Part 6

"To support the originality of the invention, the complainants have produced a variety of depositions of witnesses, examined under commission, whose examinations expressly prove the origin, progress, and completion of the machine of Whitney, one of the copartners. 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 to maintain this point. The jealousy of the artist to maintain that reputation which his ingenuity has justly acquired, has urged him to unnecessary pains on this subject. 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 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 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.

"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. 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 manufacturers, the bulkiness and quantity of the article affords a valuable employment for their shipping."

The influence of this decision, however, availed Whitney very little, for the term of his patent had nearly expired. During Miller's life more than sixty suits had been instituted in Georgia, and but a single decision on the merits of the claim was obtained. In prosecution of his troublesome business, Whitney had made six different journeys to Georgia, several of which were accomplished by land at a time when the difficulties of such journeys were exceedingly great. A gentleman who was well acquainted with Whitney's affairs in the South, and sometimes acted as his legal adviser, says that in all his experience in the thorny profession of the law he never saw a case of such perseverance under prosecution. He adds: "Nor do I believe that I ever knew any other man who would have met them with equal coolness and firmness, or who would finally have obtained even the partial success which he did. He always called on me in New York on his way South when going to attend his endless trials and to meet the mischievous contrivances of men, who seemed inexhaustible in their resources of evil. Even now, after thirty years, my head aches to recollect his narratives of new trials, fresh disappointments, and accumulated wrongs."

In 1798 Whitney had become deeply impressed with the uncertainty of all his hopes founded upon the cotton-gin, and began to think seriously of devoting himself to some business in which his superior ingenuity, seconded by uncommon industry, would conduct him by a slow but sure road to a competent fortune. It may be considered indicative of solid judgment and a well-balanced mind that he did not, as is so frequently the case with men of inventive genius, become so poisoned with the hopes of vast wealth as to be disqualified for making a reasonable provision for life by the sober earnings of private industry. The enterprise which he selected in accordance with these views was the manufacture of arms for the United States. Through Oliver Wolcott, then Secretary of the Treasury, he obtained a contract for the manufacture of 10,000 stand of arms, 4,000 of which were to be delivered before the last of September of the ensuing year, 1799. Whitney purchased for his works a site called East Rock, near New Haven, now known as Whitneyville, and justly admired for the romantic beauty of its scenery. A water-fall offered the necessary power for the machinery.

Here he began operations with great zeal. His machinery was yet to be built, his material collected, and even his workmen to be taught, and that in a business with which he was imperfectly acquainted.

A severe winter retarded his operations and rendered him incompetent to fulfil the contract. Only 500 instead of 4,000 stands were delivered the first year, and eight years instead of two were found necessary for completing the whole. During the eight years Whitney was occupied in performing this work, he applied himself to business with the most exemplary diligence, rising every morning as soon as it was day, and at night setting everything in order in all parts of the establishment. His genius impressed itself on every part of the factory, extending even to the most common tools, most of which received some peculiar modification which improved them in accuracy or efficiency. His machines for making the several parts of the musket were made to operate with the greatest possible degree of uniformity and precision. The object at which he aimed, and which he fully accomplished, was to make the same parts of different guns, as the locks, for instance, as much like each other as the successive impressions of a copper-plate engraving, and it has generally been considered that Whitney greatly improved the way of manufacturing arms and laid his country under permanent obligations by augmenting our facilities for national defence. In 1812 he made a contract to manufacture for the United States 15,000 stand of arms, and in the meantime a similar contract with the State of New York. Several other persons made contracts with the Government at about the same time and attempted the manufacture of muskets. The result of their efforts was a complete failure, and in some instances they expended a considerable fortune in addition to the amount received for their work. In 1822 Calhoun, then Secretary of War, admitted in a conversation with Whitney that the Government was saving $25,000 a year at the public armories alone by his improvements, and it should be remembered that the utility of Whitney's labors during this part of his life was not limited to this particular business.

In 1812 Whitney made application to Congress for the renewal of his patent for the cotton-gin. In his memorial he presented the history of the struggles he had been forced to make in defence of his rights, observing that he had been unable to obtain any decision on the merits of his claim until thirteen years of his patent had expired. He states also 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 furnished to the whole family of mankind, at a very cheap rate, the most essential material for their clothing. Although so great advantages had already been experienced, and the prospect of future benefits was so promising, still, many of those whose interest had been most promoted and the value of whose property had been most enhanced by this invention, had obstinately persisted in refusing to make any compensation to the inventor. From the State in which he had first made, and where, he had first introduced his machine, and which had derived the most signal benefits--Georgia--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 a 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. He continues:

"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 the use of it. Up to the present time the whole amount of what he had 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."

