early age. Of his early passion for such employments, his sister gives
the following account: "Our father had a workshop, and sometimes made
wheels of different kinds, and chairs. He had a variety of tools, and a
lathe for turning chair-posts. This gave my brother an opportunity of
learning the use of tools when very young. He lost no time; but as soon
as he could handle tools, he was always making something in the shop,
and seemed not to like working on the farm. On a time, after the death
of our mother, when our father had been absent from home two or three
days, on his return he inquired of the housekeeper what the boys had
been doing. She told him what B. and J. had been about. 'But what has
Eli been doing?' said he. She replied he had been making a fiddle. 'Ah,'
said he, despondingly, 'I fear Eli will have to take his portion in
fiddles.' He was at this time about twelve years old. His sister adds
that this fiddle was finished throughout, like a common violin, and made
tolerably good music. It was examined by many persons, and all
pronounced it to be a remarkable piece of work for such a boy to
perform. From this time he was employed to repair violins, and had many
nice jobs, which were always executed to the entire satisfaction, and
often to the astonishment, of his customers. His father's watch being
the greatest piece of mechanism that had yet presented itself to his
observation, he was extremely desirous of examining its interior
construction, but was not permitted to do so. One Sunday morning,
observing that his father was going to meeting, and would leave at home
the wonderful little machine, he immediately feigned illness as an
apology for not going to church. As soon as the family were out of
sight, he flew to the room where the watch hung, and taking it down he
was so delighted with its motions that he took it all to pieces before
he thought of the consequences of his rash deed; for his father was a
stern parent, and punishment would have been the reward of his idle
curiosity, had the mischief been detected. He, however, put all the work
so neatly together that his father never discovered his audacity until
he himself told him, many years afterwards.
"Whitney lost his mother at an early age, and when he was thirteen years
old his father married a second time. His stepmother, among her articles
of furniture, had a handsome set of table knives that she valued very
highly. Whitney could not but see this, and said to her, 'I could make
as good ones if I had tools, and I could make the necessary tools if I
had a few common tools to make them with.' His stepmother thought he was
deriding her, and was much displeased; but it so happened, not long
afterwards, that one of the knives got broken, and he made one exactly
like it in every respect except the stamp on the blade. This he would
likewise have executed, had not the tools required been too expensive
for his slender resources."
When Whitney was fifteen or sixteen years of age he suggested to his
father an enterprise, which was an earnest of the similar undertakings
in which he engaged on a far greater scale in later life. This being the
time of the Revolutionary War, nails were in great demand and bore a
high price. At that period nails were made chiefly by hand, with little
aid from machinery. Young Whitney proposed to his father to procure him
a few tools, and to permit him to set up the manufacture. His father
consented; and he went steadily to work, and suffered nothing to divert
him from his task until his day's work was completed. By extraordinary
diligence he gained time to make tools for his own use, and to put in
knife-blades, and to perform many other curious little jobs which
exceeded the skill of the country artisans. At this laborious occupation
the enterprising boy wrought alone, with great success, and with much
profit to his father, for two winters, pursuing the ordinary labors of
the farm during the summers. At this time he devised a plan for
enlarging his business and increasing his profits. He whispered his
scheme to his sister, with strong injunctions of secrecy; and requesting
leave of his father to go to a neighboring town, without specifying his
object, he set out on horseback in quest of a fellow-laborer. Not
finding one as easily as he had anticipated, he proceeded from town to
town with a perseverance which was always a strong trait of his
character, until, at a distance of forty miles from home, he found such
a workman as he desired. He also made his journey subservient to his
mechanical skill, for he called at every workshop on his way and gleaned
all the information he could respecting the mechanical arts.
At the close of the war the business of making nails was no longer
profitable; but a fashion prevailing among the ladies of fastening on
their bonnets with long pins, he contrived to make those with such skill
and dexterity that he nearly monopolized the business, although he
devoted to it only such seasons of leisure as he could redeem from the
occupations of the farm, to which he now principally betook himself. He
added to this article, the manufacture of walking-canes, which he made
with peculiar neatness.
In respect to his proficiency in learning while young, we are informed
that he early manifested a fondness for figures and an uncommon aptitude
for arithmetical calculations, though in the other rudiments of
education he was not particularly distinguished. Yet at the age of
fourteen he had acquired so much general information, as to be regarded
on this account, as well as on account of his mechanical skill, a very
remarkable boy.
From the age of nineteen, young Whitney conceived the idea of obtaining
a liberal education; but, being warmly opposed by his stepmother, he was
unable to procure the decided consent of his father, until he had
reached the age of twenty-three years. But, partly by the avails of his
manual labor and partly by teaching a village school, he had been so far
able to surmount the obstacles thrown in his way, that he had prepared
himself for the Freshman Class in Yale College, which he entered in May,
1789.
