nation newly formed, a nation whose
founders (save only for the West-Indian-born Hamilton) sought to
perpetuate an independent yeoman agriculture and an energetic
commercial trade economies in which vthey had been reared and
in which they had prospered. Just twenty years after the Constitu-
tion had been adopted, Whitney completed his first musket contract,
and the two streams of force flowing from his work were ready to
help reshape American society two streams destined to come into
partial conflict. Eli Whitney of the cotton gin, which gave to the
southern plantation, system' and chattel slavery dominion over
hundreds of thousands of square miles, was also Eli Whitney of
the standardization of machined p^rts, which gave to the North,
and eventually the whole nation, a dynamic industrialism a quan-
tity production of inexpensive goods that lifted the standard of well-
being, and a uniformity of consumption that went far to knit the
population into a homogeneous whole. From the one stream of force

The American Scene after Eli Whitney

came national disunity; from the other came progressive integration.

Implicit in many of his letters is his awareness of the sharp dif-
ference between Georgia and Connecticut, between white cotton
fields and whirring shops, between the agrarian ideas of Governor
James Jackson and the Hamiltonian aims of Secretary Oliver Wol-
cott. When his final illness gave him time for contemplation, did he
wonder about the future of these diverse segments of America?
Whitney had -not intended to affect the ultimate destiny of the South
but he haoU he had not intended to remake the national economy
and outlook but to that, too, he had contributed significantly.

There* was drama at Mulberry Grove when Whitney (the Yankee
schoolmaster, as he must have been called by the planters who
visited there) put a few bolls of upland cotton into his crude, make-
shift model, turned the crank, and demonstrated to Miller and the
assembled Greene family how the fiber could be torn from its green
seeds. That moment proclaimed the future cotton belt, three hundred
miles wide and reaching fifteen hundred miles deep to the gjth
meridian; sun and rain and heat in proper proportions for cotton's
growth set it apart and made it a region distinct, a region which
within half a century would arrogate to itself the privileges (it even
claimed the divine right) of king of the world's commerce. The gin
turned cotton cultivation into a Golconda; in time the crop required
more than 25,000 gins".

But in 1793 the cotton belt was still primitive wilderness. The
Indians, respectful of the land, had hardly touched the broad bands
of towering, tasseled canebrakes that marked the rivers or the unend-
ing forests of its upland. Magically, the gin slashed down the cane-
brakes" and leveled the trees; cotton fields were planted and har-
vested; and then, as the soil's wealth was soon spent, the fields were
abandoned and left to clothe, .themselves poorly in foxtail and broom
sedge. For planners bought land as they might a hoe or gin cheaply,
and with the expectation of wearing it out. Here and there a voice
protested the wave of migration that from Virginia to Texas passed
over the country like a devastating scourge. At once man formed a
new adjustment to the land, and the white race made a new adjust-
ment to the black race.

The cotton gin, finding the plantation in decline, revitalized it, and

The World of Eli Whitney

the plantation system carried slavery across vast areas; slavery spread
from the Ashley-Cooper to the Trinity River. The cotton plantation
gave the Negro a new value; slavery, which had been dying out, was
resuscitated; suddenly it possessed a vigorous and aggressive life.
By 1830 cotton had overspread the Georgia-Carolina uplands and
pushed deep into neighboring states. When Whitney first traveled
across South Carolina, the upland counties were but 5 per cent
Negro; when he died the slave population approached 50 per cent.
By 1850 King Cotton ruled Alabama and Mississippi, and plantations
filled the Delta country of Louisiana and Arkansas? by 1860 the
plantation lorded it over eastern Texas. The plantation system domi-
nated the economy though nine-tenths of the southern cultivators
were small proprietors as the planter regime spoke out for the
Lower South though not one-third of the southern whites had an
economic stake in the system,

The planter regime was more than a way of making money: it was
a way of life; it organized society around the "peculiar institution"
and created a well defined cultural outlook. Its prevailing aristocratic
tone could be partly traced back to feudal Europe, and its romanti-
cism was imported, novel by novel, from Sir Water Scott. It stridently
reiterated the doctrine of the "inherent inferiority'* of large human
groups a justification which Whitney's New England found ab-
horrent; its assurance expressed itself in maintaining high prices
paid for slaves, prices that forced Virginia to become, as Jefferson's
grandson bitterly declared, rt a negro raising state for other states; she
produces enough for her own supply and six thousand for sale"; it
was hostile to industry and trade, and openly contemptuous of the
greasy mechanic and the counter-jumper; its intellectual apolpgist,
Fitzhugh, seriously proposed that workers in English and New Eng-
land cotton mills "should be made slaves of the owners who must
give them support and kindly treatment/*

No regime was ever more static. Jt resisted political change, theo-
logical change, economic change, social change. Criticism made it
touchy, and it loftily demanded to be left unmolested; it was limited,
self-satisfied, caught by the image of its own picturesqueness, re-
jecting the untidy, confusing rush of the Northern and Western
World.

The American Scene after Eli Whitney 301

As with his invention of the cotton gin, so also his contract for
muskets with standardized, interchangeable parts ushered in events
remarkable and far-reaching. In Whitney's work, manufacturing gins
had been the antecedent necessary to project quickly and surely the
possibilities of mass-producing muskets. Had he not lost in the fac-
tory fire "several machines that were used for different purposes";
simple machines, no doubt, yet specialized and designed for a uni-
form output? The machines which he mentioned in his arresting pro-
posal to Wolcott, three years later, were even then, in an inner
vision, already made. The delay which beset him in fitting up his
manufactory with machines was the same' kind of perplexing and
irritating delay met with in "tooling-up" American munitions plants
in 1941-1943. Once the machines were installed, once the tooling-up
was completed, the problem was solved; production came with a
rush.

The concept of standardizing parts so that they would be inter-
changeable did not originate with Whitney alone. Yet, independently,
he conceived the idea, as did

Here the question of priority is misleading independent invention
by three widely separated men is not unique. What can be asserted
is that in America Whitney was tbeJLrst to make jjthe jroncept Jnto
an industrial system.

He laid a primitive but broad foundation: on it, part by part, was
built the industrial edifice which has made the United States. After
Whitney comes a procession of men who developed his initial mas-
terly achievement Samuel Colt's first sizable order for r revolvers was
produced ir^ tiieJWTutne^ Shops (the management having been but
recently assumed by Whitney's son), where special machinery was
devised to make the intricate parts of the six-shooter. Isaac M. Singer's
mass-produced sewing marines were young industrial America's
first calling cards left in homes throughout the world; their accuracy
of performance, delicacy of finish, and numerous parts set a level
of achievement never before attained. Cyrus w J^cfinnpfofr ar *^
his rivalgjnass-produceKi^agricuItural implements that revolutionized
northern!^

f acturedfootgear in quantity and in time to equip the armies of Grant
and Sherman. Each utilized the skills of his predecessors, each added

30% The World of Eli Whitney

important new ideas. The procession is long, varied, impressive; it
leads directly to Henry Ford, modern precision methods, and effi-
ciency engineering^ of which Whitney could not even have dreamed.
An uninterrupted, mighty sequel to Whitney's short career! His
genius, his skill, his persistence became the puissant forces by which,
in the developing Republic, unity defeated disunity, uniformity re-
placed diversity, technical expertness supplanted a haphazard rule
of thumb, and Plenty was empowered to conquer Want.

Appendix A Whitney *s Short Description
of the Gin

The principal parts of this machine are i. The Frame. 2. the Cylinder.
3. the Breastwork. 4. the Clearer and 5. the Hopper.

I. The frame, by which the whole work is supported and kept together,
is of a square or parallelogramic form, and proportioned to the other
parts as may be most convenient.

II. The Cylinder is of wood: Its form is perfectly described by its name,
and its dimention may be from six to nine inches in Diameter and from
two to five feet in length. This Cylinder is placed horizontally across the
frame, leaving room for the clearer on one side and the hopper on the
other. In the Cylinder is fixed an iron axis which may pass quite thro*,
or consist only of gudgeons driven into each end. There are shoulders on
this axis to prevent any horizontal variation and it extends so far without
the form as to admit a winch at one end, by which it is put in motion and
so far at the other end as to receive the whirl by which the clearer is
turned. The surface of the Cylinder is filled with teeth set in annular rows
which are at such a distance from each other as to admit a cotton seed to
play freely in the space between them. The space between each tooth in
the same row is so small as not to admit a seed nor half a seed to enter
it. These teeth are made of stiff Iron wire, driven into the wood of the
Cylinder. ["Steel wire would perhaps be best if it were not too expensive,"
say the specifications in the Long Description]. The teeth are all inclined
the same way and in such a manner that the angle included between the
tooth and a tangent drawn from the point into which the tooth is driven,
will be about 55 or 60 Degrees. The gudgeons of the Cylinder run in
brass boxes which are in two parts one of which is fixed in the wood of
the frame and the other is confined down upon the axis with screws.

III. The Breastwork is fixed above the cylinder parallel and contiguant
to the same. It has transverse grooves or openings thro* which the rows
of teeth pass as the cylinder revolves, and its use is to obstruct the seeds
while the Cotton is carried forward thro* the grooves by the teeth. The
thickness of the breastwork is two and half or three inches and the
under side of it is made of iron or brass.

SOS

304 The World of Eli Whitney

IV. The Clearer is placed horizontal with and parallel to the Cylinder.
Its length is the same as that of the Cylinder, and its diameter is pro-
portioned by convenience. There are two four or more Brushes or rows of
Bristles fixed in the surface of the clearer in such a manner that the ends
of the bristles will sweep the surface of the Cylinder. Its axis and boxes
are similar to those of the Cylinder. It is turned by means of a band and
whirls; moves in a contrary direction from the Cylinder by which it is
put in motion and so far outruns it as to sweep the cotton from the teeth
as fast as it is carried thro' the Breastwork. The periphery of the whirls
is spiral and the band a broad strap of Leather.

V. One side of the Hopper is formed by the Breastwork, the two ends
by the frame and the other side is movable from and towards the Breast-
work so as to make the hopper more or less capacious.

The cotton is put into the Hopper, carried thro' the Breastwork by the
teeth, brushed off from the teeth by the Clearer and flies off from the
Clearer with the assistance of the air, by its own centrifugal force. The
machine is turned by water, horses, or in any other way as is most con-
venient*

There are several modes of making the various parts of this machine,
which together with their particular shape and formation, are pointed
out and explained in a description with Drawings.

B Letters from Robert Fulton
and Oliver Evans Relating
to Patent Laws

Whitney was not alone in feeling that the existing Patent Law
offered inventors neither protection nor incentive. Among his papers
he kept letters from Robert Fulton and Oliver Evans, two outstand-
ing inventors of the day; their words made him feel that they shared
his anger and dissatisfaction.

Fulton wrote to Whitney on April 4, 1811:

You justly remark that in proportion to an Invention being beneficial
to the public, unprincipaled individuals feel interested in depriving the
Inventor of his mental property, of this, you, Sir Richard Arkwright and
Watt have had more experience than any other men, and you have done
more for mankind; Our courts, are beginning to see the importance of
holding out encouragement to men of inventive powers by guarding their
rights, but to this end Inventors and patentees must combine to defend
themselves against the many.

After taking up and laboring through the difficulties of the steamboats,
a subject which was universally ridiculed as impracticable, After proving
their practicability & utility to the world and accomodating the public
with a conveyance from New York to Albany which for elegance con-
veniance and Rapidity is superior to any conveyance on this globe, And
which should be considered an ornament to the arts in our country. A
Company of speculators at Albany without the least mechanical knowl-
edge without the least pretention to Invention, have Built two boats in
which they have copied me exact, with a hope that the imperfection of
the law will permit them to run and earn money to contend with us in
law until the suit be decided. To prevent which I am about to apply for
an Injunction and sought your case as one in point. As my suit will be a
conspicuous object and one of magnitude all artists and inventors are

BOB

306 The World of Eli Whitney

highly interested in the decision. I shall perhaps be under the necessity
of soliciting your kindness to attend as evidence o the boats being copies
from me.

The inventors did combine, as Fulton suggested. The next October,
Whitney heard from Oliver Evans:

Having heard that Doctr. Mitchell has expressed his doubts of the
patent bill ever being passed by Congress unless some active man in be-
half of the Patentees attend the Congress to urge it

Some of us Patentees have undertaken to make up a purse to employ
Counsel to attend as our Agent for the purpose and Mr James Ray Coun-
selor at law . . . who appears to have made the patent law his particu-
lar study we think proper to engage him

Mr Robert Fulton will give Certain $200 and in case of success to
obtain a law for 21 years 150$ more and for a law for 28 years 150$ more
making 500$

Thus Robert Fulton certain $200 for 21 yrs 150 for 28 yrs 150 500

O Evans do - 200 do - 150 do - 150 500

George Clymer do - 50 do - 50 do - 50 150

Evans [Oliver's son] do - 33-% do - 33-% do - 33-H' 1 - 00

483-%

We wish to make up 6 or 700$ Certain about 1200 for success to ob-
tain a Law for 21 years and 2,000$ for [letter torn] patentees 28 years

We will thank you to throw in your mite. It must be done by a few
that have began to receive something for their inventions the others can
pay nothing and we must rely on them to refund us a part if they please
if not we must bear it ourselves but try what you can get

I am strongly inclined to beleive the Bill will never be passed without
such exertions altho I beleive that no law was ever passed that will prove
so beneficial.

