Note 455 — Chapter II · SPINNING AND WEAVING—MARVELLOUS SKILL DISPLAYED IN THESE ARTS.

To the efforts of Eli Whitney, America is indebted for the value of her great staple. While the invention of the cotton gin has been the chief source of the prosperity of the Southern planter, the Northern manufacturer comes in for a large share of the benefits derived from this most important offspring of American ingenuity.

Eli Whitney, who may with justice be considered one of the most ingenious and extraordinary men that ever lived, was born in Westborough, Worcester County, Massachusetts, December 8th, 1765. His parents belonged to that respectable class in society, who, by the labors of husbandry, manage, by uniform industry, to provide well for a rising family,—a class from whom have risen most of those who, in New England, have attained to high eminence and usefulness.

Although Mr. Whitney’s machines have benefited the people of this country, and the world at large, millions upon millions, yet, it is to be lamented that he did not reap that reward which his ingenuity and industry, as well as virtuous course of conduct so richly merited, but died much involved in debt, while thousands who had conspired to defraud him of his just and lawful rights, were enriched by the use of his machines.

“If we should assert,” said Judge William Johnson, “that the benefits of this invention (the Cotton gin) exceed $100,000,000, we can prove the assertion by correct calculation.”

Who is there that, like him, has given his country and the world a machine—the product of his own skill—which has furnished a large part of its population, from childhood to age, with a lucrative employment; by which their debts have been paid off; their capitals increased; their lands trebled in value?

Mr. Whitney died on the 8th of January 1825, and is buried in the cemetery of New Haven, Connecticut. His tomb is after the model of Scipio’s at Rome. It is simple and beautiful, and promises to endure for years. It 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 DECEMBER 8TH, 1765.—DIED JAN. 8TH, 1825.

The convention of American Geologists and Naturalists who met at New Haven in May last (1845.), were invited, together with their ladies, by Mrs. Whitney, the widow of the inventor of the Cotton gin, to attend an evening party at her house, which was accepted, where they had an elegant supper and conversazione.

“It is melancholy,” says Mr. Bains in his History of the Cotton Manufacture, p. 114, “to contrast with the sanguine eagerness of inventors, the slowness of mankind to acknowledge and reward their merits,—to observe how, on many occasions, genius, instead of realizing fame and fortune, has been pursued by disaster and opposition,—how trifling difficulties have frustrated the success of splendid discoveries,—and how those discoveries, snatched from the grasp of their broken-hearted authors, have brought princely fortunes to men whose only talent was in making money. When inventors fail in their projects, no one pities them; when they succeed, persecution, envy, and jealousy are their reward. Their means are generally exhausted before their discoveries become productive. They plant a vineyard, and either starve, or are driven from their inheritance, before they can gather the fruit.”

Would it not be greatly to the credit of the cotton manufacturing interest in this country and in Europe, to present Mrs. Whitney with some token of their respect and veneration for the memory of the inventor of the Cotton gin?