WHITNEY AND NORTH
In the last chapter we considered the rise of the interchangeable
system of manufacture and saw that it started in the shops of Eli
Whitney, at New Haven, and of Simeon North, at Middletown. The lives
of these men are of much interest, particularly that of Whitney.
His struggle in defense of his patent rights on the cotton gin is
instructive for all who see a high road to fortune in the patenting of
a valuable invention.
Measured by its economic effect, the cotton gin is one of the greatest
of inventions. As an industrial factor its success was immediate and
far-reaching. It developed the agricultural resources of nearly half
the United States, made possible its gigantic cotton crop, vastly
increased the wealth of this country and, to a scarcely less extent,
that of England; and yet toward the end of his life, Mr. Whitney said
that he had hardly more than “come out even on it”; and this in spite
of the fact that his patent was sustained and was apparently one of the
most valuable ever granted.
A patent for an invention which meets a widespread and pressing need,
and for which there is a tremendous demand, is difficult to defend.
Watt’s rights in the steam engine were established only after a long
and bitter fight, and he would have failed and died a disappointed man
had it not been for the indomitable courage and business skill of his
partner, Matthew Boulton. Whitney was a far better business man than
Watt, but his partner was not in any way the equal of Boulton. If he
had been, the story of the cotton gin might have been different.
Whitney saw the futility of depending solely on patent rights and
wisely turned his splendid talents to manufacturing; where, without
patent protection of any kind, by methods then new, but which have
since spread throughout the world, he built up a fortune. Someone has
said that the besetting sin of mechanics is invention. This may, or may
not, be true, but it is worth pondering whether superior methods and
business judgment are not still the best industrial protection.
Eli Whitney, whose portrait is shown in Fig. 30, was born in
Westborough, Mass., in 1765. He came from that best school of
mechanics, the New England hill farm. Most of the early American
mechanics, like him, came from the country and had the same training
of hard work with simple implements, and learned to turn their
hand to nearly everything, and to work with few and rough tools.
From his boyhood he showed mechanical talent. When he was fifteen,
with his father’s consent, he began making nails with the aid of
such rudimentary tools as he could contrive. This was during the
Revolutionary War, when nails were in great demand and brought a high
price. By hard work he built up a profitable little business which he
carried on for two winters in addition to the ordinary work of the farm
during the summer. The business grew beyond his capacity to care for
alone, so he set out on horseback to a neighboring town in quest of a
fellow laborer. Not finding one as easily as he had anticipated, he
rode from town to town with the persistence which was a strong trait in
his character, until forty miles from home he found such a workman as
he desired. During this journey he called at every workshop on his way
and absorbed all the information he could respecting the mechanical
arts. When the nail business ceased to be profitable after the war, he
turned his attention to knife blades and to the making of the long pins
for bonnets then in fashion. He showed so much skill that he nearly
monopolized the latter business.
When nineteen years old, Whitney determined to obtain a liberal
education, but he was not able to gain his father’s consent until he
was twenty-three. Then, in 1788, with money made partly in his little
manufacturing business and partly from teaching school, he entered Yale
College. He completed his college education with but little expense to
his father who paid a few of the last of his college bills, for which
the son gave his note and which he paid soon after graduation. His work
at college was creditable, rather than brilliant; he left a marked
impression behind him for good judgment, sound reasoning and steady,
intelligent work.[170]
[170] The best sources of information on Whitney are: Olmstead:
“Memoir of Eli Whitney, Esqr.” New Haven, 1846. Blake: “History of
Hamden, Conn.” New Haven, 1888. Blake: “Sketch of the Life of Eli
Whitney,” “New Haven Colony Historical Society Papers,” Vol. V, 1894.
There were few school facilities in the South at that time and many of
the wealthy planters had their children educated by private tutors. In
the fall of 1792, the year in which he graduated, Whitney was engaged
as a private tutor in a family in Georgia. On his way there he met Mrs.