The propensity of Mr. Whitney to mechanical inventions and occupations,
was frequently apparent during his residence at college. On a particular
occasion, one of the tutors, happening to mention some interesting
philosophical experiment, regretted that he could not exhibit it to his
pupils, because the apparatus was out of order and must be sent abroad
to be repaired. Mr. Whitney proposed to undertake this task, and
performed it greatly to the satisfaction of the faculty of the college.
A carpenter being at work upon one of the buildings of the gentleman
with whom Mr. Whitney boarded, the latter begged permission to use his
tools, during the intervals of study; but the mechanic, being a man of
careful habits, was unwilling to trust them with a student, and it was
only after the gentleman of the house had become responsible for all
damages, that he would grant the permission. But Mr. Whitney had no
sooner commenced his operations than the carpenter was surprised at his
dexterity, and exclaimed, "There was one good mechanic spoiled when you
went to college."
Soon after Mr. Whitney took his degree, in the autumn of 1792, he
entered into an engagement with a Mr. B. of Georgia, to reside in his
family as a private teacher. On his way thither, he was so fortunate as
to have the company of Mrs. Greene, the widow of General Greene, who,
with her family, was returning to Savannah after spending the summer at
the North. At that time it was deemed unsafe to travel through our
country without having had the small-pox, and accordingly Mr. Whitney
prepared himself for the excursion, by procuring inoculation while in
New York. As soon as he was sufficiently recovered, the party set sail
for Savannah. As his health was not fully re-established, Mrs. Greene
kindly invited him to go with the family to her residence at Mulberry
Grove, near Savannah, and remain until he was recruited. The invitation
was accepted; but lest he should not yet have lost all power of
communicating that dreadful disease, Mrs. Greene had white flags (the
meaning of which was well understood) hoisted at the landing and at all
the avenues leading to the house. As a requital for her hospitality, her
guest procured the virus and inoculated all the servants of the
household, more than fifty in number, and carried them safely through
the disorder.
Mr. Whitney had scarcely set his foot in Georgia, before he was met by a
disappointment which was an earnest of that long series of adverse
events which, with scarcely an exception, attended all his future
negotiations in the same State. On his arrival he was informed that Mr.
B. had employed another teacher, leaving Whitney entirely without
resources or friends, except those whom he had made in the family of
General Greene. In these benevolent people, however, his case excited
much interest; and Mrs. Greene kindly said to him, "My young friend, you
propose studying the law; make my house your home, your room your
castle, and there pursue what studies you please." He accordingly began
the study of the law under that hospitable roof.
Mrs. Greene was engaged in a piece of embroidery in which she employed a
peculiar kind of frame, called a _tambour_. She complained that it was
badly constructed, and that it tore the delicate threads of her work.
Mr. Whitney, eager for an opportunity to oblige his hostess, set himself
to work and speedily produced a tambour-frame, made on a plan entirely
new, which he presented to her. Mrs. Greene and her family were greatly
delighted with it, and thought it a wonderful proof of ingenuity.
Not long afterwards a large party of gentlemen, consisting principally
of officers who had served under the General in the Revolutionary Army,
came from Augusta and the upper country, to visit the family of General
Greene. They fell into conversation upon the state of agriculture among
them, and expressed great regret that there was no means of cleansing
the green seed cotton, or separating it from its seed, since all the
lands which were unsuitable for the cultivation of rice, would yield
large crops of cotton. But until ingenuity could devise some machine
which would greatly facilitate the process of cleaning, it was vain to
think of raising cotton for market. Separating one pound of the clean
staple from the seed was a day's work for a woman; but the time usually
devoted to picking cotton was the evening, after the labor of the field
was over. Then the slaves--men, women, and children--were collected in
circles, with one whose duty it was to rouse the dozing and quicken the
indolent. While the company were engaged in this conversation,
"Gentlemen," said Mrs. Greene, "apply to my young friend Mr. Whitney; he
can make anything." Upon which she conducted them into a neighboring
room, and showed them her tambour-frame and a number of toys which Mr.
Whitney had made or repaired for the children. She then introduced the
gentlemen to Whitney himself, extolling his genius and commending him to
their notice and friendship. He modestly disclaimed all pretensions to
mechanical genius; and when they named their object, he replied that he
had never seen either cotton or cotton seed in his life. Mrs. Greene
said to one of the gentlemen, "I have accomplished my aim. Mr. Whitney
is a very deserving young man, and to bring him into notice was my
object. The interest which our friends now feel for him will, I hope,
lead to his getting some employment to enable him to prosecute the study
of the law."
But a new turn, that no one of the company dreamed of, had been given to
Mr. Whitney's views. It being out of season for cotton in the seed, he
went to Savannah and searched among the warehouses and boats until he
found a small parcel of it. This he carried home, and communicated his
intentions to Mr. Miller, who warmly encouraged him, and assigned him a
room in the basement of the house, where he set himself to work with
such rude materials and instruments as a Georgia plantation afforded.