Whitney left no record indicating whether he subscribed to the
inventor's lobby fund for which Evans was soliciting, nor does it
appear that anyone joined him when he appeared before Congress
in July, 1812, to argue for a revision of the law,

Appendix c Statement of the Referees:

Miller & Whitney Final Settlement

We the subscribers referees mutually chosen & appointed by Eli Whit-
ney of New Haven on the one part, & Russel Goodrich as Executor of the
last will & testament of Phineas Miller late of Georgia deceased of the
other part, to hear and award on certain controversies subsisting between
them relative to the settlement of the concern of the late copartnership
between the said Eli Whitney & the said Phineas Miller under the firm of
Miller & Whitney as by the annexed submission Dated Dec. m 5, 1818
appears, having accepted the appointment & taken on ourselves the
burthen of an Award; met & heard the parries with their exhibits on the
said first day of s. d Dec. 1 " & from day to day until this fifth day of the same
month, & having carefully examined the articles of copartnership between
the said Miller & Whitney & their accounts & Books & the several claims
of each partner on the firm, so far as they had become the subject of dis-
pute or controversy between the parties to said submission and taking
as the basis of our proceedings the adjustment and statement amicably
made between the said Eli Whitney & the said Russel Goodrich & which
they agreed to before us, we find thereby, that the said Phineas Miller
had received of the company property & ought to be debitted therefor

the sum of DoL 22632,65

& that he has assumed & paid of the

company debts to the amount of .... 2584.76

leaving a balance of company funds of 20047.89 in the hands of

said Miller. And the said Russel Goodrich claimed a further allowance
in favour of said Miller of DoL 3859.81 cts. being the amount

of sundry balances, transferred from the cash account of Miller & Whitney
to the private Book of said Miller, against the s* Miller & Whitney and
we are of opinion & do award that the same be allowed as a credit to
the said Miller for so much advanced by him in cash for the use of Miller
& Whitney and upon the further claim of the said Russel Goodrich that
an allowance to the said Miller be made of the balance of sundry ac-
counts transfered directly from the journal of Miller & Whitney to the

$07

308 The World of Eli Whitney

private books of said Miller & there setled which balance amounts to
Dol. 1196.28 cents we are of opinion & do award that the same be al-
lowed as a further credit to the s d Miller as so much paid by him on ac-
count of Miller & Whitney which two sums thus allowed amount to
Dol 5056.09 & being deducted from the amount of company funds in his
hands as stated above leaves the balance in his hands fourteen thousand

nine hundred & ninety one Dollars.

J 100

It also appears by said statement & is agreed by & between the parties
that the said Eli Whitney had received of the company property & ought
to be debited therefor, Dol 63,984.81 Cts. of which he paid over to the
said Phmeas Miller Dol 10,000 which makes part of the sum in his
hands, and that said Whitney had assumed & paid of the company debts
etc to the amount Dol 23986. and the said Whitney claimed an allow-
ance for his expenses & compensation for six journeys to the Southern
States on the business of the company stated at Dol 15000 & the 3 d Good-
rich insisted that he was entitled to his expenses & nothing more & the
said Whitney also claimed such Damages as the referees should award
against said Miller for a breach of the articles of copartnership by entering
into extensive land speculation, which he contended deprived the com-
pany of his, said Millers, services & funds, subjected it to expensive agen-
cies, & injured its concerns more than the value of s d Millers interest
therein; which claims the said Goodrich also resisted & we the said referees,
having fully heard the parties on said claims, do find that the said Whit-
ney is entitled to his expenses & compensation for five Journeys at the
rate of two thousand Dollars each & for one by water & for a shorter time
one thousand, making in the whole eleven thousand Dollars & we do award
that said Whitney be allowed that sum therefor and we also find that
said Whitney is entitled to Damages on account of said Millers breach
of the articles of copartnership as aforesaid to the amount of 7500 Dol
from said Millers share in the funds of s d Company: we therefore award
that double that sum viz. the sum of Fifteen thousand Dollars be charged
to s d Company against their funds in the hands of said Whitney which
being deducted leaves a balance of company funds in his hands of four
thousand Dollars. It also appears to us & on the agreement of the parties
we find that the said Russel Goodrich in his individual capacity & as agent
for s d concern is indebted to the late firm of Miller & Whitney in the sum
of Three thousand one hundred & sixteen Dollars & twenty one cents, for
so much of the funds of the said company now in his hands and that there
are no other Debts either on Book or by Note or otherwise which are of
any value, or can be considered as collectable, & it is further agreed by
the parties that they know of no other funds or property belonging to
said company & that no debts are due from said company. We the said

Appendix C 309

referees therefore find that the funds of said Company consist of the
balances found as aforesaid, viz.

In the hands of said Miller at his decease 14991.80 cts.

In the hands of said Whitney 4000.00

In the hands of s d R. Goodrich & due from him 3116.21

making in the whole 22108.01 cts.

which sum ought to be divided in equal shares yielding to

each copartner 11054. Dollars

and to effect the same, that the said Whitney, in addition to the four thou-
sand Dollars now in his hands, is entitled to collect, receive & retain, the

21

said sum of Three thousand one hundred and sixteen Dollars, due

100

from said Goodrich as agent as aforesaid, & the remaining sum of three

79

thousand nine hundred thirty seven Dol from the estate of said

J 100

Phineas Miller. And we do accordingly award that the said sum of Three
thousand one hundred & sixteen Dollars and twenty one cents when col-
lected from Russel Goodrich be retained by said Eh Whitney, and we do
further award that the said Eli Whitney recover, have & receive from the
estate of the said Phineas Miller the sum of Three thousand nine hun-
dred & thirty seven Dollars & seventy nine cents: And that this award
shall be final & conclusive between the parties, & shall end all controversies
& mutual claims subsisting, or which may arise between them, respecting
said agreement or articles of copartnership, & the construction thereof, &
all accounts subsisting between them relative thereto, and of all claims &
demands which either party has or may have on the other relating to s a
copartnership or any thing respecting the same.

In witness whereof We the said referees

have hereunto subscribed our names in

the City of New Haven this fifth day

of Dec. r A. D. 1818.

SIMEON BALDWIN ^
NATHANIEL ROSSITER / Reerees

Appendix D Remarks Relating to Whitney
and the New Haven Bank

The final settlement of Miller & Whitney contained the findings
of the referees; but the "accounts & books" are missing, and approxi-
mation and inference based on a few scattered notations collected
at that time to substantiate the opposing claims must be offered in
lieu of exact, verifiable figures. It is important to consider the New
Haven Bank, on whose books Whitney is listed among the first stock-
holders as the owner of twenty shares valued at $4,000. The date is
October, 1795.

From Whitney's papers his purchasing with his own funds such
a sizable block of stock at that time is utterly inconceivable. Only
three years before he had been graduated from college, still depend-
ent on his father's generosity; he had borrowed money from New
Haven friends to go South and there had foregone the salary as tutor
offered by Mr. Dupont and stayed on as Catherine Greene's guest
to make a model of the gin. For $1,000 he had sold Miller a half-
interest in a valuable invention in order to finance himself and his
workshop. He had delivered the first gins to Mulberry Grove in May,
1794; the factory was destroyed in March, 1795; and, by the end of
that year, between the illegal gins and the suspicion of the British
spinners, Miller & Whitney was close to bankruptcy. Whitney had
succeeded in borrowing money to rebuild his workshop, but during
the next two years neither he nor Miller could raise the fare to get
him to England. With what, then, could he have purchased the stock?
His ownership cannot indicate Whitney's financial status at that time;
rather, it is most probable, Whitney permitted the use of his name
for the purchase of the stock so that in the face of the limitations set
by the bank's charter a particular group of men could secure control
of the bank.
310

Appendix D 311

On a page in a notebook (undated, and subsequent entries are
without proper sequence) Whitney wrote: "Account of Miller &
Whitney's Debts Assumed by E. Whitney 1798," and under it "Amt
due N. H. Bank $4685"; under this is his notation, "Interest 7 years
& 2 mos. $2913.30." The total is $7,598.30. This entry, with its
legend of Whitney's borrowing from the New Haven Bank, raises
more questions than it answers. When did he get the loan? At what
date did he make the entry? One can only surmise that it was made
in 1818, when, going through his papers with young Blake, he col-
lected all disbursements relating to the ginning venture to document
his claims at the final settlement. Other pages in the notebook contain
the following headings: "Land Concern P[hineas] M[iller] & J. C.
N[ightingale] to Miller & Whitney; Phineas Miller to E. Whitney;
P. Miller to Miller & Whitney; Miller & Whitney in acct with Eli
Whitney Cr [editor]; Estate of Genl. Greene in acct with Miller &
Whitney; Jno. C. Nightingale to Miller & Whitney." As Whitney
wrote Blake, when soliciting his help, "These concerns are intricate,
numerous & difficult."

What significant dates span the interest that ran for "7 years & 2
mos?" The time when he received his first advance from the govern-
ment on his musket contract (August, 1798) to the time when he
was notified that South Carolina had paid the whole purchase price
(October, 1805) covers a period of seven years and two months.

It seems reasonable to suppose that getting the advance from the
government gave Whitney assurance that he would be able to dis-
charge his personal obligation; the contract, by its terms, would be
completed within two years and Whitney hoped to make a sub-
stantial profit. But actually it was the then unforeseen sale to South
Carolina that provided him with the required cash. Of the $22,418
Adam Gilchrist advised him the State had paid, Whitney instructed
Wolcott to transfer $15,000 to his account; the remainder, unac-
counted for in any record, would cover the bank loan and interest
charges.

How Whitney, without any personal assets in 1798, could have
obtained such a large loan might be explained by his receiving per-
mission to pledge the stock bought in his name as collateral on the
loan. The New Haven merchants judged him a good risk.

Appendix E Estate, Will, and Codicil
of Eli Whitney

Not Whitney's estate, which was impressive, nor the will by which
he extended his protecting care to his widow and three children dis-
tinguishes Whitney from other rich, responsible men of his period.
The codicil, framed with his last living strength, provided his manu-
factory with trained and devoted supervision; it became the instru-
ment by which the system he had pioneered remained intact and
functioning without interruption.

Whitney left considerable wealth. The inventory of his estate
made a year after his death, was appraised by Baldwin, his lawyer,
Elisha Munson, an astute New Haven merchant, and James Carring-
ton, the government inspector who later became Whitney's fore-
man; the total for the items listed was $63,085.37. (They had written
off the $18,200 Whitney had paid for 174 shares of Eagle Bank stock
as a loss. Nine months after his death the bank failed.) Not included
in the inventory were other items of value: his personal property, his
"Plate and all household articles & implements; my Horse, Chaise &
Sleigh, with the articles belonging to the same; . . . also my Watch
& all my wearing apparel; ... my Books, except Rees's Cyclopedia,
the Repertory of Arts and Manufactures and such others as relate to
the Physical sciences which I give to my son Eli & leave in her care
to be delivered to him,** which were given without inventory to his
wife; nor did the inventory include almost $70,000 Whitney held in
personal notes he, who had known the anguished need to borrow,
seemed never to have refused a loan to friend or workman, associate
or relative. Also missing was an appraisal of a most valuable but
intangible part of the estate the gun manufactory's goodwill and
earning capacity. How could they assess its worth? At best the arms

Appendix E

trade was uncertain; Whitney's illness had injured the business; the
executors had been forced to ask the government to postpone the first
delivery under the new contract for two years, from January, 1824,
to January, 1826; and the capacity of his nephews to continue the
work still had to be proved.

The importance of his estate, even with those sizable omissions,
can best be judged by a measuring stick scaled to times when a
skilled New England millwright or carpenter earned $1.25 a day and
the roster of rich New Yorkers included the merchant Archibald
Gracie (worth $45,000) and the iron dealer Peter P. Goelet (worth
$79,000).

Of the appraised amount, the manufacturing plant accounted for
almost one-half the inventory: $20,000 was the valuation placed on
the two hundred acres containing the Mill Rock site, with three old
houses, a new barn, five stone dwellings built for workmen, and worth
$1,250 each, "beautifully constructed, and arranged and a stone store;
while the "water privileges, Dam, Bridge, Manufacturing and other
buildings and appurtenances thereon exclusive of Machinery" added
another $9,500. Real estate and investments houses and lots in New
Haven, "one sixth part of the distillery on Water Street," a small
tract of salt meadow, a piece of woodland, a half -interest in a paper
mill with its acreage, "millseat privileges and appurtenances"
accounted for $22,000. The balance consisted of farm stock, farm
tools and, as the lengthy, detailed inventory shows, materials, tools,
and machines used in manufacturing.

From this precise accounting of the contents of the factory at the
time of his death, a picture of the arms establishment can be pieced
together. It complements Silliman's allusions to a canal Whitney con-
structed "to take the water from the dam to the forging shop," or
the stone work laid in cement composed "of a mixture of iron rust
and siliceous and micaceous sand, derived from the grinding of the
gun-barrels and other pieces of iron/* or the two ^buildings for fuel:
the one for charcoal, and the other for mineral coal. . . . These
store-houses stand by the side of the mountain and at its foot, and
by excavating a road in the bank above, the coal carts are driven up
to the gable end . . . and their loads are discharged into them by
simply tipping up the cart."