Greene, the widow of General Nathaniel Greene, who was returning to
Savannah after spending the summer in the North. When Whitney reached
Georgia he found that, despite his engagement, another had been given
his place and he was stranded, practically penniless, a thousand miles
from home and not knowing which way to turn. Mrs. Greene kindly invited
him to make her house his home. He did so, and began to study law
under her hospitable roof. Here he met Phineas Miller, a native of
Connecticut and also a graduate of Yale College, who had himself come
south as a tutor in the Greene family and after General Greene’s death
had become manager of his estate. He was a man of cultivated mind, of
eager, hopeful temperament and later he married Mrs. Greene.
Shortly after Whitney’s coming, a large party of gentlemen from Augusta
and the upper country, consisting principally of officers who had
served under the General in the Revolutionary army, were visiting
Mrs. Greene. In the course of the conversation the deplorable state
of agriculture was discussed, and great regret expressed that there
was no means of separating green seed cotton from its seed, since
all the lands which were unsuitable for the cultivation of rice and
long staple cotton, would yield large crops of green seed cotton. The
black or long staple cotton had already been introduced successfully
in the Sea Islands, but it could not be grown inland. It was vain to
think of raising green seed or upland cotton for the market unless
some machine could be devised which would facilitate the process of
cleaning. Separating one pound of the staple from the seed was a day’s
work for one woman. During this conversation Mrs. Greene told them that
Whitney could invent their machine, saying, “He can make anything.”
This incident turned Whitney’s attention to the subject. Encouraged
by Miller he dropped his law studies, went to Savannah, obtained a
small parcel of raw cotton, and set himself at work on the problem.
With such resources as the plantation afforded he made tools suited
to his purpose, drew his own wire and by the close of the winter had
so far developed the machine as to leave no doubt of its success. The
first model he made (made, it is said, in about two weeks) is still in
existence in the possession of his grandson, the present Eli Whitney.
The three essential elements of his gin, the rotary wheel with forward
pointing wires or teeth, the slotted bar, and the revolving brushes for
cleaning the teeth, remain practically unchanged today.
At that time the market was glutted with such products as Georgia
produced, trade was languishing, and there was little employment
for the negroes or support for the white inhabitants. Mrs. Greene
indiscreetly showed the first machine to visitors and the news soon
leaked out that a means had been devised for separating more cotton in
one day, with the labor of a single man, than could have been done in
the usual manner in the space of many months. An invention so important
to the agricultural interest could not long remain a secret. The
knowledge spread throughout the state and so great was the excitement
that multitudes from all quarters came to see the machine. It was
not deemed safe to gratify their curiosity until patent rights were
secured, but so determined were they that the building was broken into
by night and the machine carried off. In this way the public became
possessed of the invention, and before Whitney could secure his patent
a number of machines were in successful operation. They deviated only
slightly from the original and gave Whitney much trouble later in
establishing his rights to the invention.
In the spring of 1793, Miller and Whitney formed a partnership under
the name of Miller & Whitney, for developing the business, and Whitney
returned to Connecticut to perfect the machine, obtain a patent, and
manufacture and ship to Georgia machines to meet the demand. At the
start they made a fatal error of policy in deciding to buy the seed
themselves, gin it and sell the product. Protected by their patent,
they planned to maintain a monopoly of this business. Later they were
willing to manufacture and sell the machines for general use or to sell
the rights. If they had done this at the start much of the opposition
which they incurred might have been obviated. Whitney, at least, was a
clear-sighted business man and if he had realized the magnitude of the
result of his invention he would probably not have chosen this course.
There is not another instance in the history of invention of the
letting loose of such tremendous industrial forces so suddenly. The
inventions of Arkwright, Watt, Fulton and Stephenson have affected
society quite as profoundly as did that of the cotton gin, some of them
more so, but in none of these cases were the results so immediate.
