INVENTORS

MEN OF ACHIEVEMENT SERIES

TRAVELLERS AND EXPLORERS. By
General A.W. Greely, U.S.A.

STATESMEN. By Noah Brooks.

MEN OF BUSINESS. By W.O. Stoddard.

INVENTORS. By P.G. Hubert, Jr.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

MEN OF ACHIEVEMENT

INVENTORS

BY
PHILIP G. HUBERT, Jr.

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1896

Copyright, 1893, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

Press of J.J. Little & Co.
Astor Place, New York

PREFACE

This book, dealing with our great inventors, their origins, hopes, aims, principles, disappointments, trials, and triumphs, their daily life and personal character, presents just enough concerning their inventions to make the story intelligible. The history is often a painful one. When poor Goodyear, the inventor of vulcanized rubber, was one day asked what he wanted to make of his boys, he is said to have replied: "Make them anything but inventors; mankind has nothing but cuffs and kicks for those who try to do it a service."

Meanwhile, the value of the work done by great inventors is widely acknowledged. In a remarkable sketch of the history of civilization, Professor Huxley remarked, in 1887, that the wonderful increase of industrial production by the application of machinery, the improvement of old technical processes and the invention of new ones, constitutes the most salient feature of the world's progress during the last fifty years. If this was true a few years ago, its truth is still more apparent to-day. It is safe to say that within fifty years power, light, and heat will cost half, perhaps one-tenth, of what they do now; and this virtually means that in 1943 mankind will be able to buy decent food, shelter, and clothing for half or one-tenth of the labor now required. Steam is said to have reduced the working hours of man in the civilized world from fourteen to ten a day. Electricity will mark the next giant step in advance.

With the many and superb tools now at our service, of which our fathers knew comparatively nothing—steam, electricity, the telegraph, telephone, phonograph, and the camera—we and our descendants ought to accomplish even greater wonders than these. As invention thus rises in the scale of importance to humanity, the history of the pioneers and, to the shame of mankind be it said, the martyrs of the art, becomes of intense interest. In the annals of hero-worship the inventor of the perfecting press ought to stand before the great general, and Elias Howe should rank before Napoleon. Whitney, Howe, Morse, and Goodyear, to mention but a few of our Americans, contributed thousands of millions of dollars to the nation's wealth and received comparatively nothing in return. Their history suggests as pertinent the inquiry whether our patent laws do not need a radical change. The burden and cost of proving that an invention deserves no protection ought to fall upon whoever infringes a patent granted by the Government. At present it is all the other way.

P.G.H., Jr.

New York, September, 1893.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FULL-PAGE

ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT

INVENTORS

I.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

Benjamin Franklin's activity and resource in the field of invention really partook of the intellectual breadth of the man of whom Turgot wrote:

"Eripuit cœlo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis."

"He snatched the thunderbolt from heaven,
And the sceptre from the hands of tyrants."

And of which bit of verse Franklin once dryly remarked, that as to the thunder, he left it where he found it, and that more than a million of his countrymen co-operated with him in snatching the sceptre. Those persons who knew Franklin, the inventor, only as the genius to whom we owe the lightning-rod, will be amazed at the range of his activity. For half a century his mind seems to have been on the alert concerning the why and wherefore of every phenomenon for which the explanation was not apparent. Nothing in nature failed to interest him. Had he lived in an era of patents he might have rivalled Edison in the number of his patentable devices, and had he chosen to make money from such devices, his gains would certainly have been fabulous. As a matter of fact, Franklin never applied for a patent, though frequently urged to do so, and he made no money by his inventions. One of the most popular of these, the Franklin stove, which device, after a half-century of disuse, is now again popular, he made a present to his early friend, Robert Grace, an iron founder, who made a business of it. The Governor of Pennsylvania offered to give Franklin a monopoly of the sale of these stoves for a number of years. "But I declined it," writes the inventor, "from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz.: That as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously. An ironmonger in London, however, assuming a good deal of my pamphlet (describing the principle and working of the stove), and working it up into his own, and making some small change in the machine, which rather hurt its operation, got a patent for it there, and made, as I was told, a little fortune by it."

The Franklin Stove.

The complete list of inventions, devices, and improvements of which Franklin was the originator, or a leading spirit and contributor, is so long a one that a dozen pages would not suffice for it. I give here a brief summary, as compiled by Parton in his excellent "Life of Franklin." "It is incredible," Franklin once wrote, "the quantity of good that may be done in a country by a single man who will make a business of it and not suffer himself to be diverted from that purpose by different avocations, studies, or amusements." As a commentary upon this sentiment, here is a catalogue of the achievements of Benjamin Franklin that may fairly come under the title of inventions:

He established and inspired the Junto, the most useful and pleasant American club of which we have knowledge.

He founded the Philadelphia Library, parent of a thousand libraries, and which marked the beginning of an intellectual movement of endless good to the whole country.

He first turned to great account the engine of advertising, an indispensable element in modern business.

He published "Poor Richard," a record of homely wisdom in such shape that hundreds of thousands of readers were made better and stronger by it.

He created the post-office system of America, and was the first champion of a reformed spelling.

He invented the Franklin stove, which economized fuel, and suggested valuable improvements in ventilation and the building of chimneys.

He robbed thunder of its terrors and lightning of some of its power to destroy.

He founded the American Philosophical Society, the first organization in America of the friends of science.

He suggested the use of mineral manures, introduced the basket willow, promoted the early culture of silk, and pointed out the advisability of white clothing in hot weather.

He measured the temperature of the Gulf Stream, and discovered that northeast storms may begin in the southwest.

He pointed out the advantage of building ships in water-tight compartments, taking the hint from the Chinese, and first urged the use of oil as a means of quieting dangerous seas.

Besides these great achievements, accomplished largely as recreation from his life work as economist and statesman, Benjamin Franklin helped the whole race of inventors by a remark that has been of incalculable value and comfort to theorists and dreamers the world over. When someone spoke rather contemptuously in Franklin's presence of Montgolfier's balloon experiments, and asked of what use they were, the great American replied in words now historic: "Of what use is a new-born babe?"

"This self-taught American," said Lord Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh Review of July, 1806, "is the most rational, perhaps, of all philosophers. He never loses sight of common sense in any of his speculations. No individual, perhaps, ever possessed a greater understanding, or was so seldom obstructed in the use of it by indolence, enthusiasm, or authority. Dr. Franklin received no regular education; and he spent the greater part of his life in a society where there was no relish and no encouragement for literature. On an ordinary mind, these circumstances would have produced their usual effects, of repressing all sorts of intellectual ambition or activity, and perpetuating a generation of incurious mechanics; but to an understanding like Franklin's, we cannot help considering them as peculiarly propitious, and imagine that we can trace back to them distinctly almost all the peculiarities of his intellectual character."

Franklin's Birthplace, Boston.

The main outlines of Franklin's life and career are so familiar to everyone, that I may as well pass at once to the story of his work as an inventor. We all know, or ought to know, that Benjamin, the fifteenth child of Josiah Franklin, the Boston soap-boiler, was born in that town on the 17th of January, 1706, and established himself as a printer in Philadelphia in 1728. That he prospered and founded the Gazette a few years later, and became Postmaster of Philadelphia in 1737; that after valuable services to the Colonies as their agent in England, he was appointed United States Minister at the Court of France upon the Declaration of Independence; and that in 1782 he had the supreme satisfaction of signing at Paris the treaty of peace with England by which the independence of the Colonies was assured. That he died full of honors at Philadelphia in April, 1790, and that Congress, as a testimony of the gratitude of the Thirteen States and of their sorrow for his loss, appointed a general mourning throughout the States for a period of two months.

Franklin Entering Philadelphia.

The great invention or discovery which entitles Benjamin Franklin to rank at the head of American inventors was, of course, the identification of lightning with electricity, and his suggestion of metallic conductors so arranged as to render the discharge from the clouds a harmless one. In order to appreciate the originality and value of this discovery, it is necessary to review briefly what the world knew of the subject at that day.

For a hundred years before Franklin's time, electricity had been studied in Europe without much distinct progress resulting. A thousand experiments had been performed and described. Gunpowder had been exploded by the spark from a lady's finger, and children had been insulated by hanging them from the ceiling by silk cords. A tolerable machine had been devised for exciting electricity, though most experimenters still used a glass tube. Several volumes of electrical observations and experiments had appeared, and yet what had been done was little more than a repetition on a larger scale, and with better means, of the original experiment of rubbing a piece of amber on the sleeve of the philosopher's coat. Experimenters in 1745 could produce a more powerful spark and play a greater variety of tricks with it than Dr. Gilbert, the English experimenter of 1600, but that was about all the advantage they had over him.

So-called experts had attempted, with more or less satisfaction to themselves, to answer the question addressed by the mad Lear to poor Tom: "Let me talk with this philosopher. What is the cause of thunder?" Pliny thought he had explained it when he called it an earthquake in the air. Dr. Lister announced that lightning was caused by the sudden ignition of immense quantities of fine floating sulphur. Jonathan Edwards, in his diary of 1722, records the popular impression of the day upon this subject: "Lightning," he says, "seem to be an almost infinitely fine combustible matter, that floats in the air, that takes fire by sudden and mighty fermentation, that is some way promoted by the cool and moisture, and perhaps attraction of the clouds. By this sudden agitation, this fine floating matter is driven forth with a mighty force one way or other, whichever way it is directed, by the circumstances and temperature of the circumjacent air; for cold and heat, density and rarity, moisture and dryness, have almost an infinitely strong influence upon the fine particles of matter. This fluid matter thus projected, still fermenting to the same degree, divides the air as it goes, and every moment receives a new impulse by the continued fermentation; and as its motion received its direction, at first, from the different temperature of the air on different sides, so its direction is changed, according to the temperature of the air it meets with, which renders the path of the lightning so crooked."

Even this explanation was a daring bit of speculation in Jonathan Edwards, for thunder and lightning were then commonly regarded as the physical expression of God's wrath against the insects He had created.

Mr. Peter Collinson, the London agent of the library that Franklin had founded in Philadelphia in 1732, was accustomed to send over with the annual parcel of books any work or curious object that chanced to be in vogue in London at the time. In 1746 he sent one of the new electrical tubes with a paper of directions for using it. The tubes then commonly used were two feet and a half long, and as thick as a man could conveniently grasp. They were rubbed with a piece of cloth or buckskin, and held in contact with the object to be charged. Franklin had already seen one of these tubes in Boston, and had been astonished by its properties. No sooner, therefore, was it unpacked at the Library, than he repeated the experiments he had seen in Boston, as well as those described by Collinson. The subject completely fascinated him. He gave himself up to it. Procuring other tubes, he distributed them among his friends and set them all rubbing. "I never," he writes in 1747, "was before engaged in any study that so totally engrossed my attention and my time as this has done; for what with making experiments when I can be alone, and repeating to my friends and acquaintances, who, from the novelty of the thing, come continually in crowds to see them; I have during some months past had little leisure for anything else."

Franklin claimed no credit for what he achieved in electricity. During the winter of 1746-7 he and his friends experimented frequently, and observed electrical attraction and repulsion with care. That electricity was not created, but only collected by friction, was one of their first conjectures, the correctness of which they soon demonstrated by a number of experiments. Before having heard of the Leyden jar coated with tin-foil, these Philadelphia experimenters substituted granulated lead for the water employed by Professor Maschenbroeck. They fired spirits and lighted candles with the electric spark. They performed rare tricks with a spider made of burnt cork. Philip Syng mounted one of the tubes upon a crank and employed a cannon-ball as a prime conductor, thus obtaining the same result without much tedious rubbing of the tube.

The summer of 1747 was devoted to preparing the province for defence. But during the following winter the Philadelphians resumed their experiments. The wondrous Leyden jar was the object of Franklin's constant observation. His method of work is well shown in his own account of an experiment during this winter. The jar used was Maschenbroeck's original device of a bottle of water with a wire running through the cork.

"Purposing," writes Franklin, "to analyse the electrified bottle, in order to find wherein its strength lay, we placed it on glass, and drew out the cork and wire, which for that purpose had been loosely put in. Then, taking the bottle in one hand, and bringing a finger of the other near its mouth, a strong spark came from the water, and the shock was as violent as if the wire had remained in it, which showed that the force did not lie in the wire. Then, to find if it resided in the water, being crowded into and condensed in it, as confined by the glass, which had been our former opinion, we electrified the bottle again, and placing it on glass, drew out the wire and cork as before; then, taking up the bottle, we decanted all its water into an empty bottle, which likewise stood on glass; and taking up that other bottle, we expected, if the force resided in the water, to find a shock from it. But there was none. We judged then that it must either be lost in decanting or remain in the first bottle. The latter we found to be true; for that bottle on trial gave the shock, though filled up as it stood with fresh unelectrified water from a tea-pot. To find, then, whether glass had this property merely as glass, or whether the form contributed anything to it, we took a pane of sash glass, and laying it on the hand, placed a plate of lead on its upper surface; then electrified that plate, and bringing a finger to it, there was a spark and shock. We then took two plates of lead of equal dimensions, but less than the glass by two inches every way, and electrified the glass between them, by electrifying the uppermost lead; then separated the glass from the lead, in doing which, what little fire might be in the lead was taken out, and the glass being touched in the electrified parts with a finger, afforded only very small pricking sparks, but a great number of them might be taken from different places. Then dexterously placing it again between the leaden plates, and completing a circle between the two surfaces, a violent shock ensued; which demonstrated the power to reside in glass as glass, and that the non-electrics in contact served only, like the armature of a loadstone, to unite the force of the several parts, and bring them at once to any point desired; it being the property of a non-electric, that the whole body instantly receives or gives what electrical fire is given to, or taken from, any one of its parts.