The World of Eli Whitney

He must have continued to use one of the three old houses as his
office; there he kept the master jigs and fixtures, patterns and molds
and gages, and supplies of rasps, chisels, augurs, and files of all
lengths and shapes smooth, round, square, bastard, whipsaw. The
machine and filing shop shared a building; the list mentions 'lathe
tools, Milling tools & nitching Machine, Drilling machine: caps &
appurtenances, Large cast iron Shears New, Screw Machine & ap-
paratus, Stamping Machine 7 tools, 2 Polishing Machines, Breeching
vice & tools, Stake & block for Cutting files' most of the costly items.
In another two-story building, the "stocking shop/' were quantities
of wood and metals, stores of old copper and copper tubing, fence
pickets, pine boards and mahogany, English blistered steel, Milan
steel and Russian iron, a huge pile of bullhide leather, a box of
asphalt, glue by the pound, squares of glass for replacement, a
grindstone with frame and crank more than a hundred separate
articles. A forging shop had seven pairs of bellows, anvils for swedg-
ing, "I Set Bayonet forging tools, I Set tools to make tumblers, Head-
ing Stake with five heading tools." A lumber yard stacked with piles
of cedar posts and timber blocks was situated between the coal
houses and the "White Stone Store." This, with two additional ones
the *Barn Store in New Township" and the "Wooster Store in New
Township" held great quantities of cordage, castings, gun stocks,
seasoned boards for musket boxes, supplies of milled screws, a Rum-
ford cooking apparatus, and "33 large 33 less and 33 small boxes sup-
posed to contain 66 cotton-gins" a motley assortment of articles used
or discarded, supplies for a going concern, imperfect parts rejected
and junked.

In his will Whitney discharged certain obligations clearly and
directly. He stipulated that on the house to be built for his widow
the large sum of $6,000 was to be spent. No. 80 Elm Street was to be
a mansion. He and Henrietta had lived in a "hired house" at 275
Orange Street, though for some years he had planned to erect a
suitable home and had bought the lot. He provided a handsome
yearly allowance for his family, designated which business properties
his son was to inherit and what moneys his daughters would receive
on marriage, and arranged an annuity for his sister and cash bequests

Appendix E 315

to her daughters. Other obligations, other properties were not so
easily arranged.

In January, 1823, serious illness showed Whitney that he could no
longer postpone discussing these problems with his lawyer. Minutes
made by Baldwin of their conversation reveal Whitney's concern:

He lamented that so much of [his property] was in real & unproductive
estate. He said he had long intended to make some provision for his
Nephews, particularly Philos & Eli W. Blake but he was desirous rather
of placing them in a situation to earn for themselves, than to give them
much outright & with that in view he had been repairing the works at
his manufactory & intended to complete the repairs & begin work & to add
some new machinery & let them in as partners together with Capt. [Jacob]
Whiting upon the new contract which they soon expected to commence.

Over the next two years, Whitney's plans crystallized; the day be-
fore he died, having resolved the problems, he signed the codicil to
the will.

The codicil was a grand proposal to the nephews to carry on the
business and complete the third contract 15,000 muskets to be
delivered at the rate of 3,000 a year.* Whitney's terms were so
advantageous, and made the nephews party to such benefits, that,
even had they not remained out of loyalty, self-interest would have
dictated their continuing. Eli Blake, who had assisted his uncle
during his last illness, and in the unsettled period after his death
managed the arms factory and met the first delivery date of 500 guns
as stipulated, only confirmed his position when, with Philos, he
entered into an agreement with the executors and trustees. This
agreement, made on September 23, 1828, gave legal form to the
provisions suggested by Whitney. Each nephew was to receive an
annual wage of $400 plus a yearly advance of $500 against profits,
and, on final settlement, two-ninths of the profits made on the con-
tract. They were expected to make all routine repairs. On their part,
the trustees were to furnish an adequate working capital, and pay

* Account books and balance sheets have disappeared. On December 17,
1830, Eli Blake accounted to the trustees for 10,500 muskets: 1,000 delivered in
1827, 3,500 in 1828, 3,000 in 1829, and the final 3,000 in 1830. Since this state-
ment does not include 500 guns delivered on January i, 1826, the 4,000 muskets
remaining on the contract, for which there is no record, might have been de-
livered between that date and August, 1827, the date Blake's statement begins.

316 The World of Eli Whitney

for any extraordinary repairs necessitated by "fire, flood, or any act
of God." The Blakes knew how substantial were the moneys they
might expect; their combined advances of $1,000 a year would be
more than covered by their four-ninths of the profits.

The Blake brothers showed how careful, how thorough had been
their uncle's teaching. Not only did they capably execute the con-
tract, they sought to improve the individual parts as before them
Whitney had constantly done. It was to justify this continuing
Whitney's unceasing efforts to better the workmanship not to boast
of their abilities, that animated their telling a trustee, 'The bolts,
screws, and wipers which have been made at this Establishment
latterly are far superior to those made at any other establishment
either public or private."

Whitney's judgment was vindicated by the success with which
the Blakes, brought up to understand mechanical arts and business
practices, fulfilled the terms of the contract. Their account, sub-
mitted to the trustees, for the period covering August 12, 1827, to
November 23, 1830, states that of the $134,031 paid by the govern-
ment for 10,500 muskets, the costs aggregated $91,200. This schedule
of items it is not bookkeeping in the modern sense of indicating
profit and loss, but rather a record of transactions: purchases, rentals
from mill houses, wage payments, interest rates, farm expenses, mis-
cellaneous expenditures and receipts indicates that the margin of
profit was $42,831. Under the agreement it was divided, giving four-
ninths, or almost $19,000, to the estate, and the same amount to
Philos and Eli Blake. Jacob Whiting received one-ninth* Whitney's
estate profited as handsomely as did his nephews.

A Note on the Bibliography

The core of this study is the collection of Whitney's papers which
Eh' Whitney's great-granddaughters have deposited at the Yale
University Library. Though many original Whitney letters have been
located elsewhere, the bulk of significant and revealing material still
was to be found among the family papers letters, letter books, note-
books, ledger sheets, college papers and diplomas, a miscellany of
scribbled notations, copies of memorials addressed to political lead-
ers, Whitney's comments on newspaper clippings (including a
stack of lottery announcements!), business papers, real-estate trans-
actions, and his own sketches for tools and machines,

Out of this store of riches, Olmsted and Hammond and Blake have
selected letters and used them completely or in part choice titbits
to whet the appetite to present the major outlines of Whitney^s
achievements. Their studies have indicated Whitney's place in the
development of the United States, depriving us of the excitement of
unknown surprises; it has remained our task to try to give the full
texture and minor relevant facets of Whitney's life and work.

Historians can be grateful to Henrietta Whitney, the widow. She
knew her husband's greatness. It was she who asked Stebbins to
return her husband's letters to her for safekeeping; it was she who
prompted Elizabeth Whitney Blake, Simeon Baldwin, Denison Olm-
sted and Benjamin Silliman to record those aspects of Whitney's lif e
which they knew intimately; it was she who requested that his
mechanical drawings and business papers be rescued from the manu-
factory where they lay neglected. But gratitude is edged with sus-
picion. In the forty-five years of her widowhood (she died on April
16, 1870), she alone had access to the material The abundance of
business letters makes one wonder if the paucity of personal letters

$17

318 The World of Eli Whitney

was not contrived. How much did she deem it her right to destroy?
Why, for example, is Whitney's letter to Stebbins announcing his
marriage missing? As she was convinced that her husband's struggles
and triumphs belonged to American history, so she must have felt
justified in withholding certain areas of his life she was quite suc-
cessful in her efforts to see that she remained little more than a
name.

It is pleasant to find among the papers a note written by Eli Whit-
ney Blake, then eighty-seven, to his cousin Eli Whitney, Jr.: "Among
these papers are 18 letters of our grandfather written by him to your
Father at a most interesting period of his life [1791 to 1795]. Your
Father, as you know, was to me all that a father could be; & for this
reason I prize these letters of his very highly; but I think it more
proper that they should be transmitted to posterity in your branch
of the family."

Because this study's principal reliance has been on unpublished
material, reference footnotes would have only clogged the text. It
has been thought best to list page by page the letters quoted under
Sources of Letters Quoted, pages 333-338. For the convenience of the
student, it includes a few significant quotations found in published
material.

The following manuscript collections yielded additions to the
original Whitney material; the books listed were used to give proper
order, meaning, and emphasis to Whitney's background and prob-
lems. One is forced to search far and wide to feel at home in the
comparatively neglected, strange new world of early American
technology. The host of memoirs and histories covering the period
are of little value to Whitney's biographer, for they do not mention
the inventor, though he moved in the circles which they describe.
The writers, agitated by other problems and struggles and achieve-
ments, found nothing to note about a respected man preoccupied
with tools and technology, machines and industrial methods. In fact,
the word "technology" was itself compounded by Jacob Bigelow
about the time of Whitney's death.

Manuscript Collections S19

MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS

Connecticut Historical Society

Wolcott Papers

Jeremiah Wadsworth Papers

Collections. 14 vols. 1860-1912.
Connecticut State Library

Whitney will, codicil, and inventory.

Connecticut Archives. Finance and Currency.

Analysis of the accounts of the United States armoury at Springfield,
Mass., showing cost of manufacturing muskets, with objections by
the legal representatives of Eli Whitney estate on allowances made
by the Springfield armoury under a contract with EH Whitney for
1822. 1828.

Carrington, James. Account of the musket barrels inspected & proved
at the manufactory of Eli Whitney from Aug. 19, 1814, to May 18,
1821.

Agreement or order made by Pierpont Edwards, James Hillhouse,

and Charles Chauncey, who sold to Eli Whitney of New Haven,

Conn., the mill, mill place appurtenances and privileges thereto, in

town of Hamden, Conn., called Todd's mill, granting Eli Whitney the

power and privilege to take possession of the premises and buildings

thereon that have been in possession of William Fowler and others.

Sept. 17, 1798.
Georgia: Minutes of the Circuit Court, Savannah, Georgia. April, 1793-

April, 1798, 1798-1806, 1806-1816. 3 vols.

Record Room, Superior Court, Chatham County.
Georgia Historical Society, Savannah

Georgia newspapers
Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Seven Eli Whitney MS letters, 1803-1824.
Library of Congress. Division of Manuscripts

William Thornton Papers

Samuel F. B. Morse Papers

James Madison Papers

Thomas Jefferson Papers
Massachusetts Historical Society. MS Letters:

Jefferson to Monroe, Nov. 14, 1801.

Eli Whitney to Josiah Whitney, Jan. 23, 1809,

Whitney to Jefferson, Nov. 24, 1793.
New Haven Colony Historical Society

Dana Collection

380 The World of Eli Whitney

Leffingwell Letters, Vol. P

MS letter, Whitney to Itibiel Towne, Dec. 26, 1820.
MS letter, E. W. Blake to James Goodrich, Dec. 12, 1829.
New York Historical Society

Rufus King Papers. Vols. 26, 38, 71.

Oliver Wolcott Account Books. 2 vols. MS, 1808-1815.

General Henry Dearborn. Copies of letters and orders, MS, 1812-

1813. 2 vols.

Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr Duel Correspondence.
New York Public Library. Manuscript Room
Oliver Wolcott Letterbook, 1803-1808.
Miscellaneous

Box: New York State, Gov. Tompkins file.
Box: South Carolina counties, miscellaneous subjects.
MS letter, Tench Coxe to James Monroe, Dec. 2, 1819.
Princeton University Library. Manuscript Room

Letter, Jefferson to Sullivan, Oct. 8, 1809.
United States. National Archives

General Records of the Department of State

Miscellaneous Letters, Jan. to Dec., 1809, Jan. to Dec., 1810.

Record Group No. 59.
Naval Records

General Letterbook No. 4 (Aug. 26, 1800 to Sept. 16, 1801),
No. 5 (Sept 21, 1801 to Aug. 31, 1802), No. 9 (Aug. i,
1807 to May 13, 1809).
War Records Division

Office of the Secretary of War. Letters Received. W-Miscellane-

ous.

Office of the Adjutant General. Post Revolutionary War Collec-
tion, War of 1812 Manuscripts.

Office of Chief of Ordnance. Letters Sent, 12 vols., 1812-1825.
Contract Book I.

Springfield Armory Records. Letters Sent, 5 vols. (1799-
1828), Letters Sent Miscellaneous, 5 vols. (1813-1823),
Letters Received, 5 Boxes.
United States. Records of the Census Bureau. Census of Manufactures,

1820. Whitney's reply to questionnaire.
Yale University Library

Baldwin Collection: Notes on Eli Whitney's Will, Letter to Mrs.

Whitney, 1847
Blake Family Collection

Bushnell Papers: "E. W. Blake and His Contributions to Science," MS
David Daggett Collection

Published Material 381

Eliot Family Collection

Hillhouse Family Collection

Memoirs of the Class of 1792, Yale College by Rev. Timothy Mather

Cooley

Morse Family Collection
Records of the New Haven Collector's Office
New Haven Fire Insurance Company
New Haven Papers

Benjamin Silliman's "Reminiscences" and "The Wild Pigeon" letter
Dr. Nathan Smith Papers and notebook
Ezra Stiles "Literary Diary"
Miscellaneous Whitney items

PUBLISHED MATERIAL

Adams, Henry, History of the United States (1801-1817). 9 vols. New

York, 1921.
American Journal of Science, The, more especially of minerology, geology

and the other branches of natural history; including also agriculture

and the ornamental as well as useful arts. Conducted by Benj. Silli-

man, M.D. 2nd ed., Vol. I. New York, 1819-1846.
Atwater, Edward F,, History of the City of New Haven. New York, 1887.