In 1784, only eight years before Whitney’s invention, eight bales of
cotton from the United States which were landed at Liverpool were
seized on the ground that they _could not have been produced_ in the
United States.[171] In 1791 the total production of cotton in the
world was estimated at 490,000,000 pounds, of which the United States
produced 2,000,000 pounds, or only ¹⁄₂₄₅, of which 189,316 pounds were
exported. In 1792 they exported 138,328 pounds, an actual decrease
of 51,000 pounds from the previous year. In 1793, the year after the
gin was invented, there was an exportation of 487,000 pounds; in
1794 of 1,601,000 pounds; in 1795 of 6,276,000 pounds. By 1800 the
total production had risen to 35,000,000 pounds, of which 17,790,000
pounds were exported. In 1845 the total estimated output of the world
was 1,169,600,000 pounds, of which the United States produced nearly
seven-eighths.[172] At the present time the output of the United
States is about 15,000,000 bales, or 7,000,000,000 pounds. Less than 1
per cent of this is “Sea Island” or long staple cotton. All the rest is
upland or green seed cotton, cleaned on the Whitney type of gin, and
made commercially available by his method of cleaning.
[171] Olmstead: “Memoir of Eli Whitney, Esqr.” p. 63. Also,
Encyclopedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, Vol. VII, p. 264.
[172] Olmstead: “Memoir.” Also _Merchant’s Magazine_, Vol. VI,
Article on “History of the American Cotton Trade,” by James H. Lanman.
The intensity of the demand for the use of this machine made it
practically impossible to defend a patent right upon it. The patent
laws of the country, as has been stated, were crude at that time, and
the infringement suits were tried before juries composed of the very
men who were interested in breaking the patent.
Nearly all of the great inventions have been developments to which
a number of inventors have contributed, as in the case of the steam
engine, the locomotive, and the steamboat; but the fundamental
invention of the cotton gin was due to Whitney and to Whitney alone.
And yet in a letter written to Robert Fulton, at a later date, he says:
My invention was new and distinct from every other: it stood alone.
It was not interwoven with anything before known; and it can seldom
happen that an invention or improvement is so strongly marked, and
can be so clearly and specifically identified; and I have always
believed, that I should have had no difficulty in causing my rights
to be respected, if it had been less valuable, and been used only
by a small portion of the community. But the use of this machine
being immensely profitable to almost every planter in the cotton
districts, all were interested in trespassing upon the patent-right,
and each kept the other in countenance. Demagogs made themselves
popular by misrepresentation and unfounded clamors, both against
the right and against the law made for its protection. Hence there
arose associations and combinations to oppose both. At one time,
but few men in Georgia dared to come into court and testify to the
most simple facts within their knowledge, relative to the use of the
machine. In one instance, I had great difficulty in proving that the
machine _had been used in Georgia_, although, at the same moment,
there were three separate sets of this machinery in motion, within
fifty yards of the building in which the court sat, and all _so near
that the rattling of the wheels was distinctly heard on the steps of
the court-house_.[173]
[173] Olmstead, p. 58. (Italics are ours.)
It should in justice be said that at first there was no widespread
disposition on the part of the Georgia planters to avail themselves of
the invention unlawfully, but later nearly all, deluded by the general
attitude, joined in the attack upon the inventor’s rights.
The unfortunate policy adopted by Miller & Whitney worked to their
disadvantage in two ways. First, they could not themselves produce
machines fast enough to gin the rapidly increasing crops; and second,
their policy of buying the seed and ginning it themselves meant
financing the entire crop and called for a vastly greater capital than
they had at their command. Infringing machines sprang up on every side,
their most formidable rival being the saw gin of Hodgin Holmes, in
which circular saws were used instead of a drum with inserted wires
as in Whitney’s original gin. The idea of such teeth had occurred to
Whitney, as he afterward proved; but not until 1807 did he completely
establish his right over this machine.
[Illustration: FIGURE 30. ELI WHITNEY]
Perplexities and discouragements dogged their steps from the start.
