Problems Producing the Cotton-Gin Machines

Today’s installment concludes Enormous Growth of Cotton in America,
the name of our combined selection from Charles W. Dabney, Robert B. Handy, and Denison Olmsted. The concluding installment, by Denison Olmsted from Memoir of Eli Whitney, esq., was published in 1846.

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Previously in Enormous Growth of Cotton in America.

One of the greatest difficulties experienced by men of enterprise, at the period under review, was the extreme scarcity of money. In order to carry on the manufacture of cotton-gins, and to make advances in the purchase of cotton and establishments for ginning, to an extent in any degree proportioned to their wishes, Miller & Whitney required a much greater capital than they could command; and the sanguine temperament of Mr. Miller was constantly prompting him to advance in hazards much further than the more cautious spirit of Mr. Whitney would follow. But even the latter found it necessary sometimes to borrow money at an enormous interest. The first loan (for $2000) was made on terms which were deemed at that time peculiarly favorable; yet the company were to pay 5 per cent. premium in addition to the lawful interest. This was in 1794. In consequence of the numerous speculations in new lands into which so many of our countrymen were deluded, and the want of confidence created by the very application for a loan, the pressure for money was continually increasing. In 1796 Mr. Whitney applied to a friend in Boston to raise money for him on a loan, and received the following reply: “I applied to one of those vultures called brokers, who are preying on the purse-strings of the industrious, and was informed that he can procure the sum you wish at a premium of 20 per cent. on the following conditions, viz.: You must make over and deposit with him public securities, such as funded stock, bank stock, or any kind of State notes, or Connecticut reservation land certificates, sufficient, at the going prices, fully to secure the debt and premium.” In a more embarrassed state of Mr. Miller’s private affairs, several years afterward, he paid the enormous interest of 5, 6, and even 7 per cent. per month.

We have said that the loan contracted by Mr. Whitney, in 1794, at a premium of 5 per cent. in addition to the lawful interest, was regarded as peculiarly favorable; this is evident from the fact that, during the same year, Mr. Miller urges him to contract a new loan, if possible, for $3000, at 12 or 14 per cent. provided it could be extended over a year.

In July, 1794, Mr. Whitney was confined by a severe illness, from which he recovered slowly; but his business received a still further interruption from a very fatal sickness, the scarlet fever, which prevailed in New Haven during this year, and which attacked a number of his workmen.

Under all these discouragements Mr. Miller was constantly writing the most urgent letters from Georgia, to press forward the manufacture of machines. “Do not let a deficiency of money, do not let anything,” says Mr. Miller, “hinder the speedy construction of the gins. The people of the country are almost running mad for them, and much can be said to justify their importunity. When the present crop is harvested, there will be a real property of at least $50,000, yes, of $100,000, lying useless, unless we can enable the holders to bring it to market. Pray remember that we must have from fifty to one hundred gins between this and another fall, if there are any workmen in New England or in the Middle States to make them. In two years we will begin to take long steps up-hill, in the business of patent ginning, fortune favoring.”

The general resort of the planters to the cultivation of cotton, and its consequent production in vast quantities, the value of which depended entirely upon the chance of getting it cleaned by the gin, created great uneasiness, which first displayed itself in this pressure upon Miller & Whitney, and afterward afforded great encouragement to the marauders upon the patent-right, who were now becoming numerous and audacious.

The roller-gin was at first the most formidable competitor with Whitney’s machine. It extricated the seeds 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 rendered its execution much inferior in this respect to Whitney’s gin, and it was also much slower in its operation. Great efforts were made, however, to create an impression in favor of its superiority in other respects.

But a still more formidable rival appeared early in the year 1795, under the name of the saw-gin. It was Whitney’s gin, except that the teeth were cut in circular rims of iron, instead of being made of wires, as was the case in the earlier forms of the patent gin. The idea of such teeth had early occurred to Mr. Whitney, as he afterward established by legal proof. But they would have been of no use except in connection with the other parts of his machine, and, therefore, this was a palpable attempt to evade the patent-right, and it was principally in reference to this that the lawsuits were afterward held.

It would be difficult to estimate the full value of Mr. Whitney’s labors, without going into a minuteness of detail inconsistent with our limits. Every cotton garment bears the impress of his genius, and the ships that transported it across the waters were the heralds of his fame, and the cities that have risen to opulence by the cotton trade must attribute no small share of their prosperity to the inventor of the cotton-gin. We have before us the declaration of the late Mr. Fulton, that Arkwright, Watt, and Whitney — we would add Fulton to the number — were the three men who did most for mankind, of any of their contemporaries; and in the sense in which he intended it, the remark is probably true.

This ends our selections on Enormous Growth of Cotton in America by three of the most important authorities on this topic:

• The Cotton Plant (a Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin, Volume 33) by Charles W. Dabney published in 1896.
• The Cotton Plant (a Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin, Volume 33) by Robert B. Handy published in 1896.
• Memoir of Eli Whitney, esq. by Denison Olmsted published in 1846.

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