"Upon this we made what we called an electrical battery, consisting of eleven panes of large sash glass, armed with thin leaden plates, pasted on each side, placed vertically, and supported at two inches' distance on silk cords, with thick hooks of leaden wire, one from each side, standing upright, distant from each other, and convenient communications of wire and chain, from the giving side of one pane to the receiving side of the other; that so the whole might be charged together with the same labor as one single pane."

In 1748 Franklin, being then forty-two years old, and in the enjoyment of an ample income from his business as printer and publisher, sold out to his foreman, David Hall, and was free to devote himself wholly to his beloved experiments. He had built himself a home in a retired spot on the outskirts of Philadelphia, and with an income which in our days would be equivalent to $15,000 or $20,000 a year, he was considered a fairly rich man. Having thus settled his business affairs in a manner which proved that he knew perfectly well what money was worth, he took up his electrical studies again and extended them from the machine to the part played in nature by electricity. The patience with which he observed the electrical phenomena of the heavens, the acuteness displayed by him in drawing plausible inferences from his observations, and the rapidity with which he arrived at all that we now know of thunder and lightning, still excite the astonishment of all who read the narratives he has left us of his proceedings. During the whole winter of 1748-49 and the summer following, he was feeling his way to his final conclusions on the subject. Early in 1749 he drew up a series of fifty-six observations, entitled "Observations and Suppositions towards forming a new Hypothesis for explaining the several Phenomena of Thundergusts." Nearly all that he afterward demonstrated on this subject is anticipated in this truly remarkable paper, which was soon followed by the most famous of all his electrical writings, that entitled "Opinions and Conjectures concerning the Properties and Effects of the Electrical Matter, and the Means of preserving Buildings, Ships, etc., from Lightning; arising from Experiments and Observations made at Philadelphia, 1749."

Franklin sets forth in this masterly paper the similarity of electricity and lightning, and the property of points to draw off electricity. It is this treatise which contains the two suggestions that gave to the name of Franklin its first celebrity. Both suggestions are contained in one brief passage, which follows the description of a splendid experiment, in which a miniature lightning-rod had conducted harmlessly away the electricity of an artificial thunder-storm.

"If these things are so," continues the philosopher, after stating the results of his experiment, "may not the knowledge of this power of points be of use to mankind in preserving houses, churches, ships, etc., from the stroke of lightning, by directing us to fix on the highest part of those edifices upright rods of iron, made sharp as a needle and gilt to prevent rusting, and from the foot of those rods, a wire down the outside of the building into the ground, or down round one of the shrouds of a ship, and down her side till it reaches the water? Would not these pointed rods probably draw the electrical fire silently out of a cloud before it came nigh enough to strike, and thereby secure us from that most sudden and terrible mischief?"

The second of these immortal suggestions was one that immediately arrested the attention of European electricians when the paper was published. It was in these words:

"To determine the question, whether the clouds that contain lightning are electrified or not, I would propose an experiment to be tried where it may be done conveniently. On the top of some high tower or steeple, place a kind of sentry-box, big enough to contain a man and an electric stand. From the middle of the stand let an iron rod rise and pass, bending out of the door, and then upright twenty or thirty feet, pointed very sharp at the end. If the electrical stand be kept clean and dry, a man standing on it, when such clouds are passing low, might be electrified and afford sparks, the rod drawing fire to him from a cloud. If any danger to the man should be apprehended (though I think there would be none), let him stand on the floor of his box, and now and then bring near to the rod the loop of a wire that has one end fastened to the leads, he holding it by a wax handle; so the sparks, if the rod is electrified, will strike from the rod to the wire and not affect him."

A friend once asked Franklin how he came to hit upon such an idea. His reply was to quote an extract from the minutes he kept of the experiments he made. This extract, dated November 7, 1749, was as follows: "Electrical fluid agrees with lightning in these particulars: 1. Giving light. 2. Color of the light. 3. Crooked direction. 4. Swift motion. 5. Being conducted by metals. 6. Crack or noise in exploding. 7. Subsisting in water or ice. 8. Rending bodies it passes through. 9. Destroying animals. 10. Melting metals. 11. Firing inflammable substances. 12. Sulphurous smell. The electric fluid is attracted by points. We do not know whether this property is in lightning. But since they agree in all the particulars wherein we can already compare them, is it not probable they agree likewise in this? Let the experiment be made."

In this discovery, therefore, there was nothing of chance; it was a legitimate deduction from patiently accumulated facts.

It was not until the spring of 1752 that Franklin thought of making his suggested experiment with a kite. The country around Philadelphia presents no high hills, and he was not aware till later that the roof of any dwelling-house would have answered as well as the peak of Teneriffe. There were no steeples in Philadelphia at that day. The vestry of Christ Church talked about erecting a steeple, but it was not begun until 1753. On the 15th of June, 1752, Franklin decided to fly that immortal kite. Wishing to avoid the ridicule of a failure, he took no one with him except his son, who, by the way, was not the small boy shown in countless pictures of the incident, but a stalwart young man of twenty-two. The kite had been made of a large silk handkerchief, and fitted out with a piece of sharpened iron wire. Part of the string was of hemp, and the part to be held in the hand was of silk. At the end of the hempen string was tied a key, and in a convenient shed was a Leyden jar in which to collect some of the electricity from the clouds. When the first thunder-laden clouds reached the kite, there were no signs of electricity from Franklin's key, but just as he had begun to doubt the success of the experiment, he saw the fibres of the hempen string begin to rise. Approaching his hand to the key, he got an electric spark, and was then able to charge the Leyden jar and get a stronger shock. Then the happy philosopher drew in his wet kite and went home to write his modest account of one of the most notable experiments made by man.

Franklin's fame as the first to suggest the identity of lightning and electricity would have been safe, however, even without the famous kite-flying achievement. A month before that June thunderstorm his suggestions had been put into practice in Europe with complete success. Mr. Peter Collinson, to whom Franklin addressed from time to time long letters about his experiments and conjectures, had caused them to be read at the meetings of the Royal Society, of which he (Collinson) was a member. That learned body, however, did not deem them worthy of publication among its transactions, and a letter of Franklin's containing the substance of his conjectures respecting lightning was laughed at. The only news that reached Philadelphia concerning these letters was that Watson and other English experimenters did not agree with Franklin. It was only in May, 1751, that a pamphlet was finally published in London, entitled "New Experiments and Observations in Electricity, made at Philadelphia, in America." A copy having been presented to the Royal Society, Watson was requested to make an abstract of its contents, which he did, giving generous praise to the author.

Before the year came to a close Franklin was famous. There was something in the drawing down, for mere experiment, of the dread electricity of heaven that appealed not less powerfully to the imagination of the ignorant than to the understanding of the learned. And the marvel was the greater that the bold idea should have come from so remote a place as Philadelphia. By a unanimous vote the Royal Society elected Franklin a member, and the next year bestowed upon him the Copley medal. Yale College and then Harvard bestowed upon him the honorary degree of Master of Arts.

The Franklin Penny.

As might have been expected, there was no lack of opposition to the new doctrine of lightning-rods. Every new movement of radical character is denounced more or less fiercely. The last years of Newton's life were perplexed by the charge that his theory of gravitation tended to "materialize" religion. Insuring houses against fire was opposed as an interference with the prerogatives of deity. The establishment of the Royal Society was opposed upon the ground that the study of natural philosophy, grounded, as it was, upon experimental evidence, tended to weaken the force of evidence not so founded; and this objection was deemed of sufficient weight to call for serious answer. Franklin's daring proposal to neutralize the "artillery of heaven," of course could not escape, and the impiety of lightning-rods was widely discussed, often with acrimony. Mr. Kinnersley, one of Franklin's friends, who lectured for several years upon electricity, when advertising the outline of his subject always announced his intention to show that the erection of lightning-rods was "not chargeable with presumption nor inconsistent with any of the principles either of natural or revealed religion." Quincy relates in his "History of Harvard College," that in November, 1755, a shock of earthquake having been felt in New England, a Boston clergyman preached a sermon on the subject, in which he contended that the lightning-rods, by accumulating the electricity in the earth, had caused the earthquake. Professor Winthrop, of Harvard, thought it worth while to defend Franklin. "In 1770," Mr. Quincy adds, "another Boston clergyman opposed the use of the rods on the ground that, as the lightning was one of the means of punishing the sins of mankind, and of warning them from the commission of sin, it was impious to prevent its full execution." And to this attack also Professor Winthrop replied. Apparently Franklin himself thought it wise to conciliate the opposition of some so-called religious people of the day, for an account of the lightning-rod which appears in Poor Richard's Almanac for 1753, written probably by Franklin, begins as follows: "It has pleased God in his Goodness to Mankind, at length to discover to them the means of securing their Habitations and other Buildings from Mischief by Thunder and Lightning."

Franklin bore his honors with the most remarkable modesty. It was in June that he flew his first kite, but not until October that he sent to Mr. Collinson an account of the experiment, and even then he described the manner of making and flying the kite and omitted all reference to his own success with it. The identity of lightning with electricity having been established by M. Dalibard, he deemed it unnecessary to forward the account of an experiment which, however brilliant, he thought superfluous. Accordingly, we have no narrative by Franklin of the flying of the kite. We owe our knowledge of what occurred on that memorable afternoon to persons who heard Franklin tell the story. Franklin prefaces his description of his kite with these words: "As frequent mention is made in public papers from Europe of the success of the Philadelphia experiment for drawing the electric fire from clouds by means of pointed rods of iron erected on high buildings, it may be agreeable to the curious to be informed that the same experiment has succeeded in Philadelphia, though made in a different and more easy manner, which is as follows." And then we have the description of the kite, the letter ending without reference to what he himself had done with it.

Yet he was far from hiding the pleasure his fame brought him. "The Tatler," he wrote, in 1753, to a friend, "tells us of a girl who was observed to grow suddenly proud, and none could guess the reason, till it came to be known that she had got on a pair of new silk garters. Lest you should be puzzled to guess the cause, when you observe anything of the kind in me, I think I will not hide my new garters under my petticoats, but take the freedom to show them to you in a paragraph of our friend Collinson's last letter, viz.—But I ought to mortify, and not indulge, this vanity; I will not transcribe the paragraph—yet I cannot forbear." Then he quotes the paragraph, which mentions the honors done him by the King of France and the Royal Society.

For twenty years Franklin continued to work at electricity, devoting most of his leisure to his beloved study. The great practical value of the lightning-rod, at one time in the early part of this century somewhat exaggerated, as a perfect protection against harm by lightning, just as electricity was at one time heralded as a panacea for all bodily ailments, has of late years been questioned, but the consensus of scientific opinion still attributes much merit to the device, and the extent of Franklin's services to science in the matter cannot be called into doubt. Others have claimed his discoveries. The Abbé Nolet, of France, has been credited as being the first to note the similarity between electricity and lightning; and M. Romas, of Nerac, France, is said to have used a kite with a copper wire wound around the string, to attract electricity from clouds, some time before Franklin made his experiment. But posterity has ignored these claimants, and Franklin had the happiness of escaping bitter contentions with rivals. In fact, there could hardly have been a quarrel with a man who claimed nothing, who mentioned with honor everybody's achievements but his own, and who recorded his most brilliant observations in the plural, as though he were but one of a band of investigating Philadelphians.