In 1795 the shop which they had built in New Haven, together with all
machines and papers, was consumed by fire. In the diary of President
Stiles of Yale College is an entry: “March 12 (1795). Yesterday morning
Mr. Whitney’s workshop consumed by fire. Loss 3000 Dol. about 10
finished machines for seeding cotton & 5 or 6 unfinished, & all the
tools which no man can make but Mr. Whitney, the inventor, & which he
has been 2 years in making.” They found great difficulty in raising
money, even at rates from 12 to 25 per cent. With these misfortunes
upon them, word was received from England that the manufacturers
condemned the cotton cleaned by their machines on the ground that the
staple was injured. They had thirty gins at work in eight different
places in Georgia and many of these were brought to a standstill.
It was nearly two years before this prejudice could be overcome. By
that time, however, encroachments on their patent right had become so
extensive as almost to annihilate its value. The first infringement
suit was tried in 1797 and went against them. An appeal was denied on
technicalities.[174] At a second trial, in 1798, a great number of
witnesses had been collected from various parts of the country, some
of them from one hundred miles away, when the judge failed to appear,
and, of course, no court was held.[175] Mr. Miller writes in 1799
that “the prospect of making anything by ginning in this State, is
at an end. Surreptitious gins are being erected in every part of the
country; and the jurymen at Augusta have come to an understanding among
themselves, that they will never give a verdict in our favor, let the
merits of the case be as they may.”[176] The firm would now gladly have
relinquished their plan of doing the ginning themselves and confined
their operations to the sale of patent rights; but few people would buy
a patent right which could be used with impunity without purchase.
[174] _Ibid._, p. 26.
[175] _Ibid._, p. 27.
[176] _Ibid._, p. 27.
In 1801 South Carolina voted the purchase of the patent rights on the
cotton gin for that state for $50,000, $20,000 to be paid in hand and
the remainder in three annual payments of $10,000 each. A year later
Whitney sold the right for North Carolina. The legislature laid a
tax on every saw, to be continued for five years. After deducting
the expenses of collection, the proceeds were to be passed over to
the patentee. Negotiations were also entered into with the state of
Tennessee. The prospects of the firm were, therefore, growing more
favorable, when the legislature of South Carolina suddenly annulled
the contract, refused payment due, and sued for the refunding of what
had already been paid. Doubts were raised as to the validity of the
patent; the patentees were charged with nonfulfillment of a part of
their contract relating to the submission of models; it was charged
that _somebody_ in Switzerland had conceived of the idea beforehand;
and that Whitney had been antedated in the use of saws instead of wire
teeth by Holmes. This action was the result of the political agitation
against the patent, which was strong throughout the cotton-growing
states. Tennessee followed the example of South Carolina, and the same
attempt was made in North Carolina, but the legislative committee to
whom it was referred reported in Whitney’s favor, declaring that such
action was a breach of contract and of good faith. In 1803 Mr. Miller,
who had represented the firm in the South, died disappointed and broken
by the struggle.
In the following year South Carolina rescinded its action and carried
out its contract, so that from North and South Carolina Whitney
received a considerable sum. In all he received about $90,000; $50,000
from North Carolina; at least $30,000 from South Carolina and about
$10,000 from Tennessee. A large portion of this amount was, however,
balanced by the cost of the endless litigation in Georgia. More than
sixty suits had been instituted in the latter state before the first
decision was obtained on the merits of the claims.
This decision was rendered in the United States Court in December,
1807, by Judge Johnson. Whitney, as the survivor of the firm of Miller
& Whitney, was suing a man named Arthur Fort for violation of the
patent right and for a perpetual injunction restraining him from use
of the gin. Judge Johnson’s decision is so clear a statement of the
situation, and so splendid an example of justice in the face of popular
agitation that we give it nearly in full:
Defendant admits most of the facts in the bill set forth, but
contends that the complainants are not entitled to the benefits of
the act of Congress on this subject, because:
1st. The invention is not original.
2d. It is not useful.
3d. That the machine which he uses is materially different from their
inventions, in the application of an improvement, the invention of
another person....
There are circumstances in the knowledge of all mankind, which prove
the originality of this invention more satisfactorily to the mind,
than the direct testimony of a host of witnesses. The cotton plant
furnished clothing to 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 climate. But by reason of the
strong adherence of the fiber to the seed without the aid of some
more powerful machine for separating it, than any formerly known
among us, the cultivation of it would never have been made an object.