Bagnall, William R., The Textile Industries of the Untied States. Cam-
bridge, 1893.

Baines, Edward, Jr., History of the Cotton Manufacture in Great Britain,
London, 1835.

Baldwin, Ebenezer, Annals of Yale College. New Haven, 1831.

Baldwin, S., The First Century of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and
Sciences, 1799-1899; A Historical Address. New Haven, 1901.

Barber, John W., Historical Collections of Connecticut, New Haven, 1838.

, History and Antiquities of New Haven. New Haven, 1856.

Bates, Edward C., The Story of the Cotton Gin. Reprinted from the New
England Magazine issue for May, 1890, by the Westborough His-
torical Society, 1899.

Bathe, Greville and Dorothy, Oliver Evans: A Chronicle of Early Amer-
ican Engineering, Philadelphia, 1935.

Beard, Charles A., The Economic Basis of Politics. New York, 1947.

, Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy. New York, 1915.

Benet, Stephen V. (ed.), United States Ordnance Department: A Collec-
tion of Annual Reports and Other Important Papers, Relating to the
Ordnance Department, Taken from the Records of the Office of the
Chief of Ordnance, from Public Documents and from Other Sources.
4 vols. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1878-1890.

382 The World of Eli Whitney

Bigelow, J., Elements of Technology, taken chiefly from a course of lec-
tures delivered at Cambridge, on the application of the sciences to
the useful arts. 2nd ed. Boston, 1831.

Bishop, Abraham, Georgia Speculation Unveiled. Hartford, Conn., 1797.

Bishop, J. Leander, A History of American Manufactures, from 1608 to
1860. 2 vols. Philadelphia, 1861-1864.

Blake, Henry F., Chronicles of New Haven Green from 1638 to 1862. New
Haven Colony Historical Society, New Haven, 1898.

Blake, William P., History of the Town of Hamden, Connecticut. New
Haven, 1888.

, New Haven Colony Historical Society Papers, Vol. V. New

Haven, 1894.

Bolles, Albert S., Industrial History of the United States. Norwich, Conn.,

1879.

Bowers, Claude G., Jefferson in Power. Boston, 1936.

Bramson, Roy T., Highlights in the History of American Mass Production.
Detroit, Mich., 1945.

Brasch, F. E., "The Royal Society of London and Its Influence upon Sci-
entific Thought in the American Colonies/' Scientific Monthly,
XXXIII (1931).

Brown, H. B., Cotton. 2nd ed. New York, 1938.

Burkett, C. W. and Poe, C. H., Cotton. New York, 1906.

Burlingame, Roger, Backgrounds of Power: The Human Story of Mass
Production. New York, 1949.

, Engines of Democracy: Inventions and Society in Mature Amer-
ica, New York, 1940.
-, March of the Iron Men: a Social History of Union Through In-

vention. New York, 1938.
Byrn, E. W., The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century. New
York, 1900.

Caimes, J. E., The Slave-Power. New York, 1862.

Calder, Isabel Macbeath, The New Haven Colony. New Haven, 1934.

Callender, Guy S., Selections from the Economic History of the United

States (1765-1860). Boston, 1909.
Carroll, Charles, Rhode Island: Three Centuries of Democracy. 4 vols.

New York, 1932.
Clark, Victor S., History of Manufactures in the United States. 3 vols.

New York, 1929.

Clarke, Louise B., The Greenes of Rhode Island. New York, 1903.
Cochran, Thomas C., and Miller, William, The Age of Enterprise. New

York, 1942.
Cohen, I. Bernard, Science, Servant of Man. Boston, 1948.

Published Material

, "Science and the Revolution," Technology Review, XLVII (1945),

No. 3.
-, "Science and the Civil War," Ibid., XLVIII (Jan., 1946), No. 3.

Cole, Arthur H., The American Wool Manufacture. 2, vols. Cambridge,
Mass., 1926.

Commons, John R. (ed.), History of Labour in the United States. 4 vols.
New York, 1918-1935.

, A Documentary History of American Industrial Society. 11 vols.

Cleveland, Ohio, 1910-1911.

Condorcet, Marie Jean Antoine, Outlines of an Historical View of the
Progress of the Human Mind. London, 1795.

Connecticut. Report of the Secretary of State Relative to Certain Branches
of Industry. Conn. House of Representatives. Doc. 26, May Session,
1839. Hartford, 1839.

Cooper, Thomas, Some Information Respecting America. 2nd ed. Lon-
don, 1795.

Cotton-Textile Institute, Inc. Cotton from Raw Material to Finished Prod-
uct. 3rd ed. New York, 1944.

Coulter, Ellis Merton, Georgia: a Short History. Chapel Hill, N.C., 1947.

Coxe, Tench. View of the United States of America. Philadelphia, Pa.,

1794-

, Essay on the Manufacturing Interest of the United States. Phila-
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NEWSPAPERS

Connecticut Papers:

Connecticut Herald

Connecticut Journal

Connecticut Post
Georgia Papers:

Columbia Museum 6- Savannah Advertiser

Republican 6- Savannah Evening Ledger

Southern Sentinel and Gazette of the State. Augusta

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Gazette of the State of Georgia

Georgia Republican 6- State Intelligence

Sources of Letters Quoted

[Unless otherwise specified, the letters are from the
Whitney Papers, Yale Library.]

Phillips to EW, Jr., 2 April, 1865, ix;
EW to Stebbins, g Nov., 1802, i;
EW to Stebbins, 21 Sept., 1787, 25;
EW to father, 5 April, 1791, 38-39?
father to EW, 21 July, 1790, 39; father
to EW, 8 March, 1791, 39; father to
EW, 2,1 May, 1792, 39; letter unsigned,
undated, 40; EW to Josiah, 25 Sept.,

1792, 44; EW to father, 26 Sept., 1792,
44-45; EW to Stebbins, 8 Oct., 1792,
46-47; Miller to EW, 20 Sept., 1792,
48; EW to father, 17 Oct., 1792, 48;
EW to Stebbins, 17 Oct., 1792, 48;
Stebbins to Mrs. Whitney, 7 April,
1825, 48; Catherine to EW, 1808-
1814, 50-51; Catherine to EW, 27 July,

1809, 51; Greene to Clarke (Hender-
son, Washington's Southern Tour,
i79i> P. 232 )> 53> Greene to Clarke
(Greene, Life of Nathanael Greene,
Vol. 3, p. 352), 53; EW to Stebbins, i
Nov., 1792, 55-56; EW to father, 11
April, 1793, 57; EW to Stebbins, 11
April, 1793, 57-58; EW to Stebbins,
i May, 1793, 58; father to EW, 16
Aug., 1793* 59; EW to father, n Sept.,
0.793, 59; EW to father, 11 Sept.,
J-793, 66-68; EW to Jefferson, 20 June,
*793> 69? EW to Jefferson, 15 Oct.,
1793 72-73; Jefferson to EW, 16 Nov.,

1793, 74-75; EW to Jefferson, 24 Nov.,
1793, 75-77; EW to Stebbins, 22 Dec.,

1793, 77-78; Goodrich to Wolcott, 25
Nov., 1794 (Gibbs, Administration of
Washington and Adams, Vol. I, p.
128), 795 EW to father, 30 March,

1794, 79^80; EW to Timothy Pitkin,
8 July, 1796, 94; Miller to EW, 13
Dec., 1797, 94; EW to Wm. Wallace, 7
June, 1799, 94; eight letters between
EW and Adam Babcock, 22 Nov.,

1810, to 10 Jan., 1811, 94; Miller to
Hamilton, 19 Jan., 1803 (M & W

2:215-231 ), 96; Miller to Pierce Butler,
20 March, 1795 (M & W 1:59), 97;

M & W to , 98; Miller to EW, 8

March, 1796 (M & W 1:51-57), 98;
Miller to Toole, 17 May, 1794 (M & W

1 :2 ) , 99; M & W to Mayront, 20 March,
1798 (M & W 2:29), 99; M & W to
Shields, 4 Nov., 1794 (M & W 1:8),
99; ibid., 99-100; M & W to Fowler,

2 March, 1798 (M & W 2:14), 100;
M & W to Russell, 20 Oct., 1794 ( M &
W 1:10), loo; M & W to Mayront,'2O
March, 1798 (M & W 2:29), 101;
ibid., 13 Dec., 1798 (M & W 2:92-
93), 101; M & W to Russell, M & W to
Durkee, 20 and 25 Oct., 1794 (M & W

1:10-15), 101-102: M & W to , 25

Oct., 1794 (M & W 1:16), 102; Miller
tp Toole, 11 May, 1794 (M & W 1:1),
ibs; M & W to Randolph, 28 June,
1794 ( M & W 1:3 ), 103; EW to father,
17 Aug., 1794> 103; Stiles, Diary,
3:531, 104; M & W to Toole, 20 Oct.,
1794 (M & W 1:13), 10-4; Miller to
EW, 25 Oct., 1794 ( Olmstead, Journey,
p. 20), 104; EW to father, 20 Nov.,
1794, 104; Kollock to Whitney, 1805,
105; M & W to Waring, 29 Dec., 1794
(M & W 1:25), 106; Whitney to Mil-
ler, 25 Dec., 1795, 106-107; Miller to
Whitney, 6 April, 1797, 107; EW to
father, 22 March, 1795, 108; M & W to
Russell & Ammadon, 22 Jan., 1795
(M & W 1:41), 108; EW to father,
op. cit., 108-109; EW to Miller, 16
April, 1795 (Georgia Gazette 638),
109; EW to father, 2 Nov., 1795, i9>
Miller to EW, n April, 1796? (Olm-
stead, Journey, pp. 21-22), no; EW
to Miller (Georgia Gazette 638), no;
M & W to Shields, 22 Jan., 1795 (M &
W 1:25), in; M & W to Bacon &
Woodruff, 30 April, 1799? (M & W

8SS

334

2:138-144). in-1125 M & W to Toole,

30 March, 1797 (M & W 1:115-116),
112; Georgia Gazette, 7 May, 1795,
114; So. Sentinel and Gazette of the
State, 2,1 May, 1796, Augusta, 114; M
& W to Chas. Jackson, 22 April, 1798
(M & W 2:66), 114; M & W to Ham-
ilton, 19 Jan., 1803 (M & W 2:215-
231), 115; EW to Stebbins, 7 March,
1803, 116; Miller to EW, 8 Sept., 1797,
116; EW to father, 20 Nov., 1794, 1175
Miller to EW, 25 Nov., 1795? (Olm-
stead, Journey, p. 22-23), 118; EW to
father, 2 Nov., 1795, 118; Georgia Ga-
zette, 26 Nov., 1795, 118; EW to Mil-
ler, 25 Dec., 1795, 119; Miller to EW,

31 Dec,, 1795 (M & W 1:35 )> 1195
Hopkins to EW, 22 July, 1796* 120;
EW to Stebbins, 22 Dec., 1796, 120;
8 Jan., 1797, 120; Miller to EW, 8
March, 1796 (M & W i: 51-57 )> 120;
Miller to EW, 2 Dec., 1796 (M & W
1:88-90), 120; Miller to , 4 Dec.,

1796 (M & W 1:92), 120; Miller to
E W, 1 1 May, 1797 ( M & W i : 147-154 ) ,

122; Miller to (M & W 1:141),

123; Miller to Uriah Tracy, 12 Dec.,

1797 (M & W 1:232), 123; Miller to
Johnson, 7 Nov., 1800 ( M & W 2: 185 ),
123-124; Wadsworth to Joshua Coit,
12 Dec., 1797 (M & W 1:237), 124;
M & W to Alexander, 23 Oct., 1798
(M & W 2:89), 124; M & W to Jones,
15 Oct., 1799 (M & W 2:172), 124;
M & W to Nel, 15 April, 1797 (M & W
1:125-126), 124-125; M & W to Tracy,
12 Dec., 1797 (M & W 1:230), 125;
M & W to Bacon, 15 Aug., 1799 (M &
W 2:157-158), 125; M & W to Durkee,

5 Jan., 1796 (M & W 1:38), 125;
M & W to Toole, 10 Nov., 1796 (M &
W 1:79), 125; M & W to Wallace, 10
Nov., 1796 (M & W 1:84), 125; M &
W to Wallace, 20 March, 1798 (M &
W 2:27), 125; M & W to Wallace, 16
April, 1798 (M & W 2:60), 125; Mil-
ler to EW, 26 March, 1797, 126; 21
July, 1797, 126; 7 July, 1797, 126; M &
W to Russell, 26 Nov., 1797 (M & W
1:213), 126; Miller to EW, 19 Jan.,
1799, 126; M & W to Hamilton, Maker

6 Co., 17 Dec., 1798 (M & W 2:98-
99), 126; M & W to Kinloch, 17 Sept.,
1798 (M & W 2:85), 127; Miller to
EW, 25 May, 1797, 127; M & W to
Goodrich, 27 Feb., 1799 (M & W
2:125), 127; Miller to EW, 31 Dec.,
1795 (M & W 1:27-34), 128; Miller
to EW, 3 Dec., 1795 (M & W 1:27-
34), 129; EW to Stebbins, i Nov.,