With these resources, however, he made tools better suited to his
purpose, and drew his own wire (of which the teeth of the earliest gins
were made),--an article which was not at that time to be found in the
market of Savannah. Mrs. Greene and Mr. Miller were the only persons
ever admitted to his workshop, and the only persons who knew in what way
he was employing himself. The many hours he spent in his mysterious
pursuits, afforded matter of great curiosity and often of raillery to
the younger members of the family. Near the close of the winter, the
machine was so nearly completed as to leave no doubt of its success.
Mrs. Greene was eager to communicate to her numerous friends the
knowledge of this important invention, peculiarly important at that
time, because then the market was glutted with all those articles which
were suited to the climate and soil of Georgia, and nothing could be
found to give occupation to the negroes and support to the white
inhabitants. This opened suddenly to the planters boundless resources of
wealth, and rendered the occupations of the slaves less unhealthy and
laborious than they had been before.
Mrs. Greene, therefore, invited to her house gentlemen from different
parts of the State; and on the first day after they had assembled, she
conducted them to a temporary building which had been erected for the
machine, and they saw with astonishment and delight, that more cotton
could be separated from the seed in one day, by the labor of a single
hand, than could be done in the usual manner in the space of many
months.
Mr. Whitney might now have indulged in bright reveries of fortune and of
fame; but we shall have various opportunities of seeing that he tempered
his inventive genius with an unusual share of the calm, considerate
qualities of the financier. Although urged by his friends to secure a
patent and devote himself to the manufacture and introduction of his
machines, he coolly replied that, on account of the great expenses and
trouble which always attend the introduction of a new invention, and the
difficulty of enforcing a law in favor of patentees, in opposition to
the individual interests of so large a number of persons as would be
concerned in the culture of this article, it was with great reluctance
that he should consent to relinquish the hopes of a lucrative
profession, for which he had been destined, with an expectation of
indemnity either from the justice or the gratitude of his countrymen,
even should the invention answer the most sanguine anticipations of his
friends.
The individual who contributed most to incite him to persevere in the
undertaking, was Phineas Miller. Mr. Miller was a native of Connecticut
and a graduate of Yale College. Like Mr. Whitney, soon after he had
completed his education at college, he came to Georgia as a private
teacher in the family of General Greene, and after the decease of the
General, he became the husband of Mrs. Greene. He had qualified himself
for the profession of the law, and was a gentleman of cultivated mind
and superior talents; but he was of an ardent temperament, and therefore
well fitted to enter with zeal into the views which the genius of his
friend had laid open to him. He also had considerable funds at command,
and proposed to Mr. Whitney to become his joint adventurer, and to be at
the whole expense of maturing the invention until it should be patented.
If the machine should succeed in its intended operation, the parties
agreed, under legal formalities, "that the profits and advantages
arising therefrom, as well as all privileges and emoluments to be
derived from patenting, making, vending, and working the same, should be
mutually and equally shared between them." This instrument bears date
May 27, 1793; and immediately afterward they commenced business under
the firm of Miller and Whitney.
An invention so important to the agricultural interest (and, as it has
proved, to every department of human industry) could not long remain a
secret. The knowledge of it soon spread through the State, and so great
was the excitement on the subject, that multitudes of persons came from
all quarters of the State to see the machine; but it was not deemed safe
to gratify their curiosity until the patent right had been secured. But
so determined were some of the populace to possess this treasure, that
neither law nor justice could restrain them; they broke open the
building by night, and carried off the machine. In this way the public
became possessed of the invention; and before Mr. Whitney could complete
his model and secure his patent, a number of machines were in successful
operation, constructed with some slight deviation from the original,
with the hope of escaping the penalty for evading the patent right.
As soon as the copartnership of Miller and Whitney was formed, Mr.
Whitney repaired to Connecticut, where, as far as possible, he was to
perfect the machine, obtain a patent, and manufacture and ship to
Georgia such a number of machines as would supply the demand.
Within three days after the conclusion of the copartnership, Mr. Whitney
having set out for the North, Mr. Miller commenced his long
correspondence relative to the cotton-gin. The first letter announces
that encroachments upon their rights had already begun. "It will be
necessary," says Mr. Miller, "to have a considerable number of gins
made, to be in readiness to send out as soon as the patent is obtained,
in order to satisfy the absolute demands, and make people's heads easy
on the subject; _for I am informed of two other claimants for the honor
of the invention of cotton-gins, in addition to those we knew before_."
On the 20th of June, 1793, Mr. Whitney presented his patent to Mr.
