The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

"1791. One hundred eighty-nine thousand five hundred (189,500) pounds imported into Liverpool, the price averaging here 26 cents.

"1792. One hundred thirty-eight thousand three hundred twenty-eight (138,328) pounds imported into Liverpool."

Great difficulty was experienced in separating the seed from the lint of upland cotton. The work was done by hand, the task being four pounds of lint cotton per week from each head of a family, in addition to the usual field-work. This would amount to one bale in two years. A French planter of Louisiana (Dubreuil) is said to have invented a machine for separating lint and seed as early as 1742. The demand for such a machine not being very great at that date, no record as to its character has been preserved. The roller-gin, in very much the same form as Nearchus, the admiral of Alexander the Great, found it in India, was still in use. In 1790 Dr. Joseph Eve, originally from the Bahamas, but then a resident of Augusta, Georgia, made great improvements on this ancient machine, and adapted it to be run by horse- or water-power. A correspondent of the American Museum, writing from Charleston, South Carolina, in July of that year, states "that a gentleman well acquainted with the cotton manufacture had already completed and in operation, on the high hills of Santee, near Statesburg, ginning, carding, and other machines driven by water, and also spinning-machines with eighty-five spindles each, with every article necessary for manufacturing cotton." A machine dating anterior to this year, and having a strong resemblance to the above, possessing in fact all the essentials of a modern cotton-gin, was exhibited at the Atlanta Exposition in 1882. It came from the neighborhood of Statesburg, but its history could not be ascertained.

In 1793 Eli Whitney petitioned for a patent for the invention of the saw cotton-gin. His claims were disputed, and he defended them in the State and Federal courts for nearly a generation, obtaining at last a verdict in his favor. Meanwhile the saw-gin had become an established fact, and the planter at last had a machine which enabled him to produce cotton at a cost that would leave him a good profit. The first saw-gin to be run by water-power was erected in 1795 by James Kincaid near Monticello, in Fairfield County, South Carolina. Others were put up near Columbia by Wade Hampton, Sr., in 1797, and in the year following he gathered and ginned from six hundred acres six hundred bales of cotton.

The cotton exportation from the United States increased from four hundred eighty-seven thousand six hundred pounds in 1793 to one million six hundred thousand pounds in 1794, the year in which Whitney's gin was patented. In 1796, a year after he had improved his machine, the production had risen to ten million pounds. In fact, the increased production was so great that the planters began to fear they would overstock the market, and one of them, upon looking at his newly gathered crop, exclaimed: "Well, I have done with cultivation of cotton; there's enough in that gin-house to make stockings for all the people in America." Yet the production of cotton did not advance with that rapidity to which we are now accustomed.

The cotton industry being of secondary importance prior to 1790, information and statistics relative to the amount produced are not available, but within one hundred years, from 1790 to 1890, the production of cotton in the United States increased from five thousand bales to over ten million bales.

The first cotton-mill erected in the United States was built at Beverly, Massachusetts, in 1787-1788. This was soon followed by others in various towns along the east border of the country, especially Pawtucket and Providence, Rhode Island; Boston, Massachusetts; New Haven and Norwich, Connecticut; New York City; Paterson, New Jersey; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Statesburg, South Carolina. In them carding and spinning were done by machinery, but the weaving was on hand-looms until 1815, at which date a power-loom mill was started at Waltham, Massachusetts. The use of hand-looms and spinning-wheels for cotton manufacture was common in all parts of the country before the Revolution, especially in the Southern colonies, and these continued to be used by the women in their houses many years after the erection of cotton factories.

DENISON OLMSTED

Mr. Whitney had scarcely set his foot in Georgia when 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 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 at 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.