Sources of Letters Quoted

1792 (see pp. 55-56), 130; Miller to
EW, 31 Dec., 1795 ( M & W 1:27-34),
132; EW to Stebbins, 22 Dec., 1796,
132; Miller to EW } 20 March, 1797,
132-133; Miller to EW, 6 April, 1797,
133; 8 Sept., 1797, 133; EW to Steb-
bins, 15 Sept., 1797, 133; EW to Mil-
ler, 7 Oct., 1797, 133-13$; Williams to
EW, 27 May, 1798, 136; Chester to
EW, 19 March, 1798, 137; EW to
Wolcott, i May, 1798, 138; Treasury
Dept. to Col. North, 20 June, 1798
(Wolcott Papers, MS Letterbooks, Vol.
34, Conn. Hist. Soc.), 142; Wolcott to
EW, 16 May, 1798, 143; EW to Bald-
win, 27 May, 1798, 143; copy, EW
proposals to Sec. Treas., 2 June, 1798,
143; The Report and Estimate of
Tench Francis, 'Purveyor of Supplies,
7 June, 1798, 145; Articles of Agree-
ment, 14 June, 1798, 145; EW to Steb-
bins, 27 Nov., 1798, 146-147; Miller
to EW, 21 July, 1797, 1475 19 Jan.,.
1799, 147; M & W to Brown, 10 Aug.,
1799 (M & W 2:153-155), 148; EW
to Stebbins, 19 Jan., 1799, 148; M &
W to Jones, 22 Oct., 1800 (M & W
2:179), 148; Miller to EW, 4 Sept^
1801, 150; EW to Stebbins, 22 Nov.,
1801, 151-152; EW to Stebbins, 20
Dec., 1801, 152-153; EW to Josiah,
27 Dec., 1801, 153; deSaussure to
Wolcott, 28 Dec., 1801 (Wolcott Pa-
pers, MS Letterbooks, Vol. 16, Conn.
Hist. Soc.), 153-154; M & W to Legis-
lature of S.C., 11 Dec., 1801, 154^
M & W to Goodrich, 24 Jan., 1802
(M & W 2:212-214), 154; M & W to
State of S.C., 16 Feb., 1802, 154; EW
to Josiah, 27 Dec., 1801, 154; EW to
Stebbins, 10 June, 1802, 155; EW to
Stebbins, 9 Feb., 1805, 156-157; EW
to Stebbins, i Jan., 1803, 157; EW to
Miller (Olmstead, Journey, p. 38),
157; M & W to Hamilton, 19 Jan., 1803.
(M & W 2:215-231), 157-158; EW
to Pinckney, 8 Dec., 1802, 158-159;
Hamilton to EW, 30 Nov., 1804, 159;
EW to Stebbins, 6 March, 1803, 160;
M & W to Goodrich, 14 March, 1801
(M & W 2:197), 161 n.; EW to Steb-
bins, 7 March, 1803, 161 n.; EW to
Stebbins, 7 March, 1803, 15 Oct., 1803,
162; Baldwin to Mrs. Whitney, 1847?
(ibid.}, 162; EW to Madison, i Nov.,

1803, 162; Pendleton to Pinckney, i
Nov., 1804, 162; EW to Stebbins, 15;
Oct., 1803, 162; EW to Egan, 18 Jan.,

1804, 163; EW to Dearborn, 26 Jan.,,
1804, 164; EW to Egan, 18 Jan., 1804,

Sources of Letters Quoted

164; EW to Pinckney, 8 Dec., 1802,
1645 EW to Catherine, 29 Sept., 1804,
164-165; Baldwin to Mrs. Whitney
(ibid.), 165; EW to Legislature of
S.C., Dec., 1804? (Olmsted, Memoir,
p. 37), 165-166; Baldwin to Mrs. Whit-
ney (ibid.), 166; EW to Baldwin, 26
Dec., 1804, 167; EW to Stebbins, 9
Feb., 1805, 5 April, 1805, 167; Minutes
Circuit Court, 1798-1806, 9 May, 1803
(p. 345), 168; EW to Jackson, 15 Feb.,
1801, 168; Gilchrist to EW, July 6,
1805, 168; EW to Kollock, 26 Oct.,
1805, 168; EW to War Dept, 22 Jan.,
1807 ( Nat. Archives, War Dept. Let-
ters Rec'd. Vol. 3, p. 366), 171; EW
to Catherine, 26 July, 1806, 171; Kol-
lock to EW, 13 July, 1807, 172-173;
Miller to Hamilton Harper & Co., 16
June, 1797, 173? EW to Fulton, 30
March, 1811 (see Appendix, Evans to
EW, 29 Oct., 1811), 174; EW to Wol-
cott, 12 July, 1798, 190; EW to Wol-
cott, 2 Aug., 1798, 191; EW to Wolcott,
17 Oct., 1798, 192-193; EW to Wol-
cott, 29 June, 1799, 193; EW to Steb-
bins, 27 Nov., 1798, 194; EW to Steb-
bins, 13 Jan., 1799, 194-195; Wolcott
to E W, 28 Dec., 1798 ( Wolcott Papers,
MS Letterbooks, Vol. 29, Conn. Hist.
Soc.), 195; Wolcott to Wadsworth, 24
April, 1799 (ibid., Vol. 36), 196; Wol-
cott to EW, 6 July, 1799 (ibid.), 196;
Wadsworth to Wolcott, 24 Dec., 1800
(ibid.), 200; Wolcott to EW, 6 July,
1799 (ibid.), 200; EW to Wolcott, 30
July, 1799, 201-202; EW's bond for
$10,000, 8 Sept., 1799, 202-203; Steb-
bins to EW, 29 Dec., 1798, 203-204;
EW to Stebbins, 26 April, 1800, 204-
205; 28 Sept., 1800, 204-205; Miller to
EW, 24 May, 1800, 205; EW to Miller,
July, 1800, 205; Wadsworth to Wolcott,
24 Dec., 1800, 206-207; Nicholson's
certificate "To whom it may concern,"
31 Dec., 1800, 207; EW to Josiah, 5
March, 1801, 207; Goodrich to Bald-
win, 8 Jan., 1801 (Baldwin Coll., Yale),
208-209; EW to Dexter, 8 Jan., 1801,
209-210; EW to Dearborn, 27 June,
1801, 212; Williams to Wolcott, 16
June, 1800 ( Nat. Archives, War Dept,
SAR, Letters Sent, Letterbook 15),
212-213; EW to Stebbins, 25 Sept.,

1801, 213; Jefferson to Monroe, 14
Nov., 1801 (Mass. Hist. Soc.), 214;
mem. Dearborn and EW, 7 April,

1802, 215; EW to Dearborn, 15 June,
1802, 215; Rogers to EW, 23 Aug.,
1802, 215; EW to War Dept., 10 Sept.,

335

1802 (Nat. Archives, War Dept., Let-
ters Rec'd., Bk. II), 215; mem. Dear-
born and EW, 28 Feb., 1803, 215; EW
to Stebbins, 6 March, 1803, 216; EW
to Stebbins, 15 Oct., 1803, 216; Dear-
born to EW, 8 June, 1808, 217; Coxe
to Eustis, 12 July, 1809 (Hicks,
Ordnance, Vol. 2, pp. 26-27, 4*), 217;
Dearborn to Prescott, 8 Oct., 1812
(Dearborn MS, Copies of letters and
orders, N.Y. Hist. Soc., Vol. i, p. 251),
217; EW to Dearborn, 14 June, 1808,
218; EW to Dearborn, 23 Jan., 1809,
218-219; Jefferson to Jay, 30 Aug.,
1785 (Jefferson, Writings, Vol. i, p.
411 ), 219; Diplomatic Correspondence
of the U.S. . . , Vol. IV, p. 138, 222;
Jefferson, op. cit., 222; Philos Blake to
Elizabeth, 7 Sept., 1801? (Blake Coll.,
Yale), 223; EW to Stebbins, 10 Aug.,
1804, 223; Philos Blake to Elizabeth,
7 Sept., 1801 (Blake Coll.), 224;
Philos to Elizabeth, 12 Sept., 1803
(Blake Coll.), 224; Philos to Eliza-
beth, 26 June, 1811 (Blake Coll.),
224-225; Eli Blake to Elizabeth, 8
Nov., 1812 (Blake Coll.), 225; Eli
Blake to brothers, 13 Oct., 1811, 4
Sept, 1812 (Blake Coll.), 226; Josiah
to EW, 20 July, 1814, 226; EW to
Josiah, 30 Sept, 1814, 226; EW to
Josiah, 13 June, 1813, 227; Josiah to
EW, 16 June, 1813, 10 July, 1818, 16
Aug., 1813, 227; EW to Eli Blake, 19
Dec., 1811, 227-229; EW to Stebbins,
9 Nov., 1802, 229; EW to Stebbins, 25
Sept., 1801, 230; EW to Stebbins, 25
Sept., 1801, 231; War Dept to EW, 3
Dec., 1802 (Nat Archives, War Dept.,
Letters Sent, Vol. i, p. 44)> 231; EW
to War Dept., 13 Jan., 1803 (ibid.,
Letters Rec'd., Bk. 2), 231; Dearborn
to EW, 10 Dec., 1806, 232; EW to
Dearborn, 23 Jan., 1807 (Nat. Ar-
chives, War Dept,, Letters Rec'd., VoL
3, p. 366), 232; Dearborn to EW, 9
Nov., 1808 (ibid., Letters Sent), 232;
EW to Dearborn, 5 Nov., 1807, 232-
233; War Dept. to Daniel Pettibone,
13 Aug., 1807 (Nat. Archives, War
Dept, Letters Sent), 2335 EW to
Dearborn, 5 Nov., 1807, 233; EW to
Rogers, 17 Aug., 1807, 234-235; EW
to Josiah, 22 April, 1808, 235; EW to
Catherine, 6 Sept, 1808, 236; EW to
Rogers, 28 Oct., 1809, 236; EW to
Graham, 29 Dec., 1810, 236; EW to
Wolcott, 31 May, 1810, 236-237; EW
to Wolcott, 6 Nov., 1810 (Conn. Hist.
Soc., Wolcott Box 16), 2375 ibid., 6

336

Oct., 1812 (Box 17), 237; EW to
Kollock, 17 Dec., 1810, 257-338; Kol-
lock to EW, 20 May, 1811, 238; Cath-
erine to EW, 30 May, 1811, 238; ibid.,
23 March, iox>8, 238-239; EW to
Brastow, 3 Aug., 1809, 239; Josiah to
EW, quoting S. B. Parkman, 9 April,
1813, 239; Denison to EW, 2, June,
1805, 239; Gibbs, Memoir, Vol. i, p.
561, 240; EW to Wolcott, 5 Sept.,
1805 (Conn. Hist. Soc., Wolcott Boxes
12-14 )> 2405 ibid., 30 Oct., 1805, 240;
ibid., 13 Jan., 1810 (Box 1$), 241;
EW to Chauncey, 4 Jan., 1812, 241;
EW to Josiah, 13 June, 1813, 241;
Josiah to EW, 10 July, 1813, 241;
ibid., 22 July, 1813, 242; EW to Josiah,
27 Dec., i&oi, 242; Josiah to EW, 22
July, 1813, 242; EW to Stebbins, 6
Sept., 1807, 243; EW mem. to War
Dept, 29 June, 1812, 244-245; Nat.
Archives, Wai Dept., Office Chief
Ordnance* Contract Bk. i, 245-246;
EW to Eli Blake, 5 Sept., 1812 (Blake
Coll.), 246; EW to Josiah, is Nov.,
1812, 248: EW to Lee, 19 March, 1818
( Nat. Archives, War Dept., SAR, Let-
ters Rec'd.), 247; Coxe to Eustis, 30
Jan., 1812 (Nat. Archives, War Dept.,
Letters Rec'd.), 247; Eustis to Coxe,
15 Jan., 1812 (Fuller, Whitney Fire-
arms, pp. 76-77), 247; Coxe to Eus-
tis, 14 Feb., 1812 (ibid.), 248; ibid.,
17 Feb., 1812, 248; Armstrong to
EW, 16 March, 1813, 248; Benet,
Ordnance Department, Vol. I, p. 4,
249; Wadsworlh to War Dept., 12
March, 1813 (Nat. Archives, War
Dept., Letters Rec'd., Vol. 7, p. 4$4>
item 71), 249; Wadsworth to EW, 13
March, 1813 (Nat. Archives, War
Dept., Ordnance Dept., Letterbook i,
p. 126), 249; Irvine to Armstrong, 5
April, 1813 (Nat. Archives, War Dept.,
OSW, Letters Rec'd., i -gSM), 249-
250; ibid., 12 June, 1813 (Letters
Rec'd., i -igsM ) 25; ibid., 22 June,
1813 (Letters Rec'd., i -20617]), 251;
EW to Irvine, 4 Nov., 1813, 251; Ir-
vine to EW, 26 Oct., 1813, 251; EW
to Irvine, 4 Nov., 1813, 251-252; EW
to Catherine, 20 Nov., 1813, 253;
Josiah to EW, i April, 1813, 253; Ir-
vine to EW, 17 Nov., 1813, 253; EW
to Irvine, 25 Nov., 1813, 253-254;
Irvine to Armstrong, 30 Nov., 1813
( Hicks, Ordnance, Vol. 2, p. 43), 254;
Wadsworth to EW, 4 Feb., 1814 (Nat.
Archives, War Dept., Letterbook i,
Ordnance Dept., Vol. i, p. 442), 255;

