USA > Georgia > A standard history of Georgia and Georgians > Part 50
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More than fifteen years now elapsed, but at last the time came when Longstreet could face his erities with an exultant smile of satisfaction. The triumph was belated, but none the less complete. Taking on board such of his friends as could be prevailed upon to make the venture, he pointed his odd-looking little vessel toward the deep water, and the experiment now worked like a charm. First he moved with the current, and then, reversing the lever, he moved against the current, but in either ease with equal ease; and, after traveling several miles with his delighted passengers, he brought the craft safely to shore. The movement of the boat evoked the lustiest shouts from the spectators who now crowded about the dock to vote the returning hero a Roman triumph. Those who, fearing the boilers might explode, had gone out in skiffs to gather up the remnants, now came back soundly converted to the true faith. William Longstreet had won.
But the heralds were most too slow in proclaiming the news to Christendom. For, while the Georgia inventor was meeting with every kind of discouragement as he toiled away upon his rude engine in Angusta, another mechanical genius was in Paris experimenting with his submarine diver. It was Robert Fulton. IIe had been invited over to the French capital by the United States minister, Robert Livingston, and instead of being hampered by slender means or contemptuous slurs, he was warmly encouraged by the far-sighted Napoleon, who was then first consul of France, Fulton possessed what Longstreet lacked : influential friends at court, and unlimited resources. The favoring gales wafted him on to early success, and he was soon engaged in devis- ing the famous steamboat with which his name has ever since been uni- versally associated. Nevertheless the credit of the first real demonstra- tion belongs to William Longstreet, for it was as early as 1806 that he successfully applied steam to navigation. But the fleet-footed Mercury was on the side of Robert Fulton.
Too intent upon perfecting the invention to give any thought to the patent office in Washington, William Longstreet slept over his rights, but some of his friends in the year following were about to set out for the seat of government on his behalf, when the news came from New York that the trial trip of the Clermont on the waters of the Hudson had been successfully accomplished. Thus William Longstreet was thwarted of his well-earned reward; but, derided and belittled though he was, he barely missed being celebrated in song and story as the author of the colossal achievement which changed the whole method of ocean travel and which fairly illuminated the giant portals of the most won- derful of all the centuries.
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Other misfortunes crowded upon the hapless inventor. He shortly afterwards set up two large gins in Augusta which were propelled by steam. They worked admirably and promised handsome returns, but not long after completion they were destroyed by fire. Subsequently he erected at St. Mary's two steam mills, but they were both destroyed in the War of 1812. By this time the enterprise of William Longstreet was completely discouraged. Heartbroken over his repeated misfor- tunes and disappointments, he was in some respects like the great Italian navigator who failed to link his name to the vast hemisphere which he had been the first to discover and who passed away in almost unknown obscurity at Valladolid, among the hills of Spain. The unrewarded inventor died in 1814, and though prevented, like Tantalus, from clutch- ing the fruit which waved in the air just over him, full-orbed and golden, he must, nevertheless, be recognized as the ill-starred forerunner of Robert Fulton in the evolution of the modern steamboat.
To conclude this desultory sketch, it only needs to be said that Wil- liam Longstreet came of an old Dutch family whose household escutcheon was planted in New Amsterdam by an emigrant from the low country, one Dirk Stoffels Langestraat, who became the progenitor of an illus- trious offspring. William Longstreet was an uncle of the celebrated humorist, Judge Augustus B. Longstreet, who wrote "Georgia Scenes." He was also the grandfather of a noted Confederate offieer, Gen. James Longstreet, famous as "Lee's old War Horse." In the churchyard of historie old St. Paul's, at Augusta, facing a walk to the left of the ancient edifiee, stands an old tombstone. It marks the last resting place of William Longstreet. His grave is on an eminence overlooking the scene of his famous experiments; and lettered upon the crumbling headstone, yellow with age, one with difficulty may decipher the following pathetie inscription :
Sacred to the memory of WILLIAM LONGSTREET, who departed this life, September 1, 1814, aged 54 years, 10 months and 26 days. "All the days of the afflicted are evil; but he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast."