Jefferson, then Secretary of State; but the prevalence of the yellow
fever in Philadelphia (which was then the seat of government) prevented
his concluding the business relative to the patent until several months
afterwards. To prevent being anticipated, he took, however, the
precaution to make oath to the invention before the notary public of the
city of New Haven, which he did on the 28th of October of the same year.
Mr. Jefferson, who had much curiosity in regard to mechanical
inventions, took a peculiar interest in this machine, and addressed to
the inventor an obliging letter, desiring farther particulars respecting
it, and expressing a wish to procure one for his own use.[21] Mr.
Whitney accordingly sketched the history of the invention, and of the
construction and performances of the machine. "It is about a year," says
he, "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 larger scale; but
the extreme difficulty of procuring workmen and proper materials in
Georgia prevented my completing the larger one until some time in April
last. This, though much larger than my first attempt, is not above one
third as large as the machines 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 weight (I mean fifty pounds after it is separated from the seed)
of the green cotton seed per day."
In the year 1812 Mr. Whitney made application to Congress for the
renewal of his patent for the cotton-gin. In his memorial he presented a
history of the struggles he had been forced to encounter in defence of
his right, observing that he had been unable to obtain any decision on
the merits of his claim until he had been _eleven years_ in the law, and
_thirteen years_ of his patent term had expired. He sets forth that his
invention had been a source of opulence to thousands of the citizens of
the United States; that, as a labor-saving machine, it would enable one
man to perform the work of a thousand men; and that it furnishes to the
whole family of mankind, at a very cheap rate, the most essential
article of their clothing. Hence he humbly conceived himself entitled to
a further remuneration from his country, and thought he ought to be
admitted to a more liberal participation with his fellow-citizens in
the benefits of his invention. Although so great advantages had been
already experienced, and the prospect of future benefits was so
promising, still, many of those whose interest had been most enhanced by
this invention, had obstinately persisted in refusing to make any
compensation to the inventor. The very men whose wealth had been
acquired by the use of this machine, and who had grown rich beyond all
former example, had combined their exertions to prevent the patentee
from deriving any emolument from his invention. From that State in which
he had first made and where he had first introduced his machine, and
which had derived the most signal benefits from it, he had received
nothing; and from no State had he received the amount of half a cent per
pound on the cotton cleaned with his machines in one year. Estimating
the value of the labor of one man at twenty cents per day, the whole
amount which had been received by him for his invention was not equal to
the value of the labor saved in _one hour_ by his machines then in use
in the United States. "This invention," he proceeds, "now gives to the
southern section of the Union, over and above the profits which would be
derived from the cultivation of any other crop, an annual emolument of
at least _three millions_ of dollars."[22] The foregoing statement does
not rest on conjecture, it is no visionary speculation,--all these
advantages have been realized; the planters of the Southern States have
counted the cash, felt the weight of it in their pockets, and heard the
exhilarating sound of its collision. Nor do the advantages stop here.
This immense source of wealth is but just beginning to be opened. Cotton
is a more cleanly and healthful article of cultivation than tobacco and
indigo, which it has superseded, and does not so much impoverish the
soil. This invention has already trebled the value of the land through a
large extent of territory; and the degree to which the cultivation of
cotton may be still augmented, is altogether incalculable. This species
of cotton has been known in all countries where cotton has been raised,
from time immemorial, but was never known as an article of commerce
until since this method of cleaning it was discovered. In short (to
quote the language of Judge Johnson), "if we should assert that the
benefits of this invention exceed _one hundred millions of dollars_, we
could prove the assertion by correct calculation." It is objected that
if the patentee succeeds in procuring the renewal of his patent, he will
be too rich. There is no probability that the patentee, if the term of
his patent were extended for twenty years, would ever obtain for his
invention one half as much as many an individual will gain by use of it.
Up to the present time, the whole amount of what he has acquired from
this source (after deducting his expenses) does not exceed one half the
sum which a single individual has gained by the use of the machine in
one year. It is true that considerable sums have been obtained from some
of the States where the machine is used; but no small portion of these
sums has been expended in prosecuting his claim in a State where nothing
has been obtained, and where his machine has been used to the greatest
advantage.
There was much more which was curious, laid out in different books; but
the call came for supper, and the young people obeyed.
XII.
JAMES NASMYTH.
THE STEAM-HAMMER.
"My dear Uncle Fritz, I have found something very precious."
"I hope it is a pearl necklace, my dear," was his reply, "though I see
no one who needs such ornaments less."
Hester waltzed round the room, and dropped a very low courtesy before
Uncle Fritz in acknowledgment of his compliment; and all the others
clapped their hands. They asked her, more clamorously than Uncle Fritz,
what she had found.
"I have found a man--"
"That is more than Diogenes could."
"Horace, I shall send you out of the room, or back on first principles.
Do you not know that it is not nice to interrupt?"