Sources of Letters Quoted

EW to Armstrong, 18 May, 1814
(ibid., OSW, Letters Rec'd. W-Misc.
1814), 255-256; Irvine to Armstrong,
9 May, 1814 (ibid., notation on re-
verse side dated 12 May, 1814), 256;
EW to Lee, 19 March, 1818 (ibid.,
SAR, Letters Rec'd.), 256; Wadsworth
to Armstrong, 6 June, 1814 (Fuller,
Whitney Firearms, pp. 95-97 )> 25$;
Irvine to Armstrong, 28 June, 1814
(Nat Archives, War Dept., Letters
Rec'd., Vol. 8, p. 183, item 32), 257;
Wadsworth to EW, 21 July, 1814
(&id. 9 Office Chief Ordnance, Letters
Sent, Vol. 2), 257; Irvine to Wickliarn,
i Aug., 1814 (Hicks, Ordnance, Vol.
2, p. 64), 258; Irvine to Parker, 4 Aug.,
1814 (ibid., p. 67), 258; EW to Wads-
worth, 13 Aug., 1814 (Eliot Coll.,
Yale), 258-259; EW to Wickham, 16
Aug., 1814 (Nat. Archives, War Dept,
Letters Rec'd. [3 letters forwarded by
Timothy Banger]), 259; Wickham to
EW, 16 Aug., 1814 ( ibid.), 259; Wick-
ham to Irvine, 19 Aug., 1814 (ibid.),
259; EW to Armstrong, 17 Aug., 1814
(ibid., OSW, Letters Rec'd.), 259-261;
EW to Wadsworth, 18 Aug., 1814
(ibid.), 261; EW to Armstrong, 21
Aug., 1814 (ibid.), 261-262; EW to
Lee, 19 March, 1818 (op. cit.), 262;
Josiah to EW, i Sept., 1814, 262-263;
EW to Armstrong, 21 Aug., 1814
[Armstrong's notation on verso] (op.
cit.), 263; EW to Wadsworth, 17 Oct.,

1814 (Nat. Archives, War Dept., Let-
ters Rec'd.), 263; EW to Lee, 19
March, 1818 (op. cit.), 263-264; EW
to Madison, April or May, 1815 ( Madi-
son Papers, Vol. 61, LC MSS Div.),
264; Annual Report of the Secretary of
War, i Dec., 1853, Vol. 2, pp. 523-
526, 265; EW to Eustis, 29 June, 1812,
266; EW to Stebbins, 4 June, 1815,
267; Wadsworth to Dallas, 10 June,

1815 (Benet, Ordnance Department,
Vol. i, p. 18), 267; EW to Wade
Hampton, 6 Feb., 1806, 268; Benet,
op. cit., p. 31, 268; Lee to EW, 7 June,
1815 (Nat Archives, War Dept., SAR,
Letters Sent), 268; ibid., 8 May, 1816,
268; EW to Lee, 23 April, 1818 ( Nat.
Archives, War Dept., SAR, Letters
Rec'd.), 269; Carrington for EW to
Lee, 9 July, 1821, 269; Wadsworth to
EW, 19 Jan., 1819 (Nat Archives,
War Dept., Office Chief Ordnance,
Letters Sent), 269; Lee to EW, 30
Dec., 1816 (Nat. Archives, War Dept.,
SAR, Letters Sent),, 269; EW to Lee,

Sources of Letters Quoted

3 Jan., 1818 (Nat. Archives, War
Dept., SAR, Letters RecU), 269; EW
to Calhoun, 20 March, 1823 (MS let-
ter courtesy Penrose Hoopes), 270;
price list, U.S. Armory at Springfield,
1823 ( Nat. Archives, War Dept., SAR,
Letters Sent, Vol. 4), 270; EW to Cal-
houn, 9 July, 1821, 270-271; Eli Blake
to editors of National Intelligencer,
July, 1835 (Yale), 272; agreement be-
tween EW and Bomford, i Aug., 1822
(Nat, Archives, War Dept., Office
Chief: Ordnance, Contract Book i),
272-273; contract between EW and
Bomford acting for Calhoun, 15 Aug.,
1822 (ibid.), 272-273; American State
Papers, Class 5, Military Affairs 11,
1819-1825, p. 599, 273-274; Catherine
to EW, 31 Oct., 1808, 275; Josiah to
EW, 22 Sept, 1814, 275; EW to
Catherine, 14 Feb., 1814, Catherine to
EW, 16 April, 1814, 30 Nov., 1808, 7
March, 1809, 3 April, 1811, 275; Wol-
cott to King, 12 July, 1804 (N.Y. Hist.
Soc., King Papers, Vol. 26), 276; Kol-
lock to EW, 12 Feb., 1812, 277; Josiah
to EW, 11 Sept, 1813, 277; EW to
Catherine, 29 Aug., 1813, 277-278;
Catherine to EW, 19 Oct., 1813, 5 July,

1814, 12 Oct., 1809, 278; ibid., 5 July,
iSog, 3 April, 1811, 8 May, 1811, 20
June, 1811, 279; Stebbins to EW> 20
May, 1815, 279-280; EW to Stebbins,

4 June, 1815, 5 Nov., 1815, 280; Cath-
erine to EW, 2 Feb., 1809, 280-281;
EW to Stebbins, 12 Nov., 1815, 4 June,

1815, 281; EW to Stebbins, 5 Nov.,
1815, 281-282; ibid., 4 June, 1815, 282;
Stebbins to EW, 21 Oct., 1815, 19
Nov., 1815, 282; EW to Stebbins, 11
Feb., 1816, 20 March, 1816, 283; Steb-
bins to EW, 29 Nov., 1816, 283; Con-
necticut Herald, 14 Jan., 1817, 28$;
Edwards to Madison, 27 Oct., 1801,
285; EW to Stebbins, 10 June, 1802,

37

285; EW to Lee, 25 Dec., 1816 (Nat.
Archives, War Dept., SAR, Letters
RecU), 2850.; EW to Eli Blake, 12
May, 1818 (Blake Coll.), 286; ibid.,
21 July, 1818, 286-287; Baldwin &
Rossiter, 5 Dec., 1818, 287; EW to
Stebbins, 15 Oct., 1803, 287; M & W
to Brown, 10 Aug., 1799 (M & W 2:
154), 288; Russell Goodrich to EW,
16 Jan., 1819, 289; EW to Josiah, 10
Nov., 1820, 290; EW to Towne, 26
Dec., 1820 (New Haven Colony Hist.
Soc.), 290; EW to Josiah, 9 Jan.,
1821, 290; EW to Lee, 8 April, 1819
(Nat Archives, War Dept., SAR, Let-
ters RecU), 291 n.; ibid., 23 Aug.,
1821 (Misc. Letters 1813-1823), 291;
ibid., 17 Sept., 1821 (Letters Reed.),
291; ibid., 10 Nov., 1821, 291; EW to
Stebbins, 2 Jan., 1822, 291; EW to
Josiah, 9 Sept., 1822, 292; ibid., 11
Nov., 1822, 293: Carrington to Lee,
14 Jan,, 1823 (Nat Archives, War
Dept, SAR, Misc. Letters 1813-1823),
293; ibid. 9 30 Jan., 1823, 294; EW to
Josiah, 9 Feb., 1823, 294; Carrington
to Lee, 14 Jan., 1823 (op. cit.), 294;
Olmsted, Memoir, p. 71, 294-295; EW
to Lee, 2 Aug., 1824 (Nat Archives,
War Dept, SAR> Letters RecU),
295-296; Letitia to Morse, 22 Nov.,
1824 (Morse Papers, LC MSS Div.,
Vol. 9), 296; Susan Johnson to hus-
band, 18 Dec., 1824, 296-297; Olm-
sted, Memoir, p. 75, 297; Fulton to
EW, 4 April, 1811, 305; Evans to EW,
29 Oct, 1811, 306; Baldwin and Ros-
siter, 5 Dec., 1818, 307-309; Lee to
Carrington, 22 Dee.,. 1825 (Nat Ar-
chives, War Dept, SAR, Letters Sent),
31511.: Blake to Goodrich, 12 Dec.,
1829 ( LefBngwell Letters, New Haven
Colony Hist Soc.), 316; Blake to EW,
Jr., 18 Dec., 1882, 318.

Index

Adams, John, 13, 32, 35, 206, 208,

209; on Stamp Act, 6; war scare with

France, 139-142
Age of reason, 11-12
Alabama, 106, 300
Albany, 305

Alexander, Caleb, 23, 30
Alna, Me., 203
Amsterdam, 240
Antwerp, Nicholas van, 70
Arkansas, 300
Arkwright, Sir Richard, 21, 63, 82-85,

91, 178, 182, 187
Arms manufactory. See Mill Rock

Arms Manufactory
Armstrong, John, 248; Irvine affair,

254-257, 259-263
Ashley-Cooper River, 300
Aspinwal, Mr., 63
Astor, John Jacob, 268
Atwater, Jeremiah, 203
Aubrey, John, 11
Augusta, Ga., 74, 97> 111-112, 154,

239
Austen, Jane, 5

Bigelow, Jacob, 318

Bird, John, 21

Birmingham, 20, 83, 190

Bishop, Abram, 150, 259

Black, Joseph, 19-20

Blake, Eli Whitney, 223-227, 246, 272,

286, 290, 293, 297, 311, 315-316,

318
Blake, Elihu, 223

Bahamas, 113

Baines, Edward, Jr., 82, 86, 87
Baker, Mr., 269

Baldwin, Simeon, 122-123, 143> 162,
203, 254, 259, 287, 296, 309, 312,

3iS 317
Baltimore, 50
Baroche, 88
Barrington, 54
Bassett, Amos, 36, 43
Batavia, 32
Beaufort, S.C., 98
Beaumarchais, Pierre de, 188
Bellamy, Joseph, 37
Bengal, 87

Bentham, Jeremy, 184-185
Bentham, Sir Samuel, 21, 178, 182,

184-186, 301

Bergmann, Torbern, 180 n.
Berkeley, dean of Yale, 35
Bethlehem, Pa., 250

Blake, Elihu, Jr., 223-226, 316

Blake, Elizabeth Whitney, 44, 223,
226-227, 283, 314, 317; reminis-
cences, 5-10, 23, 26-28

Blake, Lyman, 301

Blake, Philos, 223-227, 297, 315, 316

Blanchard, Thomas, 21

Block Island, 48

Bomford, George, 263, 273, 291

Bonaparte, Napoleon, 85, 255

Boone's Barony, 52

Boston, 4-6, 32, 128 n., 195, 227, 241

Boulton, Matthew, 14, 20-21, 178, 186

Bowdoin, 294

Bradley ironworks, 181

Bramah, Joseph, 21, 178, 182-183, 186

Brazil, 63
.^-Creech-loading rifle, 271-272

Bridgeport, Conn., 285

Brookfield, Conn., 29

Brown, Moses, 64-65, 72

Brunei, Marc, 21, 178, 182, 184-186,
301

Buel, Abel, 118, 194

Burgoyne, John, 189

Calhoun, John C., 270, 273, 291

Calicut, 87

Canaan, 192, 197

Canada, 14, 32

Carey, Matthew, 72

Carlyle, Thomas, 84-85

Carrington, James, 262, 264, 293, 312

Carron Iron Works, 179

Catherine the Great, 184

Cavallo, Tiberio, 36

Cayenne, 63

Chambers, Henry, 125

840

Charleston, 49, 52, 54, 149

Chester, John, 137, 139

China, 32, 241

Chittenden, Mr., 162

Clark, John Innes, 191

Clymer, George, 306

Coke, Sir Edward, 148

Colt Arms, 272 n,

Colt, Samuel, 301

Columbia, S.C., 151 &, 1645.

Columbus, Christopher, 16-17

Condorcet, Marquis de, 13, 32

Congress Springs, 226

ConHin, Benjamin, 25

Connecticut, 6, 132, 268, 299; agree-
ment with Yale, 43; arms contract,
237, 246; land speculation in, 106-
107, 150; sericulture in, 62-63

Continental Congress, 188

Cooper, Thomas, 151

Cornwallis, Charles, 52, 2130.