The Machine of which Mr. Whitney claims the invention, so facilitates
the preparation of this species for use, that the cultivation of
it has suddenly become an object of infinitely greater national
importance than that of the other species ever can be. Is it then to
be imagined that if this machine had been before discovered, the use
of it would ever have been lost, or could have been confined to any
tract or country left unexplored by commercial enterprise? But it is
unnecessary to remark further upon this subject. A number of years
have elapsed since Mr. Whitney took out his patent, and no one has
produced or pretended to prove the existence of a machine of similar
construction or use.
2d. 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 childhood to age it has presented to us a lucrative employment.
Individuals who were depressed with poverty and sunk in idleness,
have suddenly risen to wealth and respectability. Our debts have
been paid off. Our capitals have increased, and our lands trebled
themselves in value. We cannot express the weight of the obligation
which the country owes to this invention. The extent of it cannot now
be seen. Some faint presentiment may be formed from the reflection
that cotton is rapidly supplanting wool, flax, silk, and even furs
in manufactures, and may one day profitably supply 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 material
for their manufactures, the bulkiness and quantity of the article
afford a valuable employment for their shipping.
3d. The third and last ground taken by the defendant, appears to be
that on which he mostly relies. In the specification, the teeth made
use of are of strong wire inserted into the cylinder. A Mr. Holmes
has cut teeth in plates of iron, and passed them over the cylinder.
This is certainly a meritorious improvement in the mechanical process
of constructing this machine. But at last, what does it amount to
except a more convenient method of making the same thing? Every
characteristic of Mr. Whitney’s machine is preserved. The cylinder,
the iron tooth, the rotary motion of the tooth, the breast work and
brush, and all the merit that this discovery can assume, is that
of a more expeditious mode of attaching the tooth to the cylinder.
After being attached, in operation and effect they are entirely
the same. Mr. Whitney may not be at liberty to use Mr. Holmes’ iron
plate, but certainly Mr. Holmes’ improvement does not destroy Mr.
Whitney’s patent right. Let the decree for a perpetual injunction be
entered.[177]
[177] _Ibid._, p. 39.
This decision was confirmed by a series of subsequent ones, and from
that time onward there was no serious questioning of the patent right.
In 1812 Mr. Whitney made application to Congress for the renewal of
his patent. In his memorial he points out that his patent had nearly
expired before it was sustained; that his invention had been a source
of wealth to thousands of citizens of the United States; that the
expense to which he had gone in defense of the patent had left him
little or no return on the invention; that the men who had grown rich
by the use of his machine had combined to prevent the patentee from
deriving reward from his invention; that in the state where he had
first introduced the machines he had received nothing; that from no
state had he received all told an amount equal to ¹⁄₂ cent per pound on
the cotton cleaned by his machine in one year; that the whole amount
received by him for his invention had not been equal to the labor saved
in one hour by the cotton gins then in use in the United States; that
the invention had already trebled the value of land throughout a great
extent of territory; that the degree to which the cultivation of cotton
would still be augmented was incalculable; and that the species of
cotton grown had from time immemorial never been known as an article of
commerce until his method of cleaning it had been invented. He closed
with an argument for the policy of providing adequate reward for the
encouragement of invention.[178] Notwithstanding these arguments and
a favorable committee report, the application was rejected. With the
exception of a few liberal-minded men, nearly all the members from the
cotton-growing states opposed the application strongly.
[178] _Ibid._, pp. 55-57.
Whitney combined in a singular degree high inventive capacity with
clear judgment and steady determination. By 1798 he saw that his hopes
for any large return from the cotton gin were uncertain. He turned
to the manufacture of firearms and by steady, sure steps built up
another business and died a well-to-do man. In this second enterprise
he developed the interchangeable system of manufacture and thereby
influenced modern society almost as greatly as he had in the invention
of the cotton gin, although this is little realized by the general
public.
