66 66 One day some gentlemen at her table expressed a regret that there was no machine by which the cotton-wool could be readily separated from the seed. Apply to my young friend here," said Mrs. Greene; 'he can make anything." Whitney had then never seen a cotton-seed with wool adhering. He was furnished with some. With rude plantation tools he constructed a machine that performed the work. This was the origin of the sawgin, which, with some improvements, is universally used on American plantations. Some of Mrs. Greene's neighbors were called in to see the working of it. They were astonished and delighted. Phineas Miller, a college-mate of Whitney, had come to Georgia, and soon became the second husband of Mrs. Greene. Having some money, he formed a copartnership with Whitney in the manufacture of gins. The machine was locked from public view until a patent could be procured. Planters came from all parts of South Carolina and Georgia to see the wonderful machine which could do the work in a day of 1,000 women. The workshop of the inventor was broken into and the model was carried off. Imperfect machines were made by common mechanics, which injured the fibre and defamed the machine for a while. forth those who had wronged Whitney, in defiance of law and justice, were permitted to continue the wrong under the protection of law. The immediate influence of Whitney's cotton-gin upon the dying institution of slavery was most remarkable. It played an important part in the social, com ELI WHITNEY. mercial, and political history of the country for seventy years. The increased production of cotton made an enormous demand for slave-labor in the preparation The gin was patented (1793) before any of the soil, the ingathering of the harvest, were made. The violators of the patent and the preparation of it for market. Its were prosecuted, but packed juries gave effects upon the industrial pursuits of sweeping verdicts against the owners. nearly one-half the nation were marvelEven State legislatures broke their bar- lous. Such, also, were its effects upon the gains with them, or, like South Carolina, moral and intellectual condition of the long delayed to fulfil them; and when, in people in the cotton-growing States. Be1812, Whitney asked Congress for an ex- fore 1808 (after which time the national tension of his patent, the members from Constitution prohibited the prosecution of the cotton-growing States, whose constit- the African slave-trade) enormous numuents had been enriched by the invention, bers of slaves were brought to the country. vehemently opposed the prayer of the The institution had been unprofitable, and petitioner, and it was denied. Thence was dying. The cotton-gin revived it, Whitney, WILLIAM COLLINS, capitalist; born in Conway, Mass., July 15, 1841: graduated at Yale University in 1863, and at the Harvard Law School in 1865; admitted to the bar and began practising in New York; assisted in organizing the Young Men's Democratic Club in 1871; was active in the movement against the Tweed ring; and Secretary of the Navy in 1885-89, during which period the creation of the new navy" was begun. He has since been largely interested in street railway corporations. made it strong and powerful, and cotton, that capacity edited the Ticknor Catalogue its representative, assumed to be king of Spanish Literature and other similar of the nation, and for fifty years swayed publications. In 1899 he succeeded Heran imperial sceptre, almost unchallenged. bert Putnam as librarian of the Boston Eli Whitney, a Yankee school-master, built Public Library. the throne of King Cotton, but was denied his just wages by the subjects of the monarch. The legislature of South Carolina voted him $50,000, which, after vexatious delays and lawsuits, was finally paid. North Carolina allowed him a percentage for the use of the gin for five years. Congress having refused to renew his patent, he engaged in the manufacture of firearms for the government during the War of 1812-15, and finally gained a fortune. He died in New Haven, Conn., Jan. 8, 1825. Whitney, FREDERIC AUGUSTUS, clergyman; born in Quincy, Mass., Sept. 13, Whitney, WILLIAM DWIGHT, philolo1812; graduated at Harvard College in gist; born in Northampton, Mass., Feb. 1833 and at its Divinity School in 1838; 9, 1827; graduated at Williams College was pastor at Brighton, Mass., in 1843- in 1845; studied in Europe till 1853; was 59. He was the author of Historical Profesor of Sanskrit in Yale University Sketch of the Old Church at Quincy; from 1854 till his death, in New Haven, Biography of James Holton, etc. He died June 7, 1894. In 1857-84 he was correin Brighton, Mass., Oct. 21, 1880. sponding secretary of the American OriWhitney, HENRY CLAY, lawyer; born ental Society, and in 1884-90, its presiin Detroit, Me., Feb. 23, 1831; received a dent. He contributed articles on Oriental collegiate education; became intimately philology to Appleton's American Cycloacquainted with Abraham Lincoln in pædia; and was editor-in-chief of The 1854; and was paymaster in the United Century Dictionary. States army in 1861-65. He is the author of Life on the Circuit with Lincoln; Lincoln's Lost Speech; Lincoln in Reminiscent and Colloquial Moods, etc. Whitney, HENRY HOWARD, military officer; born in Glen Hope, Pa., Dec. 25, 1866; graduated at the United States Military