The gentleman with whom Mr. Whitney boarded must promise to pay all
the damages.
But he soon saw how skilful Mr. Whitney was.
He was surprised and said:
"There was one good mechanic spoiled when you went to college."
Mr. Whitney graduated in 1792.
He was engaged by a gentleman in Georgia to teach his children.
It was on this journey to his new work that he met Mrs. Greene.
Mrs. Greene liked Mr. Whitney very much.
When they reached Savannah, she invited him to her home.
At this time he had a great disappointment.
The gentleman who had hired him to come to Georgia coolly told him
his services were not wanted.
He had no friends.
He was out of money.
But Mrs. Greene became his good friend.
He went to live at her house.
Here he began the study of law.
Mrs. Greene was one day doing some embroidery.
She broke the frame upon which she was working.
She did not know how to finish the work without it.
Mr. Whitney looked at it carefully.
Then he made her a new frame.
It was even better than the other one had been.
Of course Mrs. Greene was much pleased.
Mr. Whitney also made fine toys for the children.
Soon after this, a party of gentlemen visited at Mrs. Greene's home.
They were nearly all men who had been officers during the war.
Mr. Greene had been their general.
They began talking of the South.
They wished something might be done to improve that part of the
country.
They wished it might be made a better place in which to live.
They spoke of the fine spinning machines that were coming into use
in England.
Much land in the South could be used for cotton.
This could be sent to England for manufacture.
The South could become a rich country in this way.
But there was one great difficulty.
It cost so much to clean the cotton.
Mrs. Greene said, "I know who can help you.
"Apply to my young friend, Mr. Whitney. He can make anything."
She then showed the gentlemen her frame and other things which Mr.
Whitney had made.
Mr. Whitney said he had never seen cotton or its seed.
None was raised near the home of the Greene's.
Mr. Whitney did not make any promises.
But the next day he went to work.
He went first to the city of Savannah.
There he searched among the warehouses and boats.
At last he found a small parcel of cotton.
This he carried home.
He shut himself up in a small basement room.
His tools were poor.
He made better ones.
No wire could be bought in Savannah.
So he made his own wire.
Mrs. Greene and a Mr. Miller were the only persons allowed to come
into his work-shop.
Day after day the children wondered to hear the queer clinking and
hammering.
They laughed at Mr. Whitney.
But that did not trouble him.
Before the end of the winter the machine was nearly perfect.
Its success seemed certain.
Mrs. Greene was very happy over the work.
She was eager that people should know about this wonderful
invention.
She could not wait until a patent was secured.
A patent is given by the government.
It is given to prevent others from claiming an invention.
Often it keeps people from manufacturing the article without the
permission of the owner.
So Mrs. Green invited a party of gentlemen from all parts of the
state to visit her.
These gentlemen were taken to see the machine do its work.
They were greatly astonished.
For what did they see?
This curious little machine cleaned the cotton of its seed.
And it would clean in a day more than a man could do in months.
They went to their homes.
They told everybody about it.
Great crowds began coming to see it.
But they were refused permission to do so.
This was because it had not yet been patented.
So one night some wicked men broke into the building.
They stole the cotton-gin.
You can well imagine how dreadful this was.
Mr. Whitney had no money.
So Mr. Miller agreed to be his partner.
Mr. Miller had come to Georgia from the North.
He, too, was a graduate of Yale College.
He afterward married Mrs. Greene.
He became Mr. Whitney's partner in May, 1773.
Perhaps you wonder why the machine was called a gin. It was a short
way of saying engine.
A gin is a machine that aids the work of a person.
The cotton-gin was made to work much the same as the hand of a
person.
It dragged the cotton away from the seed.
And now begins the sorrowful part of the story.
Before Mr. Whitney could get his patent, several other gins had been
made.
Each claimed to be the best.
The plans were all stolen from Mr. Whitney's.
[Illustration: ROLLER-GIN.]
One was the roller-gin.
This crushed the seed in the cotton.
Of course this injured the cotton.
Another was the saw-gin.
This was exactly like Mr. Whitney's, except that the saws were set
differently.
Many lawsuits were begun.
Mr. Whitney went to Connecticut.
There he had a shop for making the gins.
When the suits began he had to return to Georgia.
In this way two years went by.
By this time everyone knew the value of the gin.
Mr. Whitney went to New York.