Passing now, to Franklin's connection with the use of oil to still dangerous waves, I had occasion recently to note that Lieutenant W.H. Beehler, of the United States Navy, in writing upon the matter, quotes Franklin's explanation of why oil works so beneficently as the accepted theory. Franklin was greatly interested, when at sea, in studying the matter. Any phenomenon that puzzled him was fit subject for investigation. Let us see how he went about the inquiry. "In 1757," he wrote, "being at sea in a fleet of ninety-six sail bound against Louisburg, I observed the wakes of two of the ships to be remarkably smooth, while all the others were ruffled by the wind which blew fresh. Being puzzled with the differing appearance, I at last pointed it out to our captain and asked him the meaning of it. 'The cooks,' says he, 'have, I suppose, been just emptying their greasy water through the scuppers, which has greased the sides of those ships a little;' and this answer he gave me with an air of some little contempt, as to a person ignorant of what everybody else knew. In my own mind I at first slighted his solution, though I was not able to think of another; but recollecting what I had formerly read in Pliny, I resolved to make some experiment of the effect of oil on water, when I should have opportunity. Afterwards, being again at sea in 1762, I first observed the wonderful quietness of oil on agitated water, in the swinging glass lamp I made to hang up in the cabin, as described in my printed papers. This I was continually looking at and considering, as an appearance to me inexplicable. An old sea captain, then a passenger with me, thought little of it, supposing it an effect of the same kind with that of oil put on water to smooth it, which he said was a practice of the Bermudians when they would strike fish, which they could not see if the surface of the water was ruffled by the wind. The same gentleman told me he had heard it was a practice with the fishermen of Lisbon, when about to return into the river (if they saw before them too great a surf upon the bar, which they apprehended might fill their boats in passing) to empty a bottle or two of oil into the sea, which would suppress the breakers, and allow them to pass safely. A confirmation of this I have not since had an opportunity of obtaining; but discoursing of it with another person, who had often been in the Mediterranean, I was informed that the divers there, who, when under water in their business, need light, which the curling of the surface interrupts by the refractions of so many little waves, let a small quantity of oil now and then out of their mouths, which rising to the surface smooths it, and permits the light to come down to them. All these informations I at times resolved in my mind, and wondered to find no mention of them in our books of experimental philosophy.

"At length being at Clapham where there is, on the common, a large pond, which I observed one day to be very rough with the wind, I fetched out a cruet of oil and dropped a little of it on the water. I saw it spread itself with surprising swiftness upon the surface; but the effect of smoothing the waves was not produced; for I had applied it first on the leeward side of the pond, where the waves were largest, and the wind drove my oil back upon the shore. I then went to the windward side, where they began to form; and there the oil, though not more than a teaspoonful, produced an instant calm over a space several yards square, which spread amazingly, and extended itself gradually, till it reached the lee side, making all that quarter of the pond, perhaps half an acre, as smooth as a looking glass.

"A gentleman from Rhode Island told me it had been remarked that the harbor of Newport was ever smooth while any whaling vessels were in it; which, probably arose from hence, that the blubber, which they sometimes bring loose in the hold, or the leakage of their barrels, might, afford some oil to mix with that water, which, from time to time, they pump out to keep their vessel free, and that some oil might spread over the surface of the water in the harbor and prevent the forming of any waves."

Thus Franklin collected his facts, taking them far and near, and from anybody and everybody. By dint of observation and reflection he finally solved the problem, arriving at the conclusion that "the wind blowing over water thus covered with a film of oil, cannot easily catch upon it, so as to raise the first wrinkles, but slides over it, and leaves it smooth as it finds it."

Another remarkable instance of Franklin's passion for investigation is afforded in the following interesting letter to Sir John Pringle: "When we were travelling together in Holland, you remarked that the canal boat in one of the stages went slower than usual, and inquired of the boatman what might be the reason; who answered that it had been a dry season, and the water in the canal was low. On being asked if it was so low that the boat touched the muddy bottom, he said no, not so low as that, but so low as to make it harder for the horse to draw the boat. We neither of us at first could conceive that, if there was water enough for the boat to swim clear of the bottom, its being deeper would make any difference. But as the man affirmed it seriously as a thing well known among them, and as the punctuality required in their stages was likely to make such difference, if any there were, more readily observed by them than by other watermen who did not pass so regularly and constantly backwards and forwards in the same track, I began to apprehend there might be something in it, and attempted to account for it from this consideration, that the boat in proceeding along the canal must, in every boat's length of her course, move out of her way a body of water equal in bulk to the room her bottom took up in the water; that the water so moved must pass on each side of her, and under her bottom, to get behind her; that if the passage under her bottom was straitened by the shallows, more of the water must pass by her sides, and with a swifter motion, which would retard her, as moving the contrary way; or that, the water becoming lower behind the boat than before, she was pressed back by the weight of its difference in height, and her motion retarded by having that weight constantly to overcome. But, as it is often lost time to attempt accounting for uncertain facts, I determined to make an experiment of this, when I should have convenient time and opportunity.

"After our return to England, as often as I happened to be on the Thames, I enquired of our watermen whether they were sensible of any difference in rowing over shallow or deep water. I found them all agreeing in the fact that there was a very great difference, but they differed widely in expressing the quantity of the difference; some supposing it was equal to a mile in six, others to a mile in three. As I did not recollect to have met with any mention of this matter in our philosophical books, and conceiving that, if the difference should be really great, it might be an object of consideration in the many projects now on foot for digging new navigable canals in this island, I lately put my design of making the experiment in execution, in the following manner.

"I provided a trough of planed boards fourteen feet long, six inches wide, and six inches deep in the clear, filled with water within half an inch of the edge, to represent a canal, I had a loose board of nearly the same length and breadth, that being put into the water, might be sunk to any depth, and fixed by little wedges where I would choose to have it stay, in order to make different depths of water, leaving the surface at the same height with regard to the sides of the trough. I had a little boat in form of a lighter or boat of burden, six inches long, two inches and a quarter wide, and one inch and a quarter deep. When swimming it drew one inch of water. To give motion to the boat, I fixed one end of a long silk thread to its bow, just even with the water's edge, the other end passed over a well-made brass pulley, of about an inch in diameter, turning freely upon a small axis; and a shilling was the weight. Then placing the boat at one end of the trough, the weight would draw it through the water to the other. Not having a watch that shows seconds, in order to measure the time taken up by the boat in passing from end to end of the trough, I counted as fast as I could count to ten repeatedly, keeping an account of the number of tens on my fingers. And, as much as possible to correct any little inequalities in my counting, I repeated the experiment a number of times at each depth of water, that I might take the medium."

The experiment proved the truth of the boatmen's assertions. Franklin found that five horses would be required to draw a boat in a canal affording little more than enough water to float it, which four horses could draw in a canal of the proper depth.

No circumstance, remarks Mr. Parton, was too trifling to engage him upon a series of experiments. At dinner, one day, a bottle of Madeira was opened which had been bottled in Virginia many months before. Into the first glass poured from it fell three drowned flies. "Having heard it remarked that drowned flies were capable of being revived by the rays of the sun, I proposed making the experiment upon these; they were therefore exposed to the sun upon a sieve which had been employed to strain them out of the wine. In less than three hours two of them began by degrees to recover life. They commenced by some convulsive motions of the thighs, and at length they raised themselves upon their legs, wiped their eyes with their forefeet, beat and brushed their wings with their hind feet, and soon after began to fly, finding themselves in Old England without knowing how they came thither. The third continued lifeless till sunset, when, losing all hopes of him, he was thrown away." And upon this he remarks: "I wish it were possible, from this instance, to invent a method of embalming drowned persons in such a manner that they may be recalled to life at any period, however distant; for having a very ardent desire to see and observe the state of America a hundred years hence, I should prefer to any ordinary death being immersed in a cask of Madeira wine, with a few friends, till that time, to be then recalled to life by the solar warmth of my dear country."

Among the studies in natural philosophy of which but little is known to the general public may be mentioned Franklin's experiments with heat at a time when a thermometer was a scientific curiosity. The manner in which he proved that black cloth was not so good a covering for the body in hot weather as white, shows the simplicity of his methods and his faculty for making small means subserve great ends: "I took a number of little square pieces of broadcloth from a tailor's pattern-card, of various colors. There were black, deep blue, lighter blue, green, purple, red, yellow, white, and other colors or shades of colors. I laid them all out upon the snow in a bright sunshiny morning. In a few hours the black, being warmed most by the sun, was so low as to be below the stroke of the sun's rays; the dark blue almost as low, the lighter blue not quite so much as the dark, the other colors less as they were lighter, and the quite white remained on the surface of the snow, not having entered it at all. What signifies philosophy that does not apply to some use? May we not learn from hence that black clothes are not so fit to wear in a hot, sunny climate or season as white ones?" That all summer hats, particularly for soldiers, should be white, and that garden walls intended for fruit should be black, were suggestions put forth as a result of this experiment.

Dr. Small assigns to Franklin the credit of having discovered that repeated respiration imparts to air a poisonous quality similar to that which extinguishes candles and destroys life in mines and wells. "The doctor," he records, "breathed gently through a tube into a deep glass mug, so as to impregnate all the air in the mug with this quality. He then put a lighted bougie (candle) into the mug, and upon touching the air therein the flame was instantly extinguished; by frequently repeating this operation, the bougie gradually preserved its light longer in the mug, so as in a short time to retain it to the bottom of it, the air having totally lost the bad quality it had contracted from the breath blown into it." Upon being consulted with regard to the better ventilation of the House of Commons, he advised that openings should be made near the ceiling, communicating with flues running parallel with the chimneys and close enough to them to be kept warm by their heat. These flues, he recommended, should begin in the cellar, where the air was cool, and the flues being warmed by the hot air of the chimneys, would cause an upward current of air strong enough to expel the vitiated air in the upper part of the house. Franklin's letters at this time are full of the importance of ventilation. Unquestionably, he was among the first who called attention to the folly of excluding fresh air from hospitals and sick-rooms, particularly those of fever patients. As Mr. Parton expresses it, he cleared the pure air of heaven from calumnious imputation and threw open the windows of mankind.

Some inventions of Franklin's have not met with the approval of posterity. For instance, he seems to have had no more success with a reformed spelling of his own devising than laborers in the same field who came after him. He used to say that they alone spelt well who spelt ill, since the so-called bad speller used the letters according to their real value. The illiterate girl who wrote of her bo was more correct, he thought, than the young lady who would blush to omit a superfluous vowel. What was the use of the final letter in muff, and why take the trouble to write tough when tuf would do as well? Had he lived to see Dr. Webster's Dictionary, the lexicographer would have found in him an ardent champion. His reformed alphabet and spelling is an interesting curiosity, but hardly more. Some letters of our alphabet he omitted, only to add new ones. He also changed their order, making o the first letter and m the last. In this connection it may be well to say that Franklin was perhaps the first and foremost American champion of the movement, now so powerful, looking to the displacement of Latin and Greek as the foundations of education. At the very close of his life, in 1789, he issued his famous protest against the study of dead languages. He is reported to have said one evening, when talking about this matter: "When the custom of wearing broad cuffs with buttons first began, there was a reason for it; the cuffs might be brought down over the hands and thus guard them from wet and cold. But gloves came into use, and the broad cuffs were unnecessary; yet the custom was still retained. So likewise with cocked hats. The wide brim, when let down, afforded a protection from the rain and the sun. Umbrellas were introduced, yet fashion prevailed to keep cocked hats in vogue, although they were rather cumbersome than useful. Thus with the Latin language. When nearly all the books of Europe were written in that language, the study of it was essential in every system of education; but it is now scarcely needed, except as an accomplishment, since it has everywhere given place, as a vehicle of thought and knowledge, to some one of the modern tongues."

With all his love of the practical, Franklin was not deficient in a rather delicate wit. I have already had occasion to quote at the beginning of this paper his disclaimer of the honors conferred upon him by Turgot's famous Latin line. Instances of this dry humor may be found all through Sparks's exhaustive biography. I remember one in particular. The merchants of Philadelphia, being at one time desirous to establish an assembly for dancing, they drew up some rules, among which was one "that no mechanic or mechanic's wife or daughter should be admitted on any terms." This rule being submitted to Franklin, he remarked that "it excluded God Almighty, for he was the greatest mechanic in the universe."

Benjamin Franklin's services to the cause of invention by no means ended with his own inventions. One of his greatest services was the part he took in the foundation of the American Philosophical Society, whose object was to bring into correspondence with a central association in Philadelphia all scientists, philosophers, and inventors on this continent and in Europe. Franklin's share in the foundation of this society, which has proved of such vast use, seems to have been largely overlooked by his biographers. Mr. Parton, having mentioned that Franklin founded the society in accordance with his proposal of 1743, adds: "The society was formed and continued in existence for some years. Nevertheless, its success was neither great nor permanent, for at that day the circle of men capable of taking much interest in science was too limited for the proper support of such an organization." The recent historian of the society, Dr. Robert M. Patterson, agrees, however, with Sparks in tracing the origin of the Philosophical Society, which grew into prominence about 1767, back to Franklin's proposal of 1743. After describing the Junto, or Leather Apron Society, formed among Franklin's acquaintance, a sort of debating club of eleven young men, Sparks says: "Forty years after its establishment it became the basis of the American Philosophical Society, of which Franklin was the first president, and the published transactions of which have contributed to the advancement of science and the diffusion of valuable knowledge in the United States." In his first proposal Franklin gave a list of the subjects that were to engage the attention of these New World philosophers. It included investigations in botany; in medicine; in mineralogy and mining; in chemistry; in mechanics; in arts, trades, and manufactures; in geography and topography; in agriculture; and, lest something should have been forgotten, he adds that the association should "give its attention to all philosophical experiments that let light into the nature of things, tend to increase the power of man over matter and multiply the conveniences or pleasures of life." The duties of the secretary of the society were laid down and were arduous, including much foreign correspondence, in addition to the correcting, abstracting, and methodizing of such papers as required it. This office Franklin took upon himself.