CHAPTER V
THIE COTTON GIN-HOW THE CURRENTS OF AMERICAN HISTORY, POLITI- CAL AND ECONOMIC, WERE DESTINED TO BE AFFECTED BY THIS INVENTION-ITS EFFECT UPON THE SOUTH-PRIOR TO THIS TIME, COTTON AN UNIMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE INDUSTRIAL LIFE OF THE WORLD-ONLY 399 BALES EXPORTED FROM THE UNITED STATES IN 1791-SEA-ISLAND COTTON -- UPLAND COTTON --- ELI WHIT- NEY, A NEW ENGLANDER, IN 1793, A GUEST OF GENERAL GREENE'S WIDOW AT MULBERRY GROVE, NEAR SAVANNAH -- CIRCUMSTANCES WIIICH LED WHITNEY TO INVENT THE COTTON GIN -- AN AUTHENTIC ACCOUNT-WHITNEY'S SUBSEQUENT CAREER-ESTABLISHIES A COTTON GIN IN WILKES COUNTY, SIX MILES FROM WASHINGTON-KEEPS THE PROCESS OF GINNING A SECRET, BUT A MAN DISGUISED IN FEMALE ATTIRE ENTERS THE GINNERY AND MAKES IMPORTANT DISCOVERIES- RIVALS CLAIMANTS -- LAW SUITS OVER PATENT RIGHTS-WHITNEY REAPS LITTLE PROFIT OUT OF AN INVENTION WHICHI. WAS DESTINED TO FURNISH APPAREL FOR HALF OF THE HUMAN RACE AND TO RULE THIE INDUSTRIAL ACTIVITIES OF TIIE GLOBE.
NOTES: WIIERE AN IMPORTANT BATTLE WAS FOUGHT.
"Behold, in endless sheets, unroll The snow of southern summer."
Thus sang the poet Timrod. IIalf of the human race is today clothed with fabrics spun from the South's royal staple, cotton, a product far richer in its intrinsic value than the golden fleece for which Jason went in search. Today cotton rules an empire broader in extent than the one over which hovered the imperial eagles of Rome. But, without a modest device for separating the lint from the seed, invented by Eli Whitney, in 1793, cotton might still be an Ishmaelite of the fields, an utterly worth- less weed, with no part to play in the world's affairs, with no value as a commodity in the world's market.
Before the cotton gin was invented eight bags of cotton shipped to England in 1784 were seized on the ground that so much cotton eould not be produced in the United States." To quote the same authority from which we derive this statement, sea-island cotton was first raised on the coast of Georgia in 1786, the seed for this purpose having been obtained from the Bahama Islands. . Two years later, Alexander Bissell, of St. Simon's, began to export sea-island cotton to England. The use of cotton, in the manufacture of cloth, on a somewhat crude scale, is credited by traditional accounts to a remote origin, but until compara-
* "History of Georgia," L. B. Evans, p. 139.
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tively recent times there were so many difficulties in the way of utilizing the plant with profit that its effect was hardly felt upon the industrial arts. It was first necessary to separate the lint from the seed, then to spin the fiber into thread, and then to weave the thread into cloth. Says an economic writer: " "All of these operations a hundred and fifty years ago were performed by hand, but in the eighteenth century Eng- lish inventors made machines to do the spinning and weaving, with the result that one man could turn out as much eloth as had a hundred with the old hand methods. These inventions naturally created a great de- mand for cotton, but the fact that a skillful worker could remove the seed from less than a dozen pounds of cotton in a day stood in the way of further development. Several devices were invented to overcome this difficulty, but it was reserved for a young man named Eli Whitney to perfect the simple and efficient machine which is now used. This invention revolutionized the economic history of Georgia and the other Southern States."
To separate the lint from the seed, in the case of sea-island eotton, was comparatively an easy matter, due to its long staple; but the culti- vation of sea-island cotton was restricted to the sea-coast. It could not be grown on the uplands, where a short-staple variety of cotton was prodneed. For some time there had been in existence a machine for eleaning the long-staple cotton, but the short-staple or upland cotton had to be separated entirely by hand. This process was slow and tedious. It required a negro's entire time for a whole day to separate one pound of upland cotton. Where a large crop was planted, therefore, it became a serious proposition to get it ready for the market, requiring more hands to separate it under the shed than to gather it in the field. As a result, there was little profit to be realized from the cotton crop, down to the beginning of the last century ; and even as Iate as 1791 only 399 bales of cotton were exported from all the United States.t The old spinning wheel played a fundamentally useful part in developing the cotton industry, but without some deviee for separating the lint from the seed, cotton could never have come to its coronation. It could never have been called king. To Eli Whitney's invention, therefore, eotton owes its seat of honor among the sceptered royalties.
One of the original cotton gins invented by Eli Whitney was for years in the possession of Judge Garnett Andrews, of Washington, Georgia. The old relie was a gift to the owner from Gov. Matthew Talbot, on whose extensive plantation, near Washington, not far from the present site of Smyrna Church, the first gin house in Upper Georgia, if not in the entire state, was erected. The old building still survives, in a fair state of preservation, though as late as 1903 it was used as a negro house. Miss Eliza F. Andrews, his daughter, retains the most vivid recollections of the old gin. During her girlhood days it ocenpied a place in the attie of the family homestead in Washington and many an hour was spent by her in the company of this quaint heirloom, when rainy weather kept the children indoors. The gin was eventually Iost at an agricultural fair in Augusta, Georgia. The story told by Miss
* "History of Georgia, " R. P. Brooks, p. 211.