Notwithstanding these cogent arguments, the application was rejected by the courts. Some liberal-minded and enlightened men from the cotton districts favored the petition, but a majority of the members from that part of the Union were warmly opposed to granting it. In a letter to Robert Fulton, Whitney says:

"The difficulties with which I have to contend have originated, principally, in the want of a disposition in mankind to do justice. 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 no difficulty in causing my right 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. Demagogues made themselves popular by misrepresentations 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."

Such perseverance, patience, and uncommon skill were not, however, to go wholly unrewarded. Whitney's factory of arms in New Haven made money for him, and the Southern States were not all guilty of ingratitude. Moreover, in his private life he was extremely fortunate. In January, 1817, he married Henrietta Edwards, the youngest daughter of Judge Pierpont Edwards, of Connecticut. A son and three daughters contributed to the sunshine of the close of a somewhat stormy and eventful life. His last years were his happiest. He found prosperity and honor in New Haven, where he died on January 8, 1825, after a tedious illness.

In person Whitney was of more than usual height, with much dignity of manner and an open, pleasant face. Among his particular friends no man was more esteemed. Some of the earliest of his intimate associates were among the latest. His sense of honor was high, and his feeling of resentment and indignation under injustice correspondingly strong. He could, however, be cool when his opponents were hot, and his strong sense of the injuries he had suffered did not impair the natural serenity of his temper. The value of his famous invention has so steadily grown that its money importance to this country can scarcely be estimated in figures. His tomb in New Haven is after a model of that of Scipio, at Rome, and bears the following inscription:

ELI WHITNEY,

THE INVENTOR OF THE COTTON-GIN.

OF USEFUL SCIENCE AND ARTS, THE EFFICIENT PATRON AND IMPROVER.

IN THE SOCIAL RELATIONS OF LIFE, A MODEL OF EXCELLENCE.

WHILE PRIVATE AFFECTION WEEPS AT HIS TOMB, HIS COUNTRY HONORS HIS MEMORY.

BORN DEC. 8, 1765. DIED JAN. 8, 1825.

IV

ELIAS HOWE.

In looking over the history of great inventions it is remarkable how uniformly those discoveries that helped mankind most have been derided, abused, and opposed by the very classes which in the end they were destined to bless. Nearly every great invention has had literally to be forced into popular acceptance. The bowmen of the Middle Ages resisted the introduction of the musket; the sedan-chair carriers would not allow hackney carriages to be used; the stagecoach lines attempted by all possible devices to block the advance of the railway. When, in 1707, Dr. Papin showed his first rude conception of a steamboat, it was seized by the boatmen, who feared that it would deprive them of a living. Kay was mobbed in Lancashire when he tried to introduce his fly-shuttle; Hargreaves had his spinning-frame destroyed by a Blackburn mob; Crampton had to hide his spinning-mule in a lumber-room for fear of a similar fate; Arkwright, the inventor of the spinning-frame, was denounced as the enemy of the working-classes and his mill destroyed; Jacquard narrowly escaped being thrown into the river Rhone by a crowd of furious weavers when his new loom was first put into operation; Cartwright had to abandon his power-loom for years because of the bitter animosity of the weavers toward it. Riots were organized in Nottingham against the use of the stocking-loom.

It is not therefore surprising that the greatest labor-saving machine of domestic life, the sewing-machine, should have been received with anything but thanks. Howe was abused, ridiculed, and denounced as the enemy of man, and especially of poor sewing-women, the very class whose toil he has done so much to lighten. Curses instead of blessings were showered upon him during the first years that followed the successful working of his wonderful machine. Fortunately for the inventor, the age of persecution had almost passed, and Howe lived to receive the rewards he so fully deserved.

Elias Howe, Jr., was born in Spencer, Mass., in 1819. His father was a farmer and miller, and the eight children of the family, as was common with all poor people of the time, were early taught to do light work of one kind or another. When Elias was six years old he was set with his brothers and sisters at sticking wire teeth through the leather straps used for cotton-cards. When older he helped his father in the mill, and in summer picked up a little book knowledge at the district school. As a boy he was frail in constitution, and he was slightly lame. When eleven years old he attempted farm labor for a neighbor, but, was not strong enough for it and returned to his father's mill, where he remained until he was sixteen. It was here that he first began to like machinery. A friend who had visited Lowell gave him such an account of that bustling city and its big mills that young Howe, becoming dissatisfied, obtained his father's consent to leave, and found employment in one of the Lowell cotton-mills. The financial crash of 1837 stopped the looms, and Howe obtained a place in a Cambridge machine-shop in which his cousin, Nathaniel P. Banks, afterward Governor of Massachusetts, also worked. Howe's first job happened to be upon a new hemp-carding machine of Treadwell.