Franklin's Grave.

While he lived the proceedings of the society scarcely ever failed of a useful end. Unlike so many original and inventive geniuses, his eminent common sense was as marked as his originality. In the language of his most recent biographer, John Bach McMaster, "whatever he has said on domestic economy or thrift is sound and striking. No other writer has left so many just and original observations on success in life. No other writer has pointed out so clearly the way to obtain the greatest amount of comfort out of life. What Solomon did for the spiritual man, that did Franklin for the earthly man. The book of Proverbs is a collection of receipts for laying up treasure in heaven. 'Poor Richard' is a collection of receipts for laying up treasure on earth."

II.

ROBERT FULTON.

Robert Fulton.

Robert Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat, or at least the first man to apply the power of the steam-engine to the propulsion of boats in a practical and effective manner, was born in Little Britain, Lancaster County, Pa., 1765, of respectable but poor parents. His father was a native of Kilkenny, Ireland, and his mother came of a fairly well-to-do Irish family, settled in Pennsylvania. He was the third of five children. As a child he received the rudiments of a common education. His vocation showed itself in his earliest years. All his hours of recreation were passed in shops and in drawing. At the time he was seventeen he had become so much of an artist as to make money by portrait and landscape painting in Philadelphia, where he remained until he was twenty-one. After this he went to Washington County and there purchased a little farm on which he settled his mother, his father having died when he was three years old. He returned to Philadelphia, but on his way visited the Warm Springs of Pennsylvania, where he met with some gentlemen who were so much pleased with his painting that they advised him to go to England, where they told him he would meet with West who had then attained great celebrity. Fulton took this advice, and his reception by West, always kindly toward Americans, was such as he had been led to expect. The distinguished painter was so well pleased with him that he took him into his house, where he continued to live for several years. For some time Fulton made painting his chief employment, spending two years in Devonshire, near Exeter, where he made many influential acquaintances, among others the Duke of Bridgewater, famous for his canals, and Lord Stanhope, a nobleman noted for his love of science and his attachment to the mechanic arts. With Lord Stanhope, Fulton held a correspondence for a long time upon subjects in which they were interested.

In 1793, Fulton was engaged in a project to improve inland navigation. Even at that early day it appeared that he had conceived the idea of propelling vessels by steam, and he speaks in his letters of its practicability. In 1794 he obtained from the British Government a patent for improvements in canal locks, and his pursuits at this time appear to have been in this direction. In his preface to a description of his Nautilus, or "plunging" boat, a species of submarine boat, he says that he had resided eighteen months in Birmingham where he acquired much of his knowledge of mechanics. In later years, when in Paris, Fulton sent a large collection of his manuscripts to this country. Unfortunately, the vessel in which they were sent was wrecked, and, while the case was recovered, only a few fragments of the manuscripts could be used. It is owing to this misfortune that we have so few records of Fulton's work at this time.

Birthplace of Robert Fulton. [1]

[1] This illustration and the four following are from Knox's "Life of Fulton," reproduced by permission of the publishers, G.P. Putnam's Sons.

We know, however, that in 1794 he submitted to the British Society for the Promotion of Arts and Commerce an improvement of his invention for sawing marble, for which he received the thanks of the society and an honorary medal. He invented also, it is thought, about this time, a machine for spinning flax and another for making ropes, for both of which he obtained patents from the British Government. A mechanical contrivance for scooping out earth to form channels for canals or aqueducts, which is said to have been much used in England, was also his invention. The subject of canals appears to have chiefly engaged his attention during these years of the end of the century. He called himself a civil engineer, and under this title published his work on canals, and, in 1795, many essays on the same subject in one of the London journals. He recommended small canals and boats of little burden in a treatise on "Improvement of Canal Navigation," and inclined planes instead of locks, as a means of transporting canal boats from one level to another. His plans were strongly recommended by the British Board of Agriculture. Throughout his course as civil engineer his talent for drawing was of great advantage to him, and the plates annexed to his works are admirable examples of such work. He seems to have neglected his painting till a short time before his death, when he took up the brush again to paint some portraits of his family. During his residence in England he sent copies of his works to distinguished men in this country, setting forth the advantages to be derived from communication by canals.

Having obtained a patent for mill improvements from the British Government, he went to France with the intention of introducing his invention there; but, not meeting with much encouragement, he devoted his time to other matters. Political economy had also some attraction for him, and he wrote a book to show that internal improvements would have a good effect on the happiness of a nation. He not only wished to see a free and speedy communication between the different parts of a large country, but universal free trade between all countries. He thought that it would take ages to establish the freedom of the seas by the common consent of nations, and believed in destroying ships of war, so as to put it out of the power of any nation to control ocean trade. In 1797 he became acquainted with Joel Barlow, the well-known American, then residing in Paris, in whose family he lived for seven years, during which time he learned French and something of German, and studied mathematics and chemistry. In the same year he made an experiment with Mr. Barlow on the Seine with a machine he had constructed to give packages of gunpowder a progressive motion under water and then to explode at a given point. These experiments appear to have been the first in the line of his submarine boats, and are unquestionably the germ of all subsequent inventions in the direction of torpedo warfare.

Want of money to carry out his designs induced him to apply to the French Directory, who at first gave him reason to expect their aid, but finally rejected his plan. Fulton, however, was not to be discouraged, but went on with his inventions, and having made a handsome model of his machine for destroying ships, a commission was appointed to examine his plans, but they also rejected them. He offered his idea to the British Government, still again without success, although a committee was appointed to examine his models. The French Government being changed, and Bonaparte having come to the head of it, Fulton presented an address to him. A commission was appointed, and some assistance given which enabled him to put some of his plans into practice. In the spring of 1801 he went to Brest to make experiments with the plunging boat that he had constructed in the winter. This, as he says, had many imperfections, to be expected in a first machine, and had been injured by rust, as parts which should have been of copper or brass were made of iron.

Notwithstanding these disadvantages, he engaged in a course of experiments which required no less courage than perseverance. From a report of his proceedings to the committee appointed by the French Government we learn that in July, 1801, he embarked with three companions on board of this boat, in the harbor of Brest, and descended to the depth of twenty-five feet, remaining below the surface an hour, in utter darkness, as the candles were found to consume too much of the vital air. He placed two men at the engine, which was intended to give her motion, and one at the helm, while he, with a barometer before him, kept her balanced between the upper and lower waters. He could turn her round while under the water, and found that in seven minutes he had gone about a third of a mile. During that summer Fulton descended under water with a store of air compressed into a copper globe, whereby he was enabled to remain under water four hours and twenty minutes. The success of these experiments determined him to try the effect of his invention on the English war-ships, then daily near the harbor of Brest—France and England being then at war. He made his own bombs. For experimental purposes a small vessel was anchored in the harbor, and with a bomb containing about twenty pounds of powder, he approached within about two hundred yards, struck the vessel, and blew her into atoms. A column of water and fragments were sent nearly one hundred feet into the air. This experiment was made in the presence of the prefect of the department and a multitude of spectators. During the summer of 1801 Fulton tried to use his bombs against some of the English vessels, but was not successful in getting within range. The French Government refused to give him further encouragement.

The English had some information concerning the attempts that their enemies were making, and the anxiety expressed induced the British Minister to communicate with Fulton and try to secure to England his services. In this he was successful, and Fulton went to London, where he arrived in 1804, and met Pitt and Lord Melville. When Mr. Pitt first saw a drawing of a torpedo with a sketch of the mode of applying it, and understood what would be the effect of the explosion, he said that if it were introduced into practice it could not fail to annihilate all navies.

Fulton Blowing Up a Danish Brig.

But from the subsequent conduct of the British ministry it is supposed that they never really intended to give Fulton a fair opportunity to try the effect of his submarine engines. Their object may have been to prevent these devices getting into the hands of an enemy. Several experiments were made, and some of them were failures, but on October 15, 1805, he blew up a strong-built Danish brig of two hundred tons burden, which had been provided for the experiment and which was anchored near the residence of Pitt. The torpedo used on this occasion contained one hundred and seventy pounds of powder. In fifteen minutes from the time of starting the machinery the explosion took place. It lifted the brig almost entire and broke her completely in two; in one minute nothing was to be seen of her but floating fragments. Notwithstanding the complete success of this experiment, the British ministry seems to have had nothing to do with Fulton. The inventor was rather discouraged at this lack of appreciation and, after some further experiments, he sailed for New York in December, 1806.

In this country Fulton devoted himself at once to his project of submarine warfare and steam navigation. So far from being discouraged by his failure to impress Europe with the importance of his torpedoes, his confidence was unshaken, because he saw that his failures were to be attributed to trivial errors that could easily be corrected. He induced our Government to give him the means of making further experiments, and invited the magistracy of New York and a number of citizens to Governor's Island where were the torpedoes and the machinery with which his experiments were to be made. In July, 1807, he blew up, in the harbor of New York, a large brig prepared for that purpose. He also devised at this time a number of stationary torpedoes, really casks of powder, with triggers that might be caught by the keel of any passing vessel. In March, 1810, $5,000 were granted by Congress for further experiments in submarine explosions. The sloop of war, Argus, was prepared for defence against the torpedoes after Fulton had explained his mode of attack. This defence was so complete that Fulton found it impracticable to do anything with his torpedoes. Some experiments were made, however, with a gun-harpoon and cable cutter, and after several attempts a fourteen-inch cable was cut off several feet below the surface of the water.

Fulton was, during all these experiments, much pressed for money, and apparently was making no headway toward the use of his submarine engines in a profitable way. It was in despair of getting our Government to make an investment in this direction that he finally turned to the problem of navigation by steam. He had the valuable co-operation in his new work of Chancellor Livingston, of New Jersey, who, while devoting much of his own time and means to the advancement of science, was fond of fostering the discoveries of others. He had very clear conceptions of what would be the great advantages of steamboats on the navigable rivers of the United States. He had already, when in Paris, applied himself at great expense to constructing vessels and machinery for that kind of navigation. As early as 1798 he believed that he had accomplished his object, and represented to the Legislature of New York that he was possessed of a mode of applying the steam-engine to a boat on new and advantageous principles; but that he was deterred from carrying it into effect by the uncertainty of expensive experiments, unless he could be assured of an exclusive advantage should it be successful. The Legislature in March, 1798, passed an act vesting him with the exclusive right and privilege of navigating all kinds of boats which might be propelled by the force of fire or steam on all the waters within the territory of New York for the term of twenty years, upon condition that he should within a twelve-month build such a boat, whose progress should not be less than four miles an hour.

John Fitch's Steamboat at Philadelphia.

Livingston, as soon as the act had passed, built a boat of about thirty tons burden, to be propelled by steam. Soon after he entered into a contract with Fulton, by which it was agreed that a patent should be taken out in the United States in Fulton's name. Thus began the preparations for the first practical steamboat. All the experiments were paid for by Chancellor Livingston, but the work was Fulton's. In 1802, in Paris, he began a course of calculations upon the resistance of water, upon the most advantageous form of the body to be moved, and upon the different means of propelling vessels which had been previously attempted. After a variety of calculations he rejected the proposed plan of using paddles or oars, such as those already used by Fitch; likewise that of ducks' feet, which open as they are pushed out and shut as they are drawn in; also that of forcing water out of the stern of the vessel. He retained two methods as worthy of experiment, namely, endless chains with paddle-boards upon them, and the paddle-wheel. The latter was found to be the most promising, and was finally adopted after a number of trials with models on a little river which runs through the village of Plombières, to which he had retired in the spring of 1802, to pursue his experiments without interruption.

Fulton's First Experiment with Paddle-wheels.

It was now determined to build an experimental boat, which was completed in the spring of 1803; but when Fulton was on the point of making an experiment with her, an accident happened to the boat, the woodwork not having been framed strongly enough to bear the weight of the machinery and the agitation of the river. The accident did the machinery very little injury; but they were obliged to build the boat almost entirely anew. She was completed in July; her length was sixty-six feet and she was eight feet wide. Early in August, Fulton addressed a letter to the French National Institute, inviting the members to witness a trial of his boat, which was made before the members, and in the presence of a great multitude of Parisians. The experiment was entirely satisfactory to Fulton, though the boat did not move altogether with as much speed as he expected. But he imputed her moving so slowly to the extremely defective machinery, and to imperfections which were to be expected in the first experiment with so complicated a machine; the defects were such as might be easily remedied.

Such entire confidence did he acquire from this experiment that immediately afterward he wrote to Messrs. Boulton & Watt, of Birmingham, England, ordering certain parts of a steam-engine to be made for him, and sent to America. He did not disclose to them for what purpose the engine was intended, but his directions were such as would produce the parts of an engine that might be put together within a compass suited for a boat. Mr. Livingston had written to his friends in this country, and through their assistance an act was passed by the Legislature of the State of New York, on April 5, 1803, by which the rights and exclusive privileges of navigating all the waters of that State, by vessels propelled by fire or steam, granted to Livingston by the Act of 1798, as already mentioned, were extended to Livingston and Fulton, for the term of twenty years from the date of the new act. By this law the time of producing proof of the practicability of propelling by steam a boat of twenty tons capacity, at the rate of four miles an hour, with and against the ordinary current of the Hudson, was extended two years, and by a subsequent law, the time was extended to 1807.