Coromandel coast, 87

Cort, Henry, 178, 180

Cotton, sea island (long-staple, black-
seed), 64-67, 113, H7, 153 17U up-
land (short-staple, green-seed), 64,
65, 67, 96, 113, 117-119* 153, 171,
200, 289, 299

Cotton cultivation, 87-88, 09 n.; need
for raw cotton, 90-91; Fostered by
cotton gin, 65-66, 92, 112-113, 15 6 >
170-171, 289, 300

Cotton gin, acceptance, 81 ; construc-
tion, 9, 73-74, 77-73, 115-116, 164-
165, 170, 303-304; invention, x, 59-
60, 66; patent obtained, 41, 67-69,
72-80, 93, 303-304; roller gin, 66-67,
77, 8r, 113; saw gin, 113-115, 153;
transforms southern economy, 105,
152-153* 171-1/2, 175, 289-290,
298-300. See oho cotton cultivation;
Miller & Whitney

Cotton-textile industry, 15-16, 84, 95;
history of, 87-88; in Great Britain,
81, 88-90; in U.S., 62-65, 74-75;
mechanization of, 178, 180-182; rise
of, 86-87

Cottonseed oil, extraction of, 99

Cbxe, Tench, 247-248, 250, 257

Crafts, Ebenezer, 24

Crompton, Samuel, 63, 83-86, 178, 182,
187

Daggett, David, 203, 211, 255

Dallas, Alexander, 264

Darby, Abraham (III), 179-180, 186

Darbys of Coalbrookdale, 21, 178-180

Dartmouth Medical School, 294

Davis, Jefferson, 265

Deane, Silas, 188-189

Dearborn, Henry, 268; biographical
note, 213 n.; Mount Dearborn estab-
lishment, 231-232; negotiations with
EW, 211-217, 230, 232-236

Defoe, Daniel, 89

Denison (tutor), 45

de Saussure, Henry William, 153

Dexter, Samuel, extends contract for
arms, 209-211

Diderot, Denis, 13

Dixon, Mr., 191

Dolland, John, 18, 21

Dolland, Peter, 18, 21

Droz, Pierre- Jacquet, 16

Duer, Colonel, 46

Dungeness, 129, 154, 163-164, 277

Dupont, Major, 45, 57-5^, 131, 3io

Durham, Conn., 29

Dwight, Timothy, 129, 150, 193, 224,
230

Eagle Bank, 312

East Indies, 172

East-Rock, 282

Edinburgh, 294

Edward III, 88

Edwards, Henrietta F. See Whitney,

Henrietta Edwards
Edwards, Jonathan, 284
Edwards, Pierpont E., 34, 43, 203, 230,

283-285
Edwards, Susan. See Johnson, Susan

Edwards
EUicott, John, 18
Ely, Elisha, 47
Ely, John, 47
Enlightenment, 11-12
Europe, 50, 64, 88, 94, 139, 140, 149,

184, 196, 253, 300
Eustis, William, 245, 247-248, 251
Evans, Oliver, 21, 94-95, 305-306
Evans (Olivers son), 306

Fairborn, Sir William, 178-179

Faulkner, William, 60

Fay, Benjamin, 5

Fay, Elizabeth, 29

Fay, John, 5

Feke, Robert, 50

Fitch, Ebenezer, 36

Fitzhugh, 300

Florida, 149

Forbes & Adam, 197

Ford, Henry, 21, 272

Forsyth, Major, 114

Fort, Arthur, 169

Fowler, Christopher, 100

France, 32, 139, 149, 268; aid in Amer-
ican Revolution, 6, 140, 188-189;
arms manufacture, 139, 208, 222;

Index

commercial and territorial wars, 13-
15; l&oee en masse, 140; revolution,
2, 13, 39, 185, 222; standardization
of weights and measures, 141, 222;
threat of war with U.S., 139-143,
268; wire drawing, 70
Franklin, Benjamin, 17, 32, 3-37, 94,

295 .,

Free trade, i3- 1 4
Fulton, Robert, 21, 113, 174, 35

Gallatin, Albert, 211
Gay, Ebenezer, 36
Genoa, 16
George III, 90

553, 59, 68-69, 75, 103,
149, 170, 226, 237. 277; cotton cul-
tivation, 64-65, 92, 96, 299-300;

^ Yazoo Land purchase, 106

Georgia cotton growers, opposition to
Miller & Whitney, 92, no, H3-H4,
118, 124, 126, 143-149, 155-150,
161-162, 165-166, 168-169, 173-176,
287-288

Germantown, 74

Germany, 244

Gilchrist, Adam, 168, 311

Glasgow, 294

Godfrey, Thomas, 17

Goelet, Peter P., '3 13

Goggewell, Dr., 47

Golphinton ginnery, 98-99, I 11 * "4

Goodrich, EHzur, 29-30, 79, 132

Goodrich, Elizur, Jr., 30, 73, 203, 207-

208, 209, 225, 276

Goodrich, Mrs. Elizur, 227

Goodrich, Russell, 126, 1.57-158.
161 n., 164, 211, 239; final setae-
ment for MiUer & Whitney, 286-289,

307-309

Gracie, Archibald, 313

Grafton, Conn., 23-24

Graham, John, 18, 21, 53

Grant, Robert, 38, 45

Grant, Ulysses S., 301

Great Britain, 35, 67, 149> 172; Ameri-
can Revolution, 6, 112; arms manu-
facture, 139, 208, 211, 244-^45, 257;
cotton-textile industry, 53, 61-03,
65, 81-91, 162, 180; factory system,
7?n 84; political and economic lib-
eralism, 12-15; statute of monop-
olies, 93, 148; technology, 177-186,
188, 222; trade, 9, 14, 35, 53, 01, 74;
War of 1812, 244, 246-247, 254-*55,
262-263

Greene, Catherine, 105, 128 150, 204-
205; and EW, x, 4 5> 47-48, 59, 7,
95, 163, 176, 238-239, 275-279, 280,

341

284, 286, 290, 310; and Greene, 51-
52; and Kollock, 238-240; and Mil-
ler, 54-55, 129-131, 280-281; back-
ground and personality, 48-51;
death, 275, 278; finances, 121, 238,
277

Greene, Cornelia. See Littlefield, Cor-
nelia Greene

Greene estate, 168, 277; finances Mil-
ler & Whitney, 105, 119, 121, 288,
311; management by Miller, 45, 54-
55, no, 128-129, 130-131. 147, 238,
288* See also Dungeness; Mulberry
Grove

Greene, Louisa, 205, 276-277, 279-280

Greene, Nathanael, accepts EW in
household, 55-5 6 , 59; and Catherine,
51-52; and Revolutionary War, 6,
51-52, 162, 213 n.; death, 54, 280;
financial embarrassment, 52-53; pre-
sented with Mulberry Grove, 53;
purchases Dungeness, 154-155. See
also Greene estate

Gribeauval, Jean-Baptiste de, 141 n.

Guzerat, 87

Haddam, Conn., 255

Hadley, John, 17

Hall, John H., 271-272

Hamburg, 142

Hamden, Conn., 195, 239, 283

Hamilton, Alexander, 61-62, 64-65, 9-

91, 206, 230, 276, 298
Hamilton, Paul, 154, 157, 159
Hammond, M. B., ix, 317
Hardin, Mr., 288

Har greaves, James, 63, 83-85, 17<>,

182, 187 Q

Harpers Ferry armory, 142, 217-210,

232, 259, 267-271
Harrington, James, 13
Harris, Benjamin, 26
Harrison, John, 17-18
Hartford, Conn., 4, 32, 195, 285 n.
Harvard Medical School, 294
Harvard University, 24

Hatton, Mr., 84 n.

Haywood, John, 160

Hazeldon, Hannah, 10, 28

Hazeldon, Nancy, 10, 28

Helmholtz, Hermann von, 16

Henly, George, 168

Henry, Joseph, 250

Herodotus, 88, 171

Herschel, Sir John, 37

Hicks, James E., 141 ., 247

Highs, Thomas, 84

HiBhouse, James, 34, 195, 203

Hitchcock, Captain, 29

Hobbes, Thomas, 95

Hobbs, Alfred C., 183

Holland, 89, 139

Holmes, Hodgen, 156-157, 161, 170;

infringes on patent, 112-116; patent

voided, 161

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 294
Hong Kong, 242
Hopkinston, 25, 27
Hortalez & Co., 189
Hoskins, Mr., 271
Houghton, Mr., 72
Hunton, John, 125
Humphreys, Colonel, 62
Humphry, David, 239
Hutchinson, James, 125

India, 14, 240; cotton industry, 84, 87-
89

Industrial revolution, 2, 15-17, 81-82,
177-186

Interchangeability of parts, 141, 185,
191, 200-202, 209, 214, 216, 219,
222, 270-272, 298, 301-302. See also
Mass production

Iron industry, 179-182, 192-193, 197,
268

Irvine, Callender, 275, 277-278, 280,
292; attacks private arms manufac-
turers, 249-250; attacks Springfield
armory, 248-249; feud with EW,
251-265, 267; ousts Coxe, 247-248

Italy, 82-83, 88

Jackson, James, 148, 150, 281 n., 299

James I, 93

Ja John, 219

Jefferson, Thomas, 13, 15, 21, 32, 37>
79, 94, 99> 213 n., 229, 300; grants
patent for cotton gin, 67, 69, 72, 74-
75; supports EW, 150-151, 208-209,

211-212, 214, 2l6, 219, 222, 256

Jenks, Joseph, 94

Jenner, Edward, 47

Johnson, Patty, 226

Johnson, Samuel William, 285

Johnson, Susan Edwards, 285, 296

Johnson, William, 169-172, 232

Jones, Seaborn, 148

Kay, John, 82-84, 90
Kendall, Edward, 216
Kent, Chancellor, 30
Kentucky, 126
Knoxville, 126
Kollock, Lemuel, 168, 172, 237, 275-
276; relations with Catherine, 238-

^39
Kosciusko, Thaddeus, 52

Lackland, John, King of England, 88
Lafayette, Marquis de, 52

Index

Lancashire, 90

Laplace, Pierre Simon de, 141

Leblanc (French gunsmith), 214, 222,

301

Lee, Daniel, 47
Lee, Henry, 51

Lee, Roswell, 264, 267-270, 295
Leicester Academy, 23-25, 29, 48, 203,

226

Leland, Henry M., 272 n.
L'Enfant, Pierre, 185
Letters. See Sources of Letters quoted,

333

Lewis, Elisha, 291

Littlefield, Cornelia Greene, 205, 277
Littlefield, Edward, 277
Liverpool, 117, 126, 147, 240
Locke, John, 12-13
London, 49, 79, 89, 142, 240, 272,

Longstreet, William, 113-115
Louis XVI, 188
Louisiana, 149, 300
Louisville, Ky., 98, 170
Loveland, William Charles, 192
Lyon, Edward, 121, 125, 156, 157;
patent infringement, 113-116, 126

M'Connel & Kennedy, 179

McCormick, Cyrus H., 301

Madison, James, 37, 151, 162, 256,
264, 285

Madras, 88

Maine, 151, 203, 213, 281-282

Mallery, Mrs., 225

Manchester, 89-90, 179, 182

Mantoux, 85, 181

Maryland, 151

Mass production, xvi, 2, 21, 177, 186,
196, 222, 245, 297, 301. See also
Interchangeability of parts

Massachusetts, 3, 49, 57, 80, 94, 100,
151, 191, 194

Massachusetts Medical Society, 281 n.

Mather, Cotton, 11

Maudslay, Henry, 21, 178, 182-186

Meigs, Josiah, 36, 37

Mendon, Conn., 23, 30

Metal industry, 178, 180-181

Middlefield, Conn., 54

Mill Rock, 193, 313

ftlill Rock Arms Manufactory, brass
pan improvement, 210, 216; comple-
tion of first government contract,
212-213, 217-219; Connecticut con-
tract, 237, 246; construction of
plant, tools, and machinery, 194-202,
253-254; cooperation with national
armories, 267-269; costs and prices,
*45> i99> 210, 216, 219-221, 234,

Index

2,46, 262, 269, 273; defects in mus-
kets, 217-218, 247; description of
plant and equipment, xv-xvi, 224,
226, 313-314; disposition after death
of EW, 297, 316; extensions of first
government contract, 200-203, 206-
211, 215-216; financing and credit,
197-198, 202-203, 210-211, 212,
245-246; first government contract,
137-139, 142-145; initial delays, 191-
200; inspection of muskets, 195-196,
215, 218, 248, 258-264, 274; Irvine
affair, 251-264; labor supply and
costs, xv, 190-191, 209-210, 234,
254, 268-269; materials shortages,
197, 198, 246-247; net worth, 312-
313; New York contract, 236-237,
246; packing, 212-213, 219; second
government contract, 233-236, 245,
264, 266, 272-273; selection of site,
193-194; support by Jefferson, 208-

209, 211-212, 214, 2l6, 219, 222,

256; third government contract, 273-
274, 292, 315. See also Interchange-
ability of parts

Miller and Whitney, 92, 163; British
resistance to ginned cotton, 92, 117-
121, 147, 173, 175, 310; construc-
tion of ginneries, 97-103; final set-
tlement, 286-289, 307-309, 310;
financing and credit, 105-107, no,
121, 125-126, 132-133, 147; John-
son decision, 169-172, 232; manage-
ment, 98-101; objectives and policy,
94-97, 126-127, 155-156, 175; op-
position of cotton growers, 92, 111-
112, 123-124, 138-149, 155-156, 162,
165-166, 168-169, 173-176; packing
and baling, 99-ii; partnership
formed, 66, 68, 96; patent infringe-
ments, 112-117, 155-156, 161, 175-
176, 269, 310; patent litigations, 114,
121-125, 148, 156, 161-162, 168,
172-173, 305-306; profits, 173, 288;
sale of patent rights to N.C., 156-
157, 159-160, 164, 231; sale of
patent rights to S.C., 150-155* 213,
232, 240; sale of patent rights to S.C.
reinstated, 156-159, 164-167, 215;
sale of patent rights to Term., 156,
164; shop destroyed by fire, 107-
110. See also Cotton gin

Miller, Catherine. See Greene, Cather-
ine

Miller, Phineas, 204-205, 243, 267,
299; business 'Ventures, 128-129;
death, 163-164; engaged as tutor
by Greene, 54; engages EW as
tutor, 45-48, 57; estate, 164, 238,
277, 287; relations with Catherine,

343

129-131; relations with EW, 131,
163; Yazoo Land purchase, 106-107.
See also Greene estate; Miller &
Whitney

Milton, John, 13

Mississippi, 106, 300

Mitchell, Senator, 230

Monmouth (Freehold), N.J., 213 n.