In the chapter on “The Rise of Interchangeable Manufacture” we traced
Whitney’s work as a gun manufacturer from 1798, when he first applied
for his contract for ten thousand muskets. His undertaking of this
contract required courage and self-confidence. Although he was not
a trained gun maker, he proposed “from the start” to manufacture
guns by a new method, which was ridiculed by those familiar with the
manufacture of firearms at that time. He had to build a plant, design
and equip it with new and untried types of tools; and to educate
workmen to his methods. Furthermore, he did this work, involving
$134,000, under bond for satisfactory performance. The high estimation
in which Whitney was held by those who knew him is evidenced by the
fact that, although he was already embarrassed and embarking on an
entirely new kind of enterprise, ten of the foremost men of New Haven
signed his bond for the faithful performance of his contract.
A contemporary, intimately acquainted with his work, has outlined his
method of manufacture in words which describe the interchangeable
system, as it exists today, so accurately that we give it in full:
The several parts of the muskets were, under this system, carried
along through the various processes of manufacture, in lots of some
hundreds or thousands of each. In their various stages of progress,
they were made to undergo successive operations by machinery, which
not only vastly abridged the labor, but at the same time so fixed
and determined their form and dimensions, as to make comparatively
little skill necessary in the manual operations. Such were the
construction and arrangement of this machinery, that it could be
worked by persons of little or no experience, and yet it performed
the work with so much precision, that when, in the later stages of
the process, the several parts of the musket came to be put together,
they were as readily adapted to each other, as if each had been made
for its respective fellow.... It will be readily seen that under such
an arrangement any person of ordinary capacity would soon acquire
sufficient dexterity to perform a branch of the work. Indeed, so easy
did Mr. Whitney find it to instruct new and inexperienced workmen,
that he uniformly preferred to do so, rather than to attempt to
combat the prejudices of those who had learned the business under a
different system.[179]
[179] _Ibid._, pp. 53-54.
It took him a much longer time to fulfill the contract than he had
anticipated; two years elapsed before his plant was ready. Only 500
guns were delivered the first year instead of 4000, and the entire
contract required eight years instead of two from the time when
he began actual manufacture. In spite of this delay he kept the
confidence of the government officials, who were very liberal in
their treatment of him; so much had been advanced to him to help him
develop his machinery that when the contract was completed only $2450
out of the total of $134,000 remained to be paid. The work was highly
satisfactory, and in 1812 he was awarded another contract for 15,000
muskets from the United States Government and one for a similar number
from the State of New York. What is known of his methods and machinery
is given in the chapter referred to, which shows also how they spread
to other armories throughout the country.
The business which Mr. Whitney started was carried on for ninety years.
After his death in 1825 the armory was managed for ten years by Eli
Whitney Blake, later inventor of the Blake stone crusher, and Philos
Blake, his nephews. From 1835 to 1842 it was managed by ex-Governor
Edwards, a trustee of Mr. Whitney’s estate. His son, Eli Whitney, Jr.,
then became of age and assumed the management, and that same year
obtained a contract for making the “Harper’s Ferry” rifle,--the first
percussion lock rifle, all guns before that date having had flint locks.
Eli Whitney, Jr., continued to develop the art of gun making. He
introduced improvements in barrel drilling and was the first to use
steel for gun barrels. In 1847, during the Mexican War, Jefferson
Davis, then a colonel in a Mississippi regiment, wrote to the
Ordnance Department at Washington, that it was his opinion that the
steel-barreled muskets from the Whitney armory were “the best rifles
which had ever been issued to any regiment in the world.” The Whitney
Arms Company supplied the Government with more than 30,000 rifles
of this model. The company continued in existence until 1888, when
the plant was sold to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. It was
operated by them for a number of years in the manufacture of 22-calibre
rifles. This work was subsequently removed to their main works and the
plant was sold to the Acme Wire Company, and later to the Sentinel Gas
Appliance Company, its present owner. Some of the original buildings
are still standing. It may be of interest to note that at the time the
works were first built, a row of substantial stone houses was built
by Whitney for his workmen, which are said to have been the first
workmen’s houses erected by an employer in the United States.