Very soon after Fulton's arrival in New York he began building his first American boat. While she was constructing, he found that her cost would greatly exceed his calculations. He endeavored to lessen the pressure on his own finances by offering one-third of the rights for a proportionate contribution to the expense. It was generally known that he made this offer, but no one was then willing to afford aid to his enterprise.

In the spring of 1807, Fulton's first American boat was launched from the shipyard of Charles Brown, on the East River. The engine from England was put on board, and in August she was completed, and was moved by her machinery from her birthplace to the Jersey shore. Livingston and Fulton had invited many of their friends to witness the first trial, among them Dr. Mitchell and Dr. M'Neven, to whom we are indebted for some account of what passed on this occasion. Nothing could exceed the surprise and admiration of all who witnessed the experiment. The minds of the most incredulous were changed in a few minutes. Before the boat had gone a quarter of a mile, the greatest unbeliever must have been converted. The man who, while he looked on the expensive machine, thanked his stars that he had more wisdom than to waste his money on such idle schemes, changed his mind as the boat moved from the wharf and gained speed, and his complacent expression gradually stiffened into one of wonder.

This boat, which was called the Clermont, soon after made a trip to Albany. Fulton gives the following account of this voyage in a letter to his friend, Mr. Barlow:

Departure of the Clermont on her First Voyage.

"My steamboat voyage to Albany and back, has turned out rather more favorable than I had calculated. The distance from New York to Albany is one hundred and fifty miles; I ran it up in thirty-two hours, and down in thirty. I had a light breeze against me the whole way, both going and coming, and the voyage has been performed wholly by the power of the steam-engine. I overtook many sloops and schooners beating to windward, and parted with them as if they had been at anchor. The power of propelling boats by steam is now fully proved. The morning I left New York there were not, perhaps, thirty persons in the city who believed that the boat would even move one mile an hour, or be of the least utility; and while we were putting off from the wharf, which was crowded with spectators, I heard a number of sarcastic remarks. This is the way in which ignorant men compliment what they call philosophers and projectors. Having employed much time, money, and zeal, in accomplishing this work, it gives me, as it will you, great pleasure to see it fully answer my expectations. It will give a cheap and quick conveyance to the merchandise on the Mississippi, Missouri, and other great rivers, which are now laying open their treasures to the enterprise of our countrymen; and although the prospect of personal emolument has been some inducement to me, yet I feel infinitely more pleasure in reflecting on the immense advantage that my country will derive from the invention."

Soon after this successful voyage, the Hudson boat was advertised and established as a regular passage-boat between New York and Albany. She, however, in the course of the season, met with several accidents, from the hostility of those engaged in the ordinary navigation of the river, and from defects in her machinery, the greatest of which was having her water-wheel shafts of cast-iron, which was insufficient to sustain the great power applied to them. The wheels also were hung without any support for the outward end of the shaft, which is now supplied by what are called the wheel-guards.

At the session of 1808 a law was passed to prolong the time of the exclusive right to thirty years; it also declared combinations to destroy the boat, or wilful attempts to injure her, public offences, punishable by fine and imprisonment. Notwithstanding her misfortunes, the boat continued to run as a packet, always loaded with passengers, for the remainder of the summer. In the course of the ensuing winter she was enlarged, and in the spring of 1808 she again began running as a packet-boat, and continued it through the season. Several other boats were soon built for the Hudson River, and also for steamboat companies formed in different parts of the United States. On February 11, 1809, Fulton took out a patent for his inventions in navigation by steam, and on February 9, 1811, he obtained a second patent for some improvements in his boats and machinery.

About the year 1812 two steam ferry-boats were built under the direction of Fulton for crossing the Hudson River, and one of the same description for the East River. These boats were what are called twin-boats, each of them being two complete hulls united by a deck or bridge. They were sharp at both ends, and moved equally well with either end foremost, so that they crossed and recrossed without losing any time by turning about. He contrived, with great ingenuity, floating docks for the reception of these boats, and a means by which they were brought to them without a shock. These boats, were the first of a fleet which has since carried hundreds of millions of passengers to and from New York.

From the time the first boat was put in motion till the death of Fulton, the art of navigating by steam advanced rapidly to that perfection of which he believed it capable; the boats performed each successive trip with increased speed, and every year improvements were made. The last boat built by Fulton was invariably the best, the most convenient, and the swiftest.

At the beginning of 1814 a number of the citizens of New York, alarmed at the exposed situation of their harbor, had assembled with a view to consider whether some measures might not be taken to aid the Government in its protection. This assembly had some knowledge of Fulton's plans for submarine attack, and knew that he contemplated other means of defence. It deputed a number of gentlemen to act for it, and these were called the Coast and Harbor Committee. Fulton exhibited to this committee the model and plans for a vessel of war, to be propelled by steam, capable of carrying a strong battery, with furnaces for red-hot shot, and which, he represented, would move at the rate of four miles an hour. The confidence of the committee in this design was confirmed by the opinions of many of our most distinguished naval commanders, which he had obtained in writing, and exhibited to the committee. They pointed out many advantages which a steam vessel of war would possess over those with sails only.

The National Legislature passed a law in March, 1814, authorizing the President of the United States to cause to be built, equipped, and employed one or more floating batteries for the defence of the waters of the United States. A sub-committee of five gentlemen was appointed to superintend the building of the proposed vessel, and Fulton, whose spirit animated the whole enterprise, was appointed the engineer. In June, 1814, the keel of this novel and mighty engine was laid, and in October she was launched from the New York yard of Adam and Noah Brown. The scene exhibited on this occasion was magnificent. It happened on one of our bright autumnal days. Multitudes of spectators crowded the surrounding shores. The river and bay were filled with vessels of war, dressed in all their colors in compliment to the occasion. By May, 1815, her engine was put on board, and she was so far completed as to afford an opportunity of trying her machinery. On the 4th of July, in the same year, the steam-frigate made a passage to the ocean and back, a distance of fifty-three miles, in eight hours and twenty minutes, by the mere force of steam. In September she made another passage to the sea, and having at this time the weight of her whole armament on board, she went at the rate of five and a half miles an hour, upon an average, with and against the tide. The superintending committee gave in their report a full description of the Fulton the First, the honored name this vessel bore.

The last work in which the active and ingenious mind of Fulton was engaged was a project for the modification of his submarine boat. He presented a model of this vessel to the Government, by which it was approved; and under Federal authority he began building one; but before the hull was entirely finished his country had to lament his death, and the mechanics he employed were incapable of proceeding without him.

The "Demologos," or "Fulton the First."
The first steam vessel-of-war in the world.

During the whole time that Fulton had thus been devoting his talents to the service of his country, he had been harassed by lawsuits and controversies with those who were violating his patent rights, or intruding upon his exclusive grants. The State of New Jersey had passed a law which operated against Fulton, without being of much advantage to those interested in its passage, inasmuch as the laws of New York prevented any but Fulton's boats to approach the city of New York. Its only operation was to stop a boat owned in New York, which had been for several years running to New Brunswick, under a license from Messrs. Livingston and Fulton. A bold attempt was therefore made to induce the Legislature of the State of New York to repeal the laws which they had passed for the protection of their exclusive grant to Livingston and Fulton. The committee reported that such repeal might be passed consistently with good faith, honor, and justice! This report being made to the House, it was prevailed upon to be less precipitate than the committee had been. It gave time, which the committee would not do, for Fulton to be sent for from New York. The Assembly and Senate in joint session examined witnesses, and heard him and the petitioner by counsel. The result was that the Legislature refused to repeal the prior law, or to pass any act on the subject. The Legislature of the State of New Jersey also repealed their law, which left Fulton in the full enjoyment of his rights. This enjoyment was of very short duration; for on returning from Trenton, after this last trial, he was exposed on the Hudson, which was very full of ice, for several hours. He had not a constitution to encounter such exposure, and upon his return found himself much indisposed. He had at that time great anxiety about the steam-frigate, and, after confining himself to the house for a few days, went to give his superintendence to the workmen employed about her. Forgetting his ill-health in the interest he took in what was doing on the frigate, he remained too long exposed on a bad day to the weather. He soon felt the effects of this imprudence. His indisposition returned upon him with such violence as to confine him to his bed. His illness increased, and on February 24, 1815, it ended his life.

It was not known that Fulton's illness was dangerous till a very short time before his death. Means were immediately taken to testify, publicly, the universal regret at his loss, and respect for his memory. The corporation of the city of New York, the different literary institutions and other societies, assembled and passed resolutions expressing their estimation of his worth, and regret at his loss. They also resolved to attend his funeral, and that the members should wear badges of mourning for a certain time. As soon as the Legislature, which was then in session at Albany, heard of the death of Fulton, they expressed their participation in the general sentiment by resolving that the members of both Houses should wear mourning for some weeks.

In 1806 Fulton married Harriet Livingston, a daughter of Walter Livingston, a relative of his associate, Chancellor Livingston. He left four children; one son, Robert Barlow Fulton, and three daughters. Fulton was in person considerably above medium height; his face showed great intelligence. Natural refinement and long intercourse with the most polished society of Europe and America had given him grace and elegance of manner.

The Clermont.

III.

ELI WHITNEY.

Eli Whitney.

In 1784 an American vessel arrived at Liverpool having on board, as part of her cargo, eight bags of cotton, which were seized by the Custom-House under the conviction that they could not be the growth of America. The whole amount of cotton arriving at Liverpool from America during the two following years was less than one hundred and twenty bags. When Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton-gin, applied for his first patent in 1793, the total export of cotton from the United States was less than ten thousand bales. Fifty years later, the growth of this industry, owing almost wholly to Whitney's gin, had increased to millions of bales, and by 1860, the export amounted to four million bales.

According to the estimate of Judge Johnson, given in the most famous decision affecting the cotton-gin, the debts of the South were paid off by its aid, its capital was increased, and its lands trebled in value. This famous device, the gift of a young Northerner to the South, was rewarded by thirty years of ingratitude, relieved only by a few gleams of sunshine in the way of justice, serving to make the injustice all the more conspicuous. Whitney added hundreds of millions to the wealth of the United States. His personal reward was countless lawsuits and endless vexation of body and spirit. No more conspicuous example can be cited of steady patience and sweet-tempered perseverance.

Eli Whitney was born in Westborough, Worcester County, Mass., December 8, 1765. His parents belonged to that respectable class of society who, by honest farming and kindred industries, managed to provide well for the rising family—the class from whom have arisen most of those who in New England have attained to eminence and usefulness. The indications of his mechanical genius were noted at an early age. Of his passion for mechanics, 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 to prefer that to work on the farm. 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 the elders had done. 'But what has Eli been doing?' said he. She replied he has been making a fiddle. 'Ah!' added he, despondently, 'I fear Eli will have to take his portion in fiddles.'"

He was at this time about twelve years old. The sister adds that his fiddle was finished throughout like a common violin and made pretty good music. It was examined by many persons, and all pronounced it to be a model piece of work for such a boy. From this time he was always employed to repair violins, and did many nice jobs that were executed to the entire satisfaction and even 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 church and would leave at home the wonderful little machine, he feigned illness as an apology for not going. As soon as the family were out of sight, he flew to the room where the watch hung and took it down. He was so delighted with its motion that he took it 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 the works so neatly together that his father never discovered his audacity until he himself told him many years afterward.

When Eli 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.

One day Eli said: "I could make as good ones if I had tools, and I could make the tools if I had common tools to begin with;" his mother laughed at him. But it so happened soon afterward that one of the knives was broken, and he made one exactly like it in every respect, except the stamp of the blade. When he was fifteen or sixteen years of age, he suggested to his father an enterprise which clearly showed his capacity for important work. The time being the Revolutionary War, nails were in great demand and at high prices. They were made chiefly by hand. Whitney proposed to his father to get him a few tools and allow him to set up the manufacture of nails. His father consented, and the work was begun. By extraordinary diligence he found time to make tools for his own use and to put in knife-blades, repair farm machinery, and perform other little jobs beyond the skill of the country workman. At this occupation the enterprising boy worked, alone with great success and with large profit to his father for two winters, going on with the ordinary work of the farm during the summer. He devised a plan for enlarging the business, and managed to obtain help from a fellow-laborer whom he picked up when on a short journey of forty miles, in the course of which he tells us that he called at every workshop on the way and gleaned all the information as to tools and methods that he could.