+ "History of Georgia, " L. B. Evans, p. 139.
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Andrews is strictly authentie. It is the only account in existence which purports to give the inside facts of Whitney's great invention. Judge Andrews and Mr. Phineas M. Nightingale, a grandson of Gen. Nathanael Greene, lived for years on adjoining plantations and it was from the latter that Miss Andrews received the account at first hand.
Eli Whitney, it will be remembered, at the time of inventing the cotton gin, was a guest in the widow Greene's household. The story as recalled from memory by Miss Andrews was reduced to writing years later. It was also verified by a letter dated January 20, 1892, from Mrs. P. M. Nightingale, then an old lady in her eighty-second year but with her mental faculties unimpaired. The maiden name of Mrs. Nightingale was Mary King. She was a member of the noted family of New York state and a charming old gentlewoman. Miss Andrews, the author of the following account, is a lady of rare gifts, widely known in the realm of letters. Her father, Judge Garnett Andrews, was one of Georgia's most distinguished jurists. The author wrote her first account of the invention for the Scientific American, sometime in the early '70s, after which she published in the Augusta Chronicle, on September 20, 1905, an article on the part played by Mrs. Miller in Whitney's great invention. It is no exaggeration to say that the cotton gin deservedly ranks among the foremost achievements of modern times. It riveted the institution of slavery upon the South and became the ulti- mate cause of the war between the states. Today more than half of the world's population depends upon fabrics, the manufacture of which has been stimulated and developed by the cotton gin. Says Miss Andrews :
"Eli Whitney, at the time of inventing the cotton gin, was a guest at Mulberry Grove, near Savannah, Georgia, the home of Gen. Na- thanael Greene, of Revolutionary fame. After the death of the general, his widow married Phineas Miller, tutor to Gen. Greene's children, and a friend and college mate of Whitney's. The ingenuity of the Yankee visitor, as exhibited in various amateur deviees and tinkerings about the premises, inspired the family with such confidence in his skill that, on one occasion, when Mrs. Miller's watch was out of order, she gave it to Mr. Whitney for repair, no professional watchmaker being within reach. Not long thereafter, a gentleman called at the house to exhibit a fine sample of cotton wool, and incidentally remarked while displaying the sample: 'There is a fortune in store for some one who will invent a machine for separating the lint from the seed.' Mrs. Miller, who was present, turned to Whitney and said: 'You are the very man, Mr. Whitney, for since you sueceeded so well with my watch I am sure you have ingenuity enough to make such a machine.'
"After this conversation, Mr. Whitney confined himself closely to his room for several weeks. At the end of this time he invited the fam- ily to inspect his model for a cotton gin. It was construeted with wire teeth on a revolving eylinder. However, there was no contrivance for throwing off the lint after it was separated from the seed and it wrapped around the cylinder, thereby greatly obstrueting the operation. Mrs. Miller, seeing the difficulty, seized a common clothes brush, applied it to the teeth, and caught the lint. Whitney, with delight, exelaimed :
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RUINS OF AN OLD BARN NEAR WASHINGTON, WHERE ONE OF THE EARLIEST COTTON GINS WAS INSTALLED
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'Madam, you have solved the problem. With this suggestion, my ma- chine is complete.' "
The following letter from Mrs. Nightingale, widow of Phineas M. Nightingale, of Dungeness, corroborates in every particular the account given by Miss Andrews. It reads as follows :
"Brunswick, Ga., January 20, 1892. "Dear Miss Andrews:
"I am very sorry not to have been able to send an earlier response to your letter about Mr. Whitney and the cotton gin. I do not remember much about the particulars of his visit to Savannah, but I am sure of a few things. Mr. Miller was the tutor of Mrs. Greene's children and Mr. Whitney was his friend, and it was during his residence in Mrs. Greene's house, near Savannah, that he undertook, at her suggestion, to invent a machine that would separate the sea-island cotton seed from the lint, more rapidly and effectively than by hand, which was a very slow process. Mrs. Greene and Mr. Miller were the first persons to whom he displayed his model. It lacked one thing-a contrivance to throw off the lint when separated from the seed. Mrs. Greene saw the want at once and, snatching up a clothes brush, she applied it to the teeth and caught the lint. Mr. Whitney was delighted. 'Madam,' said he, 'with your suggestion, my machine is complete.' Mrs. Greene married Mr. Miller and they built the Dungeness house, i. e., the original mansion finished in 1803. General Greene had selected the site and made ar- rangements for building before his death. With my kindest regards, I am,
Very truly yours,
"MARY K. NIGHTINGALE."