Academy in 1892 and was assigned to the 4th Artillery as first lieu tenant. In 1898, under the guise of an English sailor, he made a military reconnoissance of Porto Rico and gained information which General Miles made the basis of his campaign against that isand. He was captain and assistant adjutant-general on the staff of General Miles during the war with Spain; was afterwards promoted lieutenant-colonel and became aide-de-camp to LieutenantGeneral Miles. Whitney, JAMES LYMAN, librarian: born in Northampton, Mass., Nov. 28, 1835: graduated at Yale College in 1856; was chief of the catalogue department in the Yale library for many years and in Whiton, JOHN MILTON, clergyman; born in Winchendon, Mass., Aug. 1, 1785; graduated at Yale College in 1805; was pastor of a Presbyterian church in Andover, N. H., in 1808-53. His publications include Brief Notices of the Town of Antrim, in the Collections of the New Hampshire Historical Society; Sketches of the Early History of New Hampshire. 1623-1833, etc. He died in Antrim, N. H., Sept. 28, 1856. Whitside, SAMUEL MARMADUKE, military officer; born in Toronto, Canada. Jan. 9, 1839; joined the United States army in 1858; served throughout the Civil War with the 6th Cavalry; was then assigned to duty on the frontier, where he served for twenty-five years. In December, 1890, he captured Big Foot and his 400 Sioux warriors, and led his regiment at the battle of Wounded Knee. During the war with Spain he commanded the 5th Cavalry; was transferred to the 10th Cavalry in October, 1898; and went to Cuba in May, 1899, where he was placed Whittemore, AMOS, inventor; born in in command of the Department of Santiago and Puerto Principe in January, Cambridge, Mass., April 19, 1759; reared 1900. On the reorganization of the regu- a farmer; became a gunsmith; and then, lar army, in 1901, he was promoted brig- with his brother, a manufacturer of cotadier-general. ton and wool-cards, or card-cloth. He Whittaker, ALEXANDER, clergyman; claimed to have invented a machine for born in England; accompanied Sir Thomas puncturing the leather and setting the Dale to Virginia in 1611; was a mission- wires, which was patented in 1797. Before ary. Sir Thomas had been active in plant- that time the work had been performed ing a settlement at Henrico, composed slowly by hand. The establishment of largely of Hollanders, and Mr. Whittaker, spinning machinery in New England (see who was a decidedly Low Churchman, SLATER, SAMUEL) had made the business it was thought would be in sympathy with of card-making profitable, and so useful them, and so he seems to have been. He was Whittemore's machine that the patent was puritanical in his proclivities. "The was sold for $150,000. His brother Samsurplice," says Purchas, was not even uel afterwards repurchased it and carried spoken of in his parish." He organized on the business of making card-cloth. a congregation at Henrico, and there he Amos died in West Cambridge, March 27, preached until 1617, when he was drowned. 1828. 66 WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF He died in Hampton Falls, N. H., Sept. 7, 1892. The Centennial Hymn. - The following hymn by Mr. Whittier was sung at the opening of the Centennial Exposition in 1876: "Our fathers' God! from out whose hand "Here, where of old, by Thy design, Whittier, JOHN GREENLEAF, poet; born him with reverential affection. in Haverhill, Mass., Dec. 17, 1807. His parents were Quakers, and he was a member of the Society of Friends till his death. Until he was eighteen years old he worked on his father's farm, and sent occasionally some verses to the local newspaper-Haverhill Gazette. Sometimes he worked at shoemaking. In 1829 he became editor of the American Manufacturer, in Boston. The next year he was editing in Hartford, Conn.; and in 1832-36 he edited the Gazette, at Haverhill. His first publication of any pretension was his Legends of New England (1831). Others soon followed. As early as 1833 he began to battle for the freedom of the slaves, and he never ceased warfare until the slave system disappeared in 1863. He was elected secretary of the Anti-slavery Society in 1836, and edited, in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Freeman, devoted to its principles. In 1840 he removed to Amesbury, Mass., where he resided until about 1878, cultivating a small farm. In 1847 he became corresponding editor of the National Era, an anti-slavery paper published at Washington, D. C. Mr. Whittier was a thoroughly American poet, and most of his verses were inspired by current events. The spirit of humanity, democracy, and patriotism expressed in his poems and prose writings made the public regard "Be with us while the New World greets "Thou. who hast here in concord furled For art and labor met in truce, "Oh! make Thou us, through centuries long, Whittier was pre-eminently the poet of the anti-slavery conflict. There is almost no phase of the great wrong and almost JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. (1833), on The Abolitionists: their Sentiments and Objects. The Life of Whittier, by Samuel T. Pickard, is especially full, touching his work against slavery and his general political life, which was much more active than is commonly supposed. There are briefer biographies by Underwood, Kennedy, and Linton, and interesting volumes of personal reminiscences by Mrs. Mary B. Claflin and Mrs. James T. Fields. The Antislavery Convention of 1833.