At the age of twenty-one Howe married and moved to Boston, finding employment in the machine-shop of Ari Davis. He is described as being a capital workman, more full of resources than of plodding industry, however, and rather apt to spend more time in suggesting a better way of doing a job than in following instructions. With such a disposition, and inasmuch as his suggestions were not considered of value, he had rather a hard time of it. Three children were born to the young couple. As Howe's earnings were slight and his health none of the best, his wife tried to add to the family income, and at evening, when Howe lay exhausted upon the bed after his day's work, the young mother patiently sewed. Her toil was to some purpose. With his natural bent for mechanics, Howe could not be a silent witness of this incessant and poorly paid labor without becoming interested in affording aid. Moreover, he was constantly employed upon new spinning and weaving machines for doing work that for thousands of years had been done painfully and slowly by hand. The possibility of sewing by machinery had often been spoken of before that day, but the problem seemed to present insuperable difficulties.

Elias Howe had, as we know, peculiar fitness for such work. He had seen much of inventors and inventions, and knew something of the dangers and disappointments in store for him. In the intervals between important jobs at the shop he nursed the idea of a sewing-machine, keeping his own counsel. In his first rude attempt it appeared to him, that machine-sewing could only be accomplished with very coarse thread or string; fine thread would not stand the strain. For his first machine he made a needle pointed at both ends, with an eye in the middle; it was arranged to work up and down, carrying the thread through at each thrust. It was only after more than a year's work upon this device that he decided it would not do. This first attempt was a sort of imitation of sewing by hand, the machine following more or less the movements of the hand. Finally, after repeated failures, it became plain to him that something radically different was needed, and that there must be another stitch, and perhaps another needle or half a dozen needles, in such a machine. He then conceived the idea of using two threads, and making the stitch by means of a shuttle and a curved needle with the eye near the point. This was the real solution of the problem. In October, 1844, he made a rough model of his first sewing-machine, all of wood and wire, and found that it would actually sew.

In one of the earliest accounts of the invention it is thus described: "He used a needle and a shuttle of novel construction, and combined them with holding surfaces, feed mechanism, and other devices as they had never before been brought together in one machine.... One of the principal features of Mr. Howe's invention is the combination of a grooved needle having an eye near its point, and vibrating in the direction of its length, with a side-pointed shuttle for effecting a locked stitch, and forming, with the threads, one on each side of the cloth, a firm and lasting seam not easily ripped."

Meanwhile Howe had given up work as a machinist and had moved to his father's house in Cambridge, where the elder Howe had a shop for the cutting of palm-leaf used in the manufacture of hats. Here Elias and his little family lived, and in the garret the inventor put up a lathe upon which he made the parts of his sewing-machine. To provide for his family he did such odd jobs as he could find; but it was hard work to get bread, to say nothing of butter, and to make matters worse his father lost his shop by fire. Elias knew that his sewing-machine would work, but he had no money wherewith to buy the materials for a machine of steel and iron, and without such a machine he could not hope to interest capital in it. He needed at least $500 with which to prove the value of his great invention.

Fortune threw in his way a coal and wood dealer of Cambridge, named Fisher, who had some money. Fisher liked the invention and agreed to board Howe and his family, to give Howe a workshop in his house, and to advance the $500 necessary for the construction of a first machine. In return he was to become a half owner in the patent should Howe succeed in obtaining one. In December, 1844, Howe accordingly moved into Fisher's house, and here the new marvel was brought into the world. All that winter Howe worked over his device in Fisher's garret, making many changes as unforeseen difficulties arose. He worked all day, and sometimes nearly all night, succeeding by April, 1845, in sewing a seam four yards long with his machine. By the middle of May the machine was completed, and in July Howe sewed with it the seams of two woollen suits, one for himself and the other for Fisher; the sewing was so well done that it promised to outlast the cloth. For many years this machine was exhibited in a shop in New York. It showed how completely, at really the first attempt, Howe had mastered the enormous difficulties in his way. Its chief features are those upon which were founded all the sewing-machines that followed.

Late in 1845 Howe obtained his first patent and began to take means to introduce his sewing-machine to the public. He first offered it to the tailors of Boston, who admitted its usefulness, but assured him that it would never be adopted, as it would ruin their trade. Other efforts were equally unsuccessful; the more perfectly the machine did its work, the more obstinate and determined seemed to be the resistance to it. Everyone admitted and praised the ingenuity of the invention, but no one would invest a dollar in it. Fisher became disheartened and withdrew from the partnership, and Howe and his family moved back into his father's house.