At the close of the war the business of making nails was no longer profitable; but the fashion prevailing among the ladies of fastening on their bonnets with long pins having appeared, he contrived to make these pins with such skill that he nearly monopolized the business, though he devoted to it only such leisure as he could redeem from the occupations of the farm. He also made excellent walking-canes. At the age of nineteen Whitney conceived the idea of getting a liberal education; and partly by the results of his mechanical industries, and partly by teaching the village school, he was enabled so far to surmount the difficulties in his way as to prepare himself for the Freshman Class in Yale College, which he entered in 1789. At college his mechanical propensity frequently showed itself. He successfully undertook, on one occasion, the repairing of some of the philosophical apparatus. Soon after taking his degree, in the autumn of 1792, he engaged with a Georgia family as private teacher, and through his engagement he made the acquaintance of a certain General Greene, of Savannah, who took a deep interest in him, and with whom he began the study of law. While living with the Greenes he noticed an embroidery-frame used by Mrs. Greene, and about which she complained, observing that it tore the delicate threads of her work. Young Whitney, eager to oblige his hostess, went to work and speedily produced a frame on an entirely new plan. The family were much delighted with it, and considered it a wonderful piece of ingenuity.

Whitney Watching the Cotton-Gin.

Not long afterward the Greenes were visited by a party of gentlemen, chiefly officers who had served under the general in the Revolutionary War. The conversation turned on the state of agriculture. It was remarked that unfortunately there was no means of cleaning the staple of the green cotton-seed, which might otherwise be profitably raised on land unsuitable for rice. But until someone devised a machine which would clean the cotton, it was vain to think of raising it for market. Separating one pound of the clean staple from the seed was a day's work for a woman. The time usually devoted to the picking of 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 in the middle whose duty it was to rouse the dosing and quicken the indolent. While the company were engaged in this conversation, Mrs. Greene said: "Gentlemen, apply to my young friend here, Mr. Whitney; he can make anything." And she showed them the frame and several other articles he had made. He modestly disclaimed all pretensions to mechanical genius, and replied that he had never seen cotton-seed.

Nevertheless, he immediately began upon the task of inventing and constructing the machine on which his fame depends. A Mr. Phineas Miller, a neighbor, to whom he communicated his design, warmly encouraged him, and gave him a room in his house wherein to carry on his operations. Here he began work with the disadvantage of being obliged to manufacture his own tools and draw his own wire—an article not to be found in Savannah. Mr. Miller and Mrs. Greene were the only persons who knew anything of his occupation. Near the close of the winter, 1793, the machine was so far completed as to leave no doubt of its success. The person who contributed most to the success of the undertaking, after the inventor, was his friend, Miller, a native of Connecticut and, a graduate of Yale. Like Whitney, he had come to Georgia as a private teacher, and after the death of General Greene he married the widow. He was a lawyer by profession, with a turn for mechanics. He had some money and proposed to Whitney to become his partner, he to be at the whole expense of manufacturing the invention until it should be patented. If the machine should succeed, they agreed that the profits and advantages should be divided between them. A legal paper covering this agreement and establishing the firm of Miller & Whitney, bears the date of May 27, 1793.

An invention so important to the agricultural interests of the country could not long remain a secret. The knowledge of it swept through the State, and so great was the excitement on the subject that crowds of persons came from all parts to see the machine; it was not deemed safe to gratify curiosity until the patent-right should be secured. But so determined were some of these people that neither law nor justice could restrain them; they broke into the building by night and carried off the machine. In this way the public became possessed of the invention, and before Whitney could complete his model and secure his patent, a number of machines, patterned after his, were in successful operation.

The principle of the Whitney cotton-gin and all other gins following its features is so well known as to make it scarcely worth while to describe it here. The different parts are two cylinders of different diameters, mounted in a strong wooden frame, one cylinder bearing a number of circular saws fitted into grooves cut into the cylinder. The other hollow cylinder is mounted with brushes, the tips of whose bristles touch the saw-teeth. The cotton is put into a hopper, where it is met by the sharp teeth of the saws, torn from the seed, and carried to a point where the brushes sweep it off into a convenient receptacle. The seeds are too large to pass between the bars through which the saws protrude. This is the principle of the first machine, but many improvements have been made since Whitney's day. Nevertheless, by means of the cotton-gin, even in its earliest shape, one man, with the aid of two-horse power, could clean five thousand pounds of cotton in a day.

The Cotton-Gin.
(From the original model.)

As soon as the partnership of Miller & Whitney was formed, the latter went to Connecticut to perfect the machine, obtain the patent, and manufacture for Georgia as many machines as he thought would supply the demand. At once there began between Whitney in Connecticut and Miller in Georgia a correspondence relative to the cotton-gin, which gives a complete history of the extraordinary efforts made by the two partners and the disappointments that fell to their lot. The very first letter, written three days after Whitney left, announces that encroachments upon their rights had already begun. "It will be necessary," says Miller, "to have a considerable number of gins 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 the cotton-gin in addition to those we knew before." At the close of the year 1793 Whitney was to return to Georgia with his gins, where his partner had made arrangements for beginning business. The importunity of Miller's letters, written during this period, urging him to come on, show how eager the Georgia planters were to enter the new field of enterprise that the genius of Whitney had opened to them. Nor did they at first contemplate stealing the invention. But the minds of even the more honorable among the planters were afterward deluded by various artifices set on foot by designing rivals of Whitney with a view to robbing him of his rights. One of the greatest difficulties experienced by the partners was the extreme scarcity of money, which embarrassed them so much as to make it impossible to construct machines fast enough.

In April Whitney returned to Georgia. Large crops of cotton had been planted, the profits of which were to depend almost wholly on the success of the gin. A formidable competitor, the roller-gin, had also appeared, which destroyed the seed by means of rollers, crushing them between revolving cylinders instead of disengaging them by means of teeth. The fragments of seeds which remained in the cotton made it much inferior to Whitney's gin, and it was slower in operation. A still more dangerous rival appeared in 1795, under the name of the saw-gin. It was really Whitney's invention, except that the teeth were cut in circular rings of iron instead of being made of wire, as in the earlier forms of the Whitney gin. The use of such teeth had occurred to Whitney, as he established by legal proof. They would have been of no use except in connection with other parts of his machine, and it was a palpable attempt to invade his patent right. It was chiefly in reference to this device that the endless lawsuits that wore the life out of the partners were afterward held.

In March, 1795, after two years of struggle, during which no progress seems to have been made, although the value of the gin was proved, Whitney went to New York, where he was detained three weeks by fever. Upon reaching New Haven he discovered that his shop, with all his machines and papers, had been consumed by fire. Thus he was suddenly reduced to bankruptcy and was in debt $4,000 without any means of payment. He was not, however, one to sink under such trials; Miller showed the same buoyant spirit, and the following extract of a letter of his to Whitney may be a useful lesson to young men in trouble:

"I think we ought to meet such events with equanimity. We have been pursuing a valuable object by honorable means, and I trust that all our measures have been such as reason and virtue must justify. It has pleased Providence to postpone the attainment of this object. In the midst of the reflections which your story has suggested, and with feelings keenly awake to the heavy, the extensive injury we have sustained, I feel a secret joy and satisfaction that you possess a mind in this respect similar to my own—that you are not disheartened, that you do not relinquish the pursuit, and that you will persevere, and endeavor, at all events, to attain the main object. This is exactly consonant to my own determinations. I will devote all my time, all my thoughts, all my exertions, and all the money I can earn or borrow to encompass and complete the business we have undertaken; and if fortune should, by any future disaster, deny us the boon we ask, we will at least deserve it. It shall never be said that we have lost an object which a little perseverance could have attained. I think, indeed, it will be very extraordinary if two young men in the prime of life, with some share of ingenuity, and with a little knowledge of the world, a great deal of industry, and a considerable command of property, should not be able to sustain such a stroke of misfortune as this, heavy as it is."

Miller winds up by suggesting to Whitney that perhaps he can get help in New Haven by offering twelve per cent. a year for money with which to build a new shop, and the inventor seems to have had some success in reorganizing his affairs, even under such desperate conditions. Word came at the same time from England that manufacturers had condemned the cotton cleaned by their machines on the ground that the staple was greatly injured. This threatened a deathblow to their hopes. At the time, 1796, they already had thirty gins at different places in Georgia, some worked by horses and oxen and some by water. Some of these were still standing a few years ago. The following extract of a letter by Whitney will show the state of his mind and affairs:

"The extreme embarrassments which have been for a long time accumulating upon me are now become so great that it will be impossible for me to struggle against them many days longer. It has required my utmost exertions to exist without making the least progress in our business. I have labored hard against the strong current of disappointment which has been threatening to carry us down the cataract, but I have labored with a shattered oar and struggled in vain, unless some speedy relief is obtained.... Life is but short at best, and six or seven years out of the midst of it is to him who makes it an immense sacrifice. My most unremitted attention has been devoted to our business. I have sacrificed to it other objects from which, before this time, I might certainly have gained $20,000 or $30,000. My whole prospects have been embarked in it, with the expectation that I should before this time have realized something from it."

The cotton of Whitney's gin was, however, sought by merchants in preference to other kinds, and respectable manufacturers testified in his favor. Had it not been for the extensive and shameful violations of their patent-right, the partners might yet have succeeded; but these encroachments had become so extensive as almost to destroy its value. The issue of the first important trial that they were able to obtain on the merits of the gin is announced in the following letter from Miller to Whitney, dated May 11, 1797:

"The event of the first patent suit, after all our exertions made in such a variety of ways, has gone against us. The preposterous custom of trying civil causes of this intricacy and magnitude by a common jury, together with the imperfection of the patent law, frustrated all our views, and disappointed expectations which had become very sanguine. The tide of popular opinion was running in our favor, the judge was well disposed toward us, and many decided friends were with us, who adhered firmly to our cause and interests. The judge gave a charge to the jury pointedly in our favor; after which the defendant himself told an acquaintance of his that he would give two thousand dollars to be free from the verdict, and yet the jury gave it against us, after a consultation of about an hour. And having made the verdict general, no appeal would lie.

"On Monday morning, when the verdict was rendered, we applied for a new trial, but the judge refused it to us on the ground that the jury might have made up their opinion on the defect of the law, which makes an aggression consist of making, devising, and using or selling; whereas we could only charge the defendant with using.

"Thus, after four years of assiduous labor, fatigue, and difficulty, are we again set afloat by a new and most unexpected obstacle. Our hopes of success are now removed to a period still more distant than before, while our expenses are realized beyond all controversy."

Great efforts were made to obtain trial in a second suit in Savannah the following May, and a number of witnesses were collected from various parts of the country, all to no purpose, for the judge failed to appear, and in the meantime, owing to the failure of the first suit, encroachments on the patent-right had multiplied prodigiously.

In April, 1799, nearly a year later, and two years after their first legal rebuff, Miller writes as follows:

"The prospect of making anything by ginning in this State is at an end. Surreptitious gins are 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 cause in our favor, let the merits of the case be as they may."

The company would now have gladly relinquished the plan of making their own machines, and confined their operations to the sale of patent-rights; but few would buy the right to a machine which could be used with impunity without purchase, and those few usually gave notes instead of cash, which they afterward, to a great extent, avoided paying, either by obtaining a verdict from the juries declaring them void, or by contriving to postpone the collection till they were barred by the Statute of Limitations, a period of only four years. The agent of Miller & Whitney, who was despatched on a collecting tour through the State of Georgia, informed his employers that such obstacles were thrown in his way by one or the other of these causes that he was unable to collect money enough to pay his expenses. It was suggested that an application to the Legislature of South Carolina to purchase the patent-right for that State would be successful. Whitney accordingly repaired to Columbia, and the business was brought before the Legislature in December, 1801. An extract from a letter by Whitney at this time shows the nature of the contract thus made:

"I have been at this place a little more than two weeks attending the Legislature. A few hours previous to their adjournment they voted to purchase for the State of South Carolina my patent-right to the machine for cleaning cotton at $50,000, of which sum $20,000 is to be paid in hand, and the remainder in three annual payments of $10,000 each." He adds: "We get but a song for it in comparison with the worth of the thing, but it is securing something. It will enable Miller & Whitney to pay their debts and divide something between them."

In December, 1802, Whitney negotiated the sale of his patent-right with the State of North Carolina. The Legislature laid a tax of 2s. 6d. upon every saw (some of the gins had forty saws) employed in ginning cotton, to be continued for five years; and after deducting the expenses of collection the returns were faithfully passed over to the patentee. This compensation was regarded by Whitney as more liberal than that received from any other source. About the same time Mr. Goodrich, the agent of the company, entered into a similar negotiation with Tennessee, which State had by this time begun to realize the importance of the invention. The Legislature passed a law laying a tax of 37½ cents per annum on every saw used, for the period of four years. Thus far the prospects were growing favorable to the patentees, when the Legislature of South Carolina unexpectedly annulled the contract which they had made, suspended further payment of the balance, and sued for the refunding of what had been already paid. When Whitney first heard of the transactions of the South Carolina Legislature, he was at Raleigh, where he had just completed a negotiation with the Legislature of North Carolina. In a letter written to Miller at this time, he remarks:

"I am, for my own part, more vexed than alarmed by their extraordinary proceedings. I think it behooves us to be very cautious and very circumspect in our measures, and even in our remarks with regard to it. Be cautious what you say or publish till we meet our enemies in a court of justice, where, if they have any sensibility left, we will make them very much ashamed of their childish conduct."