Monroe, James, xv, 151, 209, 214, 256,
263, 264

Montesquieu, Baron de, 13, 41

Montgomery, Richard, 213 n.

Morocco, 215

Morristown, N.J., 52

Morse, Letitia, 296

Morse, Samuel F. B., xv, 296

Mount Dearborn, 231-232

Mozart, W. A., 7

Mulberry Grove, 53, 105, 129, 147,
240

Mulberry Grove ginnery, 76, 97, 99,
103, 114, 117, 162, 288, 310

Munson, Elisha, 312

Munson, Eneas, Jr., 203

Munson, William Giles, xv

Muskets, Charleville models, 144, 187-
189, 207, 216, 266; imperfections,
217-218; inspection and proving
standards, 144, 248-249, 257-260,
274; manufacture of, in France, 208,
210, 214, 219, 222; in Great Britain,
244-245; New York model, 251-
252; Wickham model, 248, 250,
252. See also Mill Rock Arms Manu-
factory; national armories

Nasmyth, James, 184

National armories, 142, 217, 235, 264-^

274. See also Harpers Ferry armoryf* 8

Springfield armory
Neck Bridge, 194
New England, 3-4, 14-15, 36, 55, 56,

63, 75 n., 104, 119, 152 n., 192, 195,

196, 229-230, 262-263, 290, 300,

313

New Hampshire, 213

New Haven, Conn., 4, 31, 40, 56, 63,
70, 73, 129, 190, 195, 203, 224, 227,
230, 243, 263, 281-283, 284, 285 n.,
289, 313; description, 32-34; epi-
demic, 103-104

New Haven Bank, 310, 311

New Jersey, 76, 113

New London, Conn., 32

New Milford, Me., 203

Newcomen, Thomas, 17-20

Newport, R. L, 6, 37, 48, 289; com-
mercial wealth, 49-50

Newton, Mass., 5

Newton, Isaac, 11 ff., 17, 35

844

New York City, 22, 32, 46, 50, 55, 69-

70, 76, 185, 195, 305
New York State, 43, 63; arms contract,

236-237, 246, 251, 255, 260, 263
Nicholson, John, 207, 271
Nightingale, J. C., 122, 128, 150, 311
North Carolina, 149, 168, 173, 288;

purchase of patent, 156, 157, 159-

160, 164

North, Simeon, 268
Northboro, 59

. . 53
id, Denison, ix, 99, 292, 317

Paine, Tom, 1-2, 229-230, 280

Paris, 179, 240, 295

Patent law, 92-93, 122-123, 124, 205-

206; 1800 amendment, 148; in Ga.

149; in S.C., 149-150
Paul, Lewis, 83, 84
Paxton, 25
Pearce, Mr., 76
Pendleton, Nathaniel, 161, 162
Penet (armorer), 189
Pennsylvania, 151, 247, 268
Perkin, H. H., 258
Perkins (superintendent of Harpers

Ferry), 232

Petersburg, Va., 98, 100, 152
Pettibone, Daniel, 233
Phelphs, Timothy, 203
Philadelphia, 59, 69, 94, 142, 145, 192,

207, 247 n., 259, 263; yellow-fever

epidemic, 72-73, 192
Phillips, Wendell, ix
Pickering, Timothy, 139
Pierce, Frederick C., 290 n.
Pike, Nicholas, 26
Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth, 79, 140,

149, 151, 158, 162
Powell, John, 169, 171
Precision instruments, 15, 18-19, 183
"Precision tools, 18-20, 183
'Brescott, Mr., 267
Priestly, J. B., 42, 151
Princeton, N.J., 152
Providence, R.I., 64
Putnam, Israel, 51

Quebec, 213 n.

Raioxary, 88
Raleigh, N.C., 157, 231
Ramsden, Jesse, 18, 21
Randolph, Edmund, 79, 117
Ray, James, 306
Redwood, Abraham, 49

Index

Richmond, Va., 75, 151, 209, 214
Rittenhouse, David, 37
Robbinson, Mr., 67
Roberts, Lewis, 89
Rochefoucauld, Due de la, 32
Rocky Creek ginnery, 147, 154
Rocky Mount, N.C., 231
Roebuck, John, 20
Rogers, Hezekiah, 234 F.
Rossiter, Nathaniel, 287, 309
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 13
Russia, 184
Rutledge, John, 149

Sabin, Mr., 296
Saint-Simon, Comte de, 188
Salisbury, Conn., 192, 255
Sanford, Peleg, 203
Saratoga, N.Y., 6, 189, 226
Savannah, Ga., 44, 48, 49, 55-56, 59,

69, 76, 114, 118, 149, 238, 277
Schuyler, Philip J., 51
Scotland, 20, $4 n.
Scott, Sir Walter, 3
Senf, Christian, 231
Shays's Rebellion, 3, 22
Sheffield, Lord, 61-62
Sherman, Mr., 241
Sherman, William T., 301
Shields, Major, 98
Shipman, Ellas, 203
Silk industry, 83, 172; in U.S., 53, 62-

63
Silliman, Benjamin, ix, 33, 35, 36, 42,

231, 286, 294-295, 296, 297, 313,

317

Singer, Isaac M., 301

Slater, Samuel, 64-65, 90

Slavery, 14, 49, 289-290, 300

Smeaton, John, 18-19, 20, 21, 179

Smith, Adam, 15, 62, 148

Smith, J., 72

Smith, Nathan, 294 F.

South Carolina, 6, 44, 52, 101, 123,
148, 149, 151, 162, 215, 232; cotton
cultivation, 64-65, 300; nullification
of patent purchase, 156-159; pur-
chase of patent rights, 150-155, 173,
213, 288; reinstatement of patent
purchase, 165-169, 232

Spain, 16, 32, 88, 89, 139, 149, 239

Spaulding, Thomas, 113

Springfield Armory, 142, 193, 213, 217-
218, 234 236, 248-249, 257, 259,
264, 2675., 272 n., 295-296

Stamford, Conn., 47
Act, 6, 74
d weights and measures, 141

Rhode Island, 52, 64, 91, 187, 277; Staples, Colonel, 263
British raids, 6; tolerance in, 48-49 Stark, John, 213 n.

Index

Stebbins, Josiah, 23, 25, 46, 48, 70,
162, 203, 243, 279-283, 285, 317

Stebbins, Laura, 204

Stephens, William, 169

Stiles, Betsy, 36

Stiles, Ezra, 22, 24, 29-30, 33, 38, 41-
42, 43, 49, 51, 54, 55, 62-63, 7^>
78, 103, 109, 141, 176, 289-290;
character, 36-37

Stiles, Isaac, 36

Stiles, Polly, 36

Stiles, Ruthy, 36

Stockbridge, 285

Stoddard, Solomon, 284

Stratford, 285

Strutt, 64, 84

Stuart, Gilbert, 50

Stubblefield, James, 232, 267-268

Surat, 88

Surinam, 63

Sweden, 139

Talmage, Daniel, 194

Tahiti, 35

Target, Guy-Jean-Baptiste, 32

Taylor, Frederick Winslow, 98

Tennessee, 149, 158, 168, 173, 277,

288; purchase of patent rights, 156,

164

Texas, 299-300
Thayer, Mr., 8
Tolstoi, Lev, 92

Tompldns, Daniel, 236, 246, 255, 263
Town, Ithiel, xv, 290
Trask, 59
Trenton, 192
Tucker, Mary, 285
Tyler, Mr., 114

United States, cotton crop, 91; educa-
tion, 25-26; Embargo Act, 50, 238-
239; need for muskets, 196, 200,
208, 214-215; Revolutionary War,
2, 6, 13, 51-52, 74, 105-106, 140,
188-189, 213 a., rise of industry, 61-
65; threat of war with France, 140-
143; War of 1812, 244, 246-247,
254-255, 262-263; wool industry,

239

University of Glasgow, 19
Upsala, 180 n.

Valley Forge, 52, 213 n., 276
Vaucanson, Jacques de, 16, 270
Vergennes, Comte de, 188-189
Vermont, 162
Voltaire, 13, 188
Von Steuben, Baron, 52
Virginia, 126, 151, 208, 214, 290, 299,
300; industry, 75 n.

845

Wadsworth, Decius, 195-196, 215, 255,
267-268; advises EW on proving
regulations, 257-258; attacked by
Irvine, 248-249; death, 291; sup-
ports EW, 200, 206-207, 256, 261

Wales, 72

Wallace, William, 241-242

Wansey, Henry, 34

Warren, John C., 281 n.

Warwick, 48

Washington, D.C., i, 98, 151, 185,
207, 262-263

Washington, George, 22, 26, 32, 51,
52, 68, 131, 140

Watkins, Robert, 113

Watt, James, 14, 19-21, 178, 179, 181-
182, 186, 274, 305

Wayne, Anthony, 52

Waynesborough, 98

Webster, Noah, 26

Wedgwood, Josiah, 21

West Indies, 14, 49, 63, 135, 138

Westborough, 4-5, 7, 25, 224

Whiting, Jacob, 315, 316

Whitney, Benjamin, 7, 10, 80

Whitney, Eli (father of EW), 5, 6-7,
28, 45; consents to EW's attendance
at Leicester and Yale, 23-24; death,
226; on religion, 39; remarriage, g-
10, 28-29; supports EW at Yale, 38-
40

Whitney, Eli, advises national armories,
231-232, 295-296; attends Yale, 22,
29-31, 35-43. 61; birth, 2, 4; bitter-
ness over patent losses, 160, 162,
164, 166, 168, 174; business pres-
sures, 204, 213, 225, 231, 243, 286;
character, 1-2; contemplates mar-
riage, 134-135* 204-205, 243; de-
clines directorship of Harpers Ferry,
232; declines sword contract, 232-
^33; depression, 129-135, 223; Ex-
pence Book, xv, 71, 177, 225; family,
5; family He, 223-227, 246, 290-
294; financial affairs, 38-40, 133-
135, 145-146, 167, 240, 310-311;
honors, 129, 239; ill healji^ 27-28,
108, 160, 236-238, 253,

281, 290-292; inventions, 137, 138,
177, 266-270, 280, 294-296; last ifl-
ness, xv, 2, 29*2-297; last will and
testament, 296, 297, 312-316; makes
own tools, 27, 70, 10^ 186, 266-262?
301; manufactures nails, 8-9; peti-
tions for extension of patent, 173,
235, 288-289; production tech-
niques, ix-x, 78, 139, 177, 186-188,
233, 243, 270-272, 298-302; rela-
tions with Catherine, 58, 2.38-239,
275-279; teaches school, 23-27; trips

S46

Whitney, Eli (continued)

to South, 44-48, 55-59, iSi-155, ^7;
^views on bayonets, 252; on elegance
and respectability, 227-229; on
heating, 283; on labor, 190-191,
1 94-195; on patent law, 195; on
penmanship, 227-228; on politics,
230, 289; on posture, 228; on pro-
fanity, 228; on profits and wages,
190-191, 233-234; on the South, 55-
56; on speaking, 228; on Tom Paine,
i, 229-230; youth, 6-10. See also
Cotton gin; Mill Rock Arms Manu-
factory; Miller & Whitney

Whitney, Eli, Jr. (son of EW}, ix, 297,
301, 318; birth, 290; in will, 312

Whitney, Elizabeth Fay (daughter of
"EW), 290 n.

Whitney, Elizabeth Fay (mother of
EW), 5, 10, 45; death, 6-7

Whitney, Frances Edwards ( daughter
of EW), 290 n., 293

Whitney, Henrietta Edwards (wife of
EW), xv, 283-285, 293, 296, 314,
317

Whitney, Josiah (brother of EW), 7,
10, 45, 80, 132, 226-227, 241-242,
253, 262-263, 277, 283

Whitney, Judith Hazeldon (step-
mother of EW), 10, 23, 28

Whitney, Nathaniel, 5

Whitney, Susan Edwards, 291 n.

Whitneyville, 293

Index

Whittlesey, Chauncey, 239
Wickham, Marine T., 24?, 250, 252;

inspection of Mill Rock muskets,

258-261, 264
Wilberforce, 289
Wilkinson, John, 20-21, 178 E., 186,

Winchester Arms Co., 177

Wiscasset, Me., 281

Wittimore, 162

Wolcott, Oliver, 79, 137, 139, 150-
151, 206-207, 216, 230, 276, 286,
299; arms contract with EW, 142-
144, 190-193, 196, 199, 202; com-
mercial ventures with EW, 236-237,
240-243, 246, 255, 311

Wool industry, 83, 88-89, 172, ^39

Woolwich Arsenal, 183

Wooster, Josiah, 107

Worcester, Mass., 64, 69

Wrightboro, Ga., 113

Wyatt, John, 83, 84

Yale University, 24, 32-36, 54, 129,
150, 186, 230-231, 292, 294, 317;
agreement with Conn., 43; com-
mencement, 42-43; curriculum, 41-
42; student expenses, 39-40; student
schedule, 40-41; under Stiles, 22,

Tr 29-30, 36-38, 49

Yazoo Land purchase, 106-107, 128,
147, 150, 277, 278, 287-288

Yorktown, Va., 52, 213 n.

114975