In person Mr. Whitney was tall and dignified. He had a cultivated mind
and a manner at once refined, frank and agreeable. He was familiar
with the best society of his day and was a friend of every president
of the United States from George Washington to John Quincy Adams. He
had a commanding influence among all who knew him. Seldom has a great
inventor been more sane, for his powers of invention were under perfect
control and never ran wild. Unlike those who devise many things but
complete few, he left nothing half executed. Robert Fulton said that
Arkwright, Watt and Whitney were the three of his contemporaries who
had done the most for mankind.[180] Lord Macaulay is quoted as saying,
“What Peter the Great did to make Russia dominant, Eli Whitney’s
invention of the cotton gin has more than equaled in its relation to
the progress and power of the United States.”[181] He contributed
immeasureably to the agriculture and the manufacturing methods of the
whole world and few mechanics have had a greater influence.
[180] Blake: “History of Hamden, Conn.,” p. 303.
[181] Devans: “Our First Century,” p. 153.
Simeon North was born at Berlin, Conn., the same year as Whitney, and
like him, started life as a farmer. In 1795 he began making scythes in
an old mill adjoining his farm. Just when he began making pistols is
not clear. It is said that he made some for private sale as early as
the time of the Revolution, and it is probable that he had begun their
manufacture in a small way prior to receiving his first government
contract. He may have learned the rudiments of the trade from Elias
Beckley, who had a gun shop about a mile from North’s birthplace.[182]
[182] The fullest account of Simeon North is given in the “Memoir of
Simeon North,” by S. N. D. North and R. H. North. Concord, N. H.,
1913.
In March of 1799, about a year after Whitney received his first
contract for muskets, North received his first contract for
horse-pistols, 500, which were to be delivered in one year. This was
followed by others for 1500 in 1800; 2000 in 1802; 2000 in 1808; 1000
in 1810, and others not known. By 1813 he had made at least 10,000 and
was employing forty or fifty men. In none of these contracts was there
any mention made of interchangeability, but some time during these
years North began to use interchangeable methods. The correspondence
quoted in the previous chapter and the quotations already given show
that Whitney was working on the same basis from the start. It is a
great pity that Colonel North’s papers were destroyed after his death,
as they might have thrown some light on the question as to how and when
he began to use interchangeable methods. It is impossible now to say
how much Whitney and North influenced each other if they did at all.
In 1812 the Secretary of War visited North’s shop at Berlin, Conn.,
and urged him to increase his plant. On receiving the contract of
1813, North purchased land in Middletown, Conn., and built a dam and a
three-story brick armory, 86 x 36 feet, on the best lines known at that
time, involving in all an expenditure of $100,000. The old factory was
run in conjunction with the new one until 1843, when it was closed.
North began making barrels of steel in 1848, only a year or two after
Eli Whitney, Jr., and contributed many improvements in the design
of the pistols and guns which he built. The Remington Arms Company,
the Savage Fire Arms Company, the Maynard Rifle Company and the
Massachusetts Arms Company, all trace back in some way to him, and,
like Whitney, he deeply influenced the practice of the United States
Government in its armories at Springfield and Harper’s Ferry.
Colonel North’s first contract with the Government was made in 1799;
his last was finished in 1853, a year after his death, covering in
all about 50,000 pistols and 33,000 rifles. He worked under sixteen
administrations, representing all parties, and in all the fifty-three
years he never received a reproof or a criticism of his work.
He had an old-fashioned sense of honor. In 1826 he was called on to
pay a note for $68,000 which he had indorsed. Although advised that
he could not be held legally, he said that his name was there and he
would stand by it. He placed a mortgage on his property, and it was
twenty-two years before he had made good the loss, which, principal
and interest, amounted to over $100,000. But for this endorsement he
would have died, for that time, a wealthy man. Colonel North was a
country-bred man, strong, quiet and almost painfully modest. He lacked
Whitney’s education and influence, but like him he represented the best
which American mechanical and business life has produced.