But that Whitney felt keenly the severities afterward practised against him is evident from the tenor of the remonstrance which he presented to the Legislature:

"The subscriber avers that he has manifested no other than a disposition to fulfil all the stipulations entered into with the State of South Carolina with punctuality and good faith; and he begs leave to observe further, that to have industriously, laboriously, and exclusively devoted many years of the prime of his life to the invention and the improvement of a machine from which the citizens of South Carolina have already realized immense profits, which is worth to them millions, and from which their prosperity must continue to derive the most important profits, and in return to be treated as a felon, a swindler, and a villain, has stung him to the very soul. And when he considers that this cruel persecution is inflicted by the very persons who are enjoying these great benefits, and expressly for the purpose of preventing his ever deriving the least advantage from his own labors, the acuteness of his feelings is altogether inexpressible."

Doubts, it seems, had arisen in the public mind as to the validity of the patent. Great exertions had been made in Georgia, where, it will be remembered, hostilities were first declared against him, to show that his title to the invention was unsound, and that "somebody" in Switzerland had conceived it before him; and that the improved form of the machine with saws, instead of wire teeth, did not come within the patent, having been introduced by one Hodgin Holmes. The popular voice, stimulated by the most sordid methods, was now raised against Whitney throughout all the cotton States. Tennessee followed the example of South Carolina, annulling the contract made with him. And the attempt was made in North Carolina. But a committee of the Legislature, to whom it was referred, reported in Whitney's favor, declaring "that the contract ought to be fulfilled with punctuality and good faith," which resolution was adopted by both Houses. There were also high-minded men in South Carolina who were indignant at the dishonorable measures adopted by their Legislature of 1803; their sentiments impressed the community so favorably with regard to Whitney that, at the session of 1804, the Legislature not only rescinded what the previous one had done, but signified their respect for Whitney by marked commendations.

Miller died on December 7, 1803. In the earlier stages of the enterprise he had indulged high hopes of a great fortune; perpetual disappointments appear to have attended him through life. Whitney was now left alone to contend single-handed against the difficulties which had, for a series of years, almost broken down the spirits of the partners. The light, moreover, which seemed to be breaking, proved but the twilight of prosperity. The favorable issue of Whitney's affairs in South Carolina, and the generous receipts he obtained from his contract with North Carolina, relieved him, however, from the embarrassments under which he had so long groaned, and made him, in some degree, independent. Still, no small portion of the funds thus collected in North and South Carolina was expended in carrying on trials and endless lawsuits in Georgia.

Finally, in the United States Court, held in Georgia, December, 1807, Whitney's patent obtained a most important decision in its favor against a trespasser named Fort. It was on this trial that Judge Johnson gave a most celebrated decision in the following words:

"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.

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.

For a time the poor inventor abandoned his machine and obtained a place as engineer on a railway, driving a locomotive, until his health entirely broke down. Forced to turn again to his beloved sewing-machine for want of anything better to do, Howe decided to send his brother Amasa to England with a machine. Amasa reached London in October, 1846, and met a certain William Thomas, to whom he explained the invention. Thomas was much impressed with its possibilities and offered $1,250 for the machine and also to engage Elias Howe at $15 a week if he would enter his business of umbrella and corset maker. This was at least a livelihood to the latter, and he sailed for England, where for the next eight months he worked for Thomas, whom he found an uncommonly hard master. He was indeed so harshly treated that, although his wife and three children had arrived in London, he threw up his situation. For a time his condition was a piteous one. He was in a strange country, without friends or money. For days at a time the little family were without more than crusts to live upon.

Believing that he could struggle along better alone, Howe sent his family home with the first few dollars that he could obtain from the other side and remained in London. There were certain things which caused him to hope for better times ahead. But such hopes were delusive, it seems, and after some months of hardship he followed his family to this country, pawning his model and his patent papers in order to obtain the necessary money for the passage. As he landed in New York with less than a dollar in his pocket, he received news that his wife was dying of consumption in Cambridge. He had no money for travelling by rail, and he was too feeble to attempt the journey on foot. It took him some days to obtain the money for his fare to Boston, but he arrived in time to be present at the death-bed of his wife. Before he could recover from this blow he had news that the ship by which he had sent home the few household goods still remaining to him had gone to the bottom.

This was poor Howe's darkest hour. Others had seen the value of the sewing-machine, and during his absence in England several imitations of it had been made and sold to great advantage by unscrupulous mechanics, who had paid no attention to the rights of the inventor. Such machines were already spoken of as wonders by the newspapers, and were beginning to be used in several industries. Howe's patent was so strong that it was not difficult to find money to defend it, once the practical value of the invention had been well established, and in August, 1850, he began several suits to make his rights clear. At the same time he moved to New York, where he began in a small way to manufacture machines in partnership with a business man named Bliss, who undertook to sell them.

It was not until Howe's rights to the invention had been fully established, which was done by the decision of Judge Sprague, in 1854, that the real value of the sewing-machine as a money-making venture began to be apparent and even then its great importance was so little realized, even by Bliss, who was in the business and died in 1855, that Howe was enabled to buy the interest of his heirs for a small sum. It was during these efforts to introduce the sewing-machine that occurred what were known as the sewing-machine riots—disturbances of no special importance, however—fomented by labor leaders in the New York shops in which cheap clothing was manufactured. Howe's sewing-machine was denounced as a menace to the thousands of men and women who worked in these shops, and in several establishments the first Howe machines introduced were so injured by mischievous persons as to retard the success of the experiment for nearly a year. Failing to stop their introduction by such means a public demonstration against them was organized and for a time threatened such serious trouble that some of the large shops gave up the use of the machine; but in small establishments employing but a few workmen they continued to be used and were soon found to be so indispensable that all opposition faded away.

The patent suits forced upon Howe by a number of infringers were costly drains upon the inventor, but in the end all other manufacturers were compelled to pay tribute to him, and in six years his royalties grew from $300 to more than $200,000 a year. In 1863 his royalties were estimated at $4,000 a day. At the Paris Exposition of 1867 he was awarded a gold medal and the ribbon of the Legion of Honor.

Howe's health, never strong, was so thoroughly broken by the years of struggle and hardship he met with while trying to introduce his machine that he never completely recovered. If honors and money were any comfort to him, his last years must have been happy ones, for his invention made him famous, and he had been enough of a workingman to recognize the blessing he had conferred upon millions of women released from the slavery of the needle; he had answered Hood's "Song of the Shirt." He died on October 3, 1867, at his home in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Those who knew Howe personally speak of him as rather a handsome man, with a head somewhat like Franklin's and a reserved, quiet manner. His bitter struggle against poverty and disease left its impress upon him even to the last. One trait frequently mentioned was his readiness to find good points in the thousand and one variations and sometimes improvements upon his invention. During the years 1858-67, when he died, there were recorded nearly three hundred patents affecting the sewing-machine, taken out by other inventors. Howe was always ready to help along such improvements by advice and often by money. He fought sturdily for his rights, but once those conceded he was a generous rival.

V.

SAMUEL F.B. MORSE.

S.F.B. Morse.

Samuel Finley Breese Morse was the eldest son of the Rev. Jedediah Morse, an eminent New England divine. The Rev. Samuel Finley, D.D., second president of the College of New Jersey, Princeton, was his maternal great-grandfather, after whom he was named. Breese was the maiden name of his mother. The famous inventor of the telegraph was born at the foot of Breed's Hill, Charlestown, Mass., April 27, 1791. Dr. Belknap, of Boston, writing to Postmaster-General Hazard, New York, says:

Birthplace of S.F.B. Morse, Built 1775.

"Congratulate the Monmouth judge (Mr. Breese, the grandfather) on the birth of a grandson. Next Sunday he is to be loaded with names, not quite so many as the Spanish ambassador who signed the treaty of peace of 1783, but only four. As to the child, I saw him asleep, so can say nothing of his eye, or his genius peeping through it. He may have the sagacity of a Jewish rabbi, or the profundity of a Calvin, or the sublimity of a Homer for aught I know, but time will bring forth all things."

Jedediah Morse studied theology under the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Edwards. Before he began preaching, and while teaching school in New Haven, he began his "American Geography," which was afterward indentified with his name. He began his ministry at Norwich, whence he was called back to be tutor in Yale. His health was inadequate to the work and he went to Georgia, returning to Charlestown, Mass., as pastor of the First Congregational Church, on the day that Washington was inaugurated as President in New York, April 30, 1789. Dr. Eliot, speaking of Jedediah Morse, said: "What an astonishing impetus that man has!" President Dwight said: "He is as full of resources as an egg is of meat." Daniel Webster spoke of him as "always thinking, always writing, always talking, always acting."

Morse's mother, Elizabeth Anne Breese, came of good Scotch-Irish stock. She was married to Jedediah Morse in 1789, and was noted as a calm, judicious, and thinking woman, with a will of her own. When the child, Samuel F.B. Morse, was four years old he was sent to school to an old lady within a few hundred yards of the parsonage. She was an invalid, unable to leave her chair, and governed her unruly flock with a long rattan which reached across the small room in which it was gathered. One of her punishments was pinning the culprit to her own dress, and Morse remarks that his first attempts at drawing were discouraged in this fashion. Perhaps the fact that he selected the old lady's face as a model had something to do with it. At the age of seven he was sent to school at Andover, where he was fitted for entering Phillips Academy, and prepared here for Yale, joining the class of 1807. When he was thirteen years old, at Andover, he wrote a sketch of Demosthenes and sent it to his father, by whom it was preserved as a mark of the learning and taste of the child. Dr. Timothy Dwight was then president of Yale and a warm friend of the elder Morse. Finley Morse, as he was then known, received therefore the deep personal interest of Dr. Dwight. Jeremiah Day was professor of natural philosophy in Yale College, and under his instruction Morse began the study of electricity, receiving perhaps those impressions that were destined to produce so great an influence upon him and, through him, upon this century. Professor Day was then young and ardent in the pursuit of science, kindling readily the enthusiasm of his students. He afterward became president of the college. There was at the same time in the faculty Benjamin Silliman, who was professor of chemistry, and near whom Morse resided for several years. Years afterward the testimony of Professors Day and Silliman was given in court, when it was important, in the defence of his claim to priority in the invention of the telegraph. Through them Morse was able to show that he was early interested in the study of chemistry and electricity. During this litigation Morse did not know that there were scores of letters, written by him as a young student to his father, among the papers of Dr Jedediah Morse, that would have shown conclusively his interest and aptitude in these studies. The papers were brought to light when the life of Morse by Prime came to be written.

The first part of Morse's life was devoted to art. At a very early age he showed his taste in this direction, and at the age of fifteen painted a fairly good picture in water colors of a room in his father's house, with his parents, himself, and two brothers around a table. This picture used to hang in his home in New York by the side of his last painting. From that time his desire to become an artist haunted him through his collegiate life. In February, 1811, he painted a picture, now in the office of the mayor of Charlestown, Mass., depicting the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, which, with a landscape painted at about the same time, decided his father, by the advice of Stuart, to permit him to visit Europe with Washington Allston. He bore letters to West and to Copley, from both of whom he received the kindest attention and encouragement.

As a test for his fitness for a place as student in the Royal Academy, Morse made a drawing from a small cast of the Farnese Hercules. He took this to West, who examined the drawing carefully and handed it back, saying: "Very well, sir, very well; go on and finish it." "It is finished," said the expectant student. "Oh, no," said the president. "Look here, and here, and here," pointing out many unfinished places which had escaped the eye of the young artist. Morse quickly observed the defects, spent a week in further perfecting his drawing, and then took it to West, confident that it was above criticism. The venerable president of the Academy bestowed more praise than before and, with a pleasant smile, handed it back to Morse, saying: "Very well, indeed, sir. Go on and finish it." "Is it not finished?" inquired the almost discouraged student. "See," said West, "you have not marked that muscle, nor the articulation of the finger-joints." Three days more were spent upon the drawing, when it was taken back to the implacable critic. "Very clever, indeed," said West; "very clever. Now go on and finish it." "I cannot finish it," Morse replied, when the old man, patting him on the shoulder, said: "Well, I have tried you long enough. Now, sir, you have learned more by this drawing than you would have accomplished in double the time by a dozen half-finished beginnings. It is not many drawings, but the character of one which makes a thorough draughtsman. Finish one picture, sir, and you are a painter."

Morse heeded this advice. He went to work with Allston, and encouraged by the veteran, Copley, he began upon a large picture for exhibition in the Royal Academy, choosing as his subject "The Dying Hercules." He modelled his figure in clay, as the best of the old painters did. It was his first attempt in the sculptor's art. The cast was made in plaster and taken to West, who was delighted with it. This model contended for the prize of a gold medal offered by the Society of Arts for the best original cast of a single figure, and won it. In the large room of the London Adelphi, in the presence of the British nobility, foreign ambassadors, and distinguished strangers, the Duke of Norfolk publicly presented the medal to Morse on May 13, 1813. At the same time the painting from this model, then on exhibition at the Royal Academy, received great praise from the critics, who placed "The Dying Hercules" among the first twelve pictures in a collection of almost two thousand.