There he became ill.
His illness lasted three weeks.
Then he was able to go on to New Haven.
[Illustration: SAW-GIN, 1794.]
There he found that his shop had been destroyed by fire.
All his machines and papers were burned.
He was four thousand dollars in debt.
But neither Mr. Miller nor Mr. Whitney were the kind of men who give
up easily.
Mr. Miller wrote that he would give all his time, thought, labor,
and all the money he could borrow to help.
"It shall never be said that we gave up when a little perseverance
would have carried us through," he said.
About this time bad news came from England.
The cotton, you remember, was then all sent there for manufacture.
English manufacturers now claimed that the cotton was injured by the
gin.
This was in 1796.
Miller and Whitney had thirty gins working in different places in
Georgia.
Some were worked by cattle and horses.
Others were run by water.
Soon, however, the manufacturers found that the Whitney cotton gin
did not injure the cotton.
The first lawsuit was decided against Miller and Whitney.
They asked for another trial.
But this was refused them.
Everywhere through the South they were cheated and robbed.
Yet all the time the South was growing richer because of the cotton
gin.
Slaves grew more and more valuable.
For negroes can endure the heat of the cotton fields.
But white men can not.
The planters of the South bought more and more slaves.
So slavery grew stronger because of the cotton gin.
Several states made contracts with Mr. Whitney.
They agreed to pay him certain sums of money.
But South Carolina broke her contract.
All these things made Mr. Whitney sick at heart.
He said that he had tried hard to do right by every one.
And it stung him to the very soul to be treated like a swindler or a
villain.
The people of Georgia tried to prove that somebody in Switzerland
had invented the cotton gin.
Tennessee broke its contract.
There were high-minded men who tried to help Mr. Whitney.
They were able to do only a little for him.
In 1803, Mr. Miller died.
Mr. Whitney was then left to fight his battles alone.
Things grew a little brighter as time went on.
Mr. Whitney received some money on his invention.
But the greater part of it had to be spent in lawsuits.
A suit was begun in the United States Court.
But the time of his patent was almost out.
He had made six journeys to Georgia.
One gentleman said that he never knew another man so persevering.
In 1798, Mr. Whitney made a contract with the government of the
United States.
By this contract he was to manufacture fire-arms.
He established his factory near New Haven.
The place is now called Whitneyville.
It is a beautiful place.
A waterfall furnished the power to run his machinery.
Here Mr. Whitney worked hard.
He had machinery to make.
He had to teach his own workmen.
For eight years he worked to fill this contract.
He arose as soon as day appeared.
Look in any part of the factory you might, you would see something
which he, himself had done.
He improved many tools.
He made better guns than had ever been made.
So that for these things, too, our country is indebted to Mr.
Whitney.
In 1812, he made new contracts.
Another war with England began in that year.
Mr. Whitney's guns never failed to be all right.
Other men took contracts of the same kind.
But their guns were failures.
Mr. Calhoun, the Secretary of War, said to Mr. Whitney, "You are
saving your country seventy-five thousand dollars a year."
This was by his improvements in fire-arms.
Mr. Whitney tried to get the government to extend the time of the
patent upon the cotton-gin.
But this was refused.
That did not seem very grateful, did it?
Robert Fulton, the inventor of the first steamboat, was his friend.
They had many troubles in common.
Mr. Whitney's last days were his happiest days.
Such patience, perseverance, and skill must count in the long run.
His factory made him quite a rich man.
Some of the southern states showed their gratitude.
In 1817, Mr. Whitney married Miss Edwards of Connecticut.
He had a son and three daughters.
The people of New Haven respected him.
They gave him great honor.
He died on January 8, 1825.
The little cotton-gin had done a great work.
The sunny South was covered with beautiful plantations.
The cotton fields shone in the sunlight.
[Illustration]
Riches were beginning to fill the pockets of the planters.
Only one blight remained upon the land.
This was the dreadful system of slavery.
And that, too, has been destroyed.
We wish that Mr. Whitney might see the South of to-day.
He did not live to know how great a curse slavery might be.
He did not foresee that his cotton-gin might help to cause a great
war.
Yet the blue and the gray fought and died.
The blood of many a hero stained a southern field.
All this that the cotton-pickers might be free!
All this that our country might be truly "the land of the free and
the home of the brave!"
[Illustration: S.F.B. MORSE.]