-By John G. Whittier. Written in 1874. Copyright, 1888, by John Greenleaf Whittier.* In the gray twilight of a chill day of late November, forty years ago, a dear friend of mine, residing in Boston, made his appearance at the old farm-house in East Haverhill. He had been deputed by the abolitionists of the city, William L. Garrison, Samuel E. Sewall, and others, to inform me of my appointment as a delegate to the convention about to be held in Philadelphia for the formation of an American antislavery society, and to urge upon me the necessity of my attendance. Few words of persuasion, however, were needed. I was unused to travelling; my life had been spent on a secluded farm; and the journey, mostly by stagecoach, at that time was really a formidable one. Moreover, the few abolitionists were everywhere spoken against, their persons threatened, and in some instances a price set on their heads by Southern legislators. Pennsylvania was on the borders of slavery, and it needed small effort of imagination to picture to one's self the breaking up of the convention and maltreatment of its members. This latter no episode in the struggle for its aboli- *Reprinted by permission from Whittier's Prose Works, published by Houghton, Mifflin consideration I do not think weighed much finement. Our worthy friend the clergywith me, although I was better prepared man bore it a while in painful silence, for serious danger than for anything like personal indignity. I had read Governor Trumbull's description of the tarring and feathering of his hero MacFingal, when, after the application of the melted tar, the feather bed was ripped open and shaken over him, until "Not Maia's son, with wings for ears, Such plumes about his visage wears, Nor Milton's six-winged angel gathers Such superfluity of feathers"; and, I confess, I was quite unwilling to undergo a martyrdom which my best friends could scarcely refrain from laughing at. But a summons like that of Garrison's bugle-blast could scarcely be unheeded by one who, from birth and education, held fast the traditions of that earlier abolitionism which, under the lead of Benezet and Woolman, had effaced from the Society of Friends every vestige of slave-holding. I had thrown myself, with a young man's fervid enthusiasm, into a movement which commended itself to my reason and conscience, to my love of country and my sense of duty to God and my fellow-men. My first venture in authorship was the publication at my own expense, in the spring of 1833, of a pamphlet entitled Justice and Expediency, on the moral and political evils of slavery and the duty of emancipation. Under such circumstances I could not hesitate, but prepared at once for my journey. It was necessary that I should start on the morrow; and the intervening time, with a small allowance of sleep, was spent in providing for the care of the farm and homestead during my absence. So the next morning I took the stage for Boston, stopping at the ancient hostelry known as the Eastern Stage Tavern; and on the day following, in company with William Lloyd Garrison, I left for New York. At that city we were joined by other delegates, among them David Thurston, a Congregational minister from Maine. On our way to Philadelphia we took, as a matter of necessary economy, a second-class conveyance, and found ourselves, in consequence, among rough and hilarious companions, whose language was more noteworthy for strength than re but at last felt it his duty to utter words of remonstrance and admonition. The leader of the young roisterers listened with ludicrous mock gravity, thanked him for his exhortation, and, expressing fears that the extraordinary effort had exhausted his strength, invited him to take a drink with him. Father Thurston buried his grieved face in his coat-collar, and wisely left the young reprobates to their own devices. On reaching Philadelphia, we at once betook ourselves to the humble dwelling on Fifth Street occupied by Evan Lewis, a plain, earnest man and lifelong abolitionist, who had been largely interested in preparing the way for the convention. In one respect the time of our assembling seemed unfavorable. The Society of Friends, upon whose co-operation we had counted, had but recently been rent asunder by one of those unhappy controversies which so often mark the decline of practical righteousness. The martyrage of the society had passed, wealth and luxury had taken the place of the old simplicity; there was a growing conformity to the maxims of the world in trade and fashion, and with it a corresponding unwillingness to hazard respectability by the advocacy of unpopular reforms. Unprofitable speculation and disputation on one hand, and a vain attempt on the other to enforce uniformity of opinion, had measurably lost sight of the fact that the end of the gospel is love, and that charity is its crowning virtue. long and painful struggle the disruption had taken place. The shattered fragments, under the name of Orthodox and Hicksite, so like and yet so separate in feeling, confronted each other as hostile sects; and After a To free the hollow heart from paining: We found about forty members assembled in the parlors of our friend Lewis, and after some general conversation Lewis |