This was an extraordinary success for so young a man, and Morse determined to try for the highest prize offered by the Royal Academy for the best historical composition, the decision to be made in 1815. For that purpose he produced his "Judgment of Jupiter" in July of that year. West assured him that it would take the prize, but Morse was unable to comply with the rules of the Academy, which required the victor to receive the medal in person. His father had summoned him home. West urged the Academy to make an exception in his case, but it could not be done, and the young painter had to be contented with his assurances that he would certainly have won the prize (a gold medal and $250) had he remained.

West was always kind to Americans, and Morse was a favorite with him. One day, when the venerable painter was at work upon his great picture, "Christ Rejected," after carefully examining Morse's hands and noting their beauty, he said: "Let me tie you with this cord and take that place while I paint in the hands of the Saviour." This was done, and when he released the young artist, he said to him: "You may now say, if you please, that you had a hand in this picture." A number of noted English artists—Turner, Northcote, Sir James Lawrence, Flaxman—and literary men—Coleridge, Wordsworth, Rogers, and Crabbe among them—were attracted by young Morse's proficiency and pleasant manners, and when in August, 1815, he packed his picture, "The Judgment of Jupiter," and sailed for home, he bore with him the good wishes of some of England's most distinguished men.

When Morse reached Boston, although but twenty-four years old, he found that fame had preceded him. His prestige was such that he set up his easel with high hopes and fair prospects for the future, both destined soon to be dispelled. The taste of America had not risen to the appreciation of historical pictures. His original compositions and his excellent copies of the masterpieces of the Old World excited the admiration of cultured people, but no orders were given for them. He left Boston almost penniless after having waited for months for patronage, and determined to try to earn his bread by painting the portraits of people in the rural districts of New England, where his father's name was a household word. During the autumn of 1816 and the winter of 1816-1817 he visited several towns in New Hampshire and Vermont, painting portraits in Walpole, Hanover, Windsor, Portsmouth, and Concord. He received the modest sum of $15 for each portrait. From Concord, N.H., he writes to his parents: "I am still here (August 16th) and am passing my time very agreeably. I have painted five portraits at $15 each, and have two more engaged and many talked of. I think I shall get along well. I believe I could make an independent fortune in a few years if I devoted myself exclusively to portraits, so great is the desire for good portraits in the different country towns." He doubtless was candid when he wrote that he was "passing his time in Concord very agreeably," for it was here that he met Lucretia P. Walker, who was accounted the most beautiful and accomplished young lady of the town, whom Morse subsequently married. She was a young woman of great personal loveliness and rare good sense. The young artist was attracted by her beauty, her sweetness of temper, and high intellectual qualities. All the letters that she wrote to him before and after their marriage he carefully preserved, and these are witnesses to her intelligence, education, tenderness of feeling, and admirable fitness to be the wife of such a man. Gradually Morse's portraits became so much in demand that he was enabled to increase his price to $60, and as he painted four a week upon the average, and received a good deal of money during a tour in the South, he was enabled to return to New England in 1818 with $3,000, and to marry Miss Walker on October 6th of that year.

The first years of Morse's married life were passed in Charleston, S.C., after which he returned to New England, and having laid by some little capital, he took up again what he deemed to be his real vocation—the painting of great historical pictures. His first venture in this direction was an exhibition picture of the House of Representatives at Washington. As a business venture it was disastrous, and resulted in the loss of eighteen months of precious time. It was finally sold to an Englishman. Then began Morse's life in New York. Through the influence of Isaac Lawrence he obtained a commission from the city authorities of New York to paint a full-length portrait of Lafayette, who was then in this country. He had just completed his study from life in Washington in February, 1825, when he received the news of the death of his wife. A little more than a year afterward both his father and mother died. Thenceforward his children and art absorbed his affections.

He was an artist, heart and soul, and his professional brethren soon had good reason to be grateful to him. The American Academy of Fine Arts, then under the presidency of Colonel John Trumbull, was in a languishing state and of little use to artists. The most advanced of its members felt the need of relief, and a few of them met at Morse's rooms to discuss their troubles. At that meeting Morse proposed the formation of a new society of artists, and at a meeting held at the New York Historical Society's rooms the "New York Drawing Association" was organized, with Morse as its president. Trumbull endeavored to compel the new society to profess allegiance to the academy, but Morse protested, and thanks to his advice, on January 18, 1826, a new art association was organized under the name of the "National Academy of Design." Morse was its first president, and for sixteen years he was annually elected to that office. The friends of the old academy were wrathful and assailed the new association. A war of words, in which Morse acted as the champion of the new society, was waged until victory was conceded to the reformers. Thus Morse inaugurated a new era in the history of the fine arts in this country. He wrote, talked, lectured incessantly for the advancement of art and the Academy of Design.

Under Side of a Modern Switchboard, showing 2,000 Wires.

In 1829 Morse made a second visit to Europe, where he was warmly welcomed and honored by the Royal Academy. During three years or more he lived in continental cities, studying the Louvre in Paris and making of the famous gallery an exhibition picture which contained about fifty miniatures of the works in that collection. In November, 1832, he was back again in New York, with high hopes as to his future. Allston, writing to Dunlap in 1834, said: "I rejoice to hear your report of Morse's advance in his art. I know what is in him perhaps better than anyone else. If he will only bring out all that is there he will show parts that many now do not dream of."

For several years the thoughts of the artist Morse had been busy with a matter wholly outside of his chosen domain. Some lectures on electro-magnetism by his intimate friend, Judge Freeman Dana, given at the Athenæum while Morse was also lecturing there on the fine arts, had greatly interested him in the subject, and he learned much in conversation with Dana. While on his second visit to Europe Morse made himself acquainted with the labors of scientific men in their endeavors to communicate intelligence between far-distant places by means of electro-magnetism, and he saw an electro-magnet signalling instrument in operation. He knew that so early as 1649 a Jesuit priest had prophesied an electric telegraph, and that for half a century or more students had partially succeeded in attempts of this kind. But no practical telegraph had yet been invented. In 1774 Le Sage made an electro-signalling instrument with twenty-four wires, one for each letter of the alphabet. In 1825 Sturgeon invented an electro-magnet. In 1830 Professor Henry increased the magnetic force that Morse afterward used.

On board the ship Sully, in which Morse sailed from Havre to New York, in the autumn of 1832, the recent discovery in France of the means of obtaining an electric spark from a magnet was a favorite topic of conversation among the passengers, and it was during the voyage that Morse conceived the idea of an electro-magnetic and chemical recording telegraph. Before he reached New York he had made drawings and specifications of his conception, which he exhibited to his fellow passengers. Few great inventions that have made their authors immortal were so completely grasped at inception as this. Morse was accustomed to keep small note-books in which to make records of his work, and scores of these books are still in existence. As he sat upon the deck of the Sully, one night after dinner, he drew from his pocket one of these books and began to make marks, to represent letters and figures to be produced by electricity at a distance. The mechanism by which the results were to be reached was wrought out by slow and laborious thought, but the vision as a whole was clear. The current of electricity passed instantaneously to any distance along a wire, but the current being interrupted, a spark appeared. This spark represented one sign; its absence another; the time of its absence still another. Here are three signs to be combined into the representation of figures or letters. They can be made to form an alphabet. Words may thus be indicated. A telegraph, an instrument to record at a distance, will result. Continents shall be crossed. This great and wide sea shall be no barrier. "If it will go ten miles without stopping," he said, "I can make it go around the globe."

He worked incessantly all that next day and could not sleep at night in his berth. In a few days he submitted some rough drafts of his invention to William C. Rives, of Virginia, who was returning from Paris, where he had been minister of the United States. Mr. Rives suggested various difficulties, over which Morse spent several sleepless nights, announcing in the morning at breakfast-table the new devices by which he proposed to accomplish the task before him. He exhibited a drawing of the instrument which he said would do the work, and so completely had he mastered all the details that five years afterward, when a model of this instrument was constructed, it was instantly recognized as the one he had devised and drawn in his sketch-book and exhibited to his fellow passengers on the ship. In view of subsequent claims made by a fellow passenger to the honor of having suggested the telegraph, these details are interesting and important.

The First Telegraphic Instrument, as Exhibited in 1837 by Morse.

Circumstances delayed the construction of a recording telegraph by Morse, but the subject slumbered in his mind. During his absence abroad he had been elected professor of the literature of the arts of design, in the University of the City of New York, and this work occupied his attention for some time. Three years afterward, in November, 1835, he completed a rude telegraph instrument—the first recording apparatus; but it embodied the mechanical principle now in use the world over. His whole plan was not completed until July, 1837, when by means of two instruments he was able to communicate from as well as to a distant point. In September hundreds of people saw the new instrument in operation at the university, most of whom looked upon it as a scientific toy constructed by an unfortunate dreamer. The following year the invention was sufficiently perfected to enable Morse to direct the attention of Congress to it and ask its aid in the construction of an experimental line between Washington and Baltimore.

Late in the long session of 1838 he appeared before that body with his instrument. Before leaving New York with it he had invited a few friends to see it work. Now began in the life of Morse a period of years during which his whole time was devoted to convincing the world, first, that his electric telegraph would really communicate messages, and, secondly, that if it worked at all, it was of great practical value. Strange to say that this required any argument at all. But that in those days it did may be inferred from the fact that Morse could then find no help far or near. His invention was regarded as interesting, but of no importance either scientifically or commercially. In Washington, where he first went, he found so little encouragement that he went to Europe with the hope of drawing the attention of foreign governments to the advantages, and of securing patents for the invention; he had filed a caveat at the Patent Office in this country. His mission was a failure. England refused him a patent, and France gave him only a useless paper which assured for him no special privileges. He returned home disappointed but not discouraged, and waited four years longer before he again attempted to interest Congress in his invention.

The Modern Morse Telegraph.

This extraordinary struggle lasted twelve years, during which, with his mind absorbed in one idea and yet almost wholly dependent for bread upon his profession as an artist, it was impossible to pursue art with the enthusiasm and industry essential to success. His situation was forlorn in the extreme. The father of three little children, now motherless, his pecuniary means exhausted by his residence in Europe, and unable to pursue art without sacrificing his invention, he was at his wits' ends. He had visions of usefulness by the invention of a telegraph that should bring the continents of the earth into intercourse. He was poor and knew that wealth as well as fame was within his reach. He had long received assistance from his father and brothers when his profession did not supply the needed means of support for himself and family; but it seemed like robbery to take the money of others for experiments, the success of which he could not expect them to believe in until he could give practical evidence that the instrument would do the work proposed. It was the old story of genius contending with poverty. His brothers comforted, encouraged, and cheered him. In the house of his brother Richard he found a home and the tender care that he required. Sidney, the other brother, also helped him. On the corner of Nassau and Beekman Streets, now the site of the handsome Morse Building, his brothers erected a building where were the offices of the newspaper of which they were the editors and proprietors. In the fifth story of this building a room was assigned to him which was for several years his studio, bedroom, parlor, kitchen, and workshop. On one side of the room stood a little cot on which he slept in the brief hours which he allowed himself for repose. On the other side stood his lathe with which the inventor turned the brass apparatus necessary in the construction of his instruments. He had, with his own hands, first whittled the model; then he made the moulds for the castings. Here were brought to him, day by day, crackers and the simplest food, by which, with tea prepared by himself, he sustained life while he toiled incessantly to give being to the idea that possessed him.

Morse Making his own Instrument.
(From Prime's Life of Morse.)

Before leaving for Europe he had suffered a great disappointment as an artist. The government had offered to American artists, to be selected by a committee of Congress, commissions to paint pictures for the panels in the rotunda of the Capitol. Morse was anxious to be employed upon one or more of them. He was the president of the National Academy of Design, and there was an eminent fitness in calling him to this national work. Allston urged the appointment of Morse. John Quincy Adams, then a member of the House and on the committee to whom this subject was referred, submitted a resolution in the House that foreign artists be allowed to compete for these commissions, and in support alleged that there were no American artists competent to execute the paintings. This gave great and just offence to the artists and the public. A severe reply to Adams appeared in the New York Evening Post. It was written by James Fenimore Cooper, but it was attributed to Morse, whose pen was well known to be skillful, and in consequence his name was rejected by the committee. He never recovered fully from the effects of that blow. Forty years afterward he could not speak of it without emotion. He had consecrated years of his life to the preparation for just such work.

It was well for him and for his country and the world that the artist in Morse was disappointed. From painter he became inventor, and from that time until the world acknowledged the greatness and importance of his invention he turned not back. His appointment as professor in the City University entitled him to certain rooms in the University Building looking out upon Washington Square, and here the first working models of the telegraph were brought into existence.