"The important part thus played by a woman in the history of the cotton gin is unknown, I believe, except as a family tradition, even in her own State. My father was also informed by a gentleman once connected with Whitney in business, that the latter obtained his first idea of the invention, from a machine used to prepare rags for making paper, which he saw on a wrecked vessel. Unfortunately for Mr. Whitney, the predic- tion with regard to the fortune in store for the future inventor of the cotton gin was not realized, for he was engaged in constant lawsuits against infringements of his patent rights, and lived and died poor. As a Georgian, I regret to say that his adopted State has never bestowed any substantial token of appreciation upon the inventor of a machine hy which she has so largely profited. Tennessee, Alabama, and South Caro- lina, manifested their appreciation of his merits by substantial donations, while Georgia-with sorrow I write it-has been worse than silent, for her juries refused him verdiets to which the judges declared him en- titled, against the violators of his patent.
"So uncertain was the enforcement of the patent laws in those days that Whitney resorted to the same expedient for the protection of his. rights that, in medieval times, used to invite charges of sorcery and witcheraft; I mean the expedient of secrecy.
"About the year 1794 or 1795, Whitney established a ginnery at Smyrna about six miles from Washington, in Wilkes County, Georgia. This was one of the first, if not the very first cotton gin ever worked iu
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the State. Together with his partner, a man named Durhee, he erected at this place a large cotton store house, which in 1870 served as a barn for Mrs. Tom Burdett. The gin house had narrow grated windows so that visitors might stand outside and watch the cotton flying from the gin, without observing the operations of the machines, which was con- cealed behind a lower screen. On the occasion of a militia muster in the neighborhood. the rustie batallion was permitted to file through the house, while Whitney's gin was in operation, and see the flakes of cotton thrown off by the brushes, but no one was allowed to examine further.
"Women were permitted by Whitney to enter his gin house and examine the machine, if they liked, as they were not supposed to be capable of betraying the secret to builders-an opinion for which mod- ern females of the strong-minded school, will no doubt bear him a grudge-and not altogether without reason when we consider the ma- terial assistance he received from a woman in perfecting his invention .. This fact of the free admission of women was used to advantage by Edward Lyon, a smooth-faced youth residing at a distance, to gain ad- mission to Whitney's establishment, disguised in female' attire. IIe communicated the secret to his brother John, who immediately set to work and produced his improvement on Whitney's invention, in the shape of the modern saw gin. The saws were made for him by Billy MeFerrin, an Irish blacksmith in Wilkes County, who died some twenty- five or thirty years ago. This was the first gin ever made. The saws were constructed in semieireles and fastened around the eylinder in pairs, so as to form complete eireles when finished.
"As early as 1797, a gin factory was established in Georgia by a man named MeCloud, and Whitney's lawsuits against him were all un- successful. An old gentleman who purchased a gin from MeCloud told my father years later that even then it worked as well as new. It was propelled by water, and ginned 2,500 pounds of seed cotton per day. Previous to this, the gin in ordinary use was an arrangement of two wooden rollers, revolving in opposite direetions, which preceded Mr. Whitney's invention. It was worked by hand, and ginned only from 75 to 100 pounds per day, and a man had to be constantly employed in turning rollers, the friction burnt out so fast. This machine is still used in ginning the best qualities of sea-island eotton, the advantage being that it does not eut the staple as the saw gins do.
"The honor of having invented the first cotton gin is sometimes dis- puted with Eli Whitney in favor of Mr. Bull, a gentleman from Balti- more, who settled in Columbia County, Georgia, and introduced the saw gin there in 1795. Ile first used perpendicular saws, but afterwards changed them for circular ones in imitation no doubt of Whitney and Lyon. Mr. Bull was an enterprising and ingenious man, and the first to introduce iron packing serews into this State .* Costing from $1,500
* Says Miss Andrews in a letter to the author: "The only iron packing serew of this kind I remember over to have seen was still in use a few years ago on a plantation of Mr. Gabriel Toombs. I am inclined to think it was, if not one of those introduced by Colonel Bull, at least made upon his model, but for this I cannot vouch. I am trying to trace its origin, but without much headway, I fear. It Is considerably smaller than the tall old wooden serews that were so common in my youth."
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to $1,800 these were so expensive that they were soon abandoned for the common wooden screw, now in general use on plantations. His invention of the perpendicular saw gin was-there seems to be no doubt -independent of Whitney's, though posterior to it, the latter having come into operation in 1793. Thus, though Eli Whitney failed to realize the profits of his invention, it seems clear that he must be left in undisputed possession of at least the barren honors."
Cotton in 1800 brought 24 cents per pound. There was a great fever among the upland farmers for experimenting with the new plant. It was found that most of the land in the rich Georgia midlands was admirably adapted to the cultivation of the short-staple cotton. All who could afford to do so began to purchase additional slaves and to acquire new lands. Thus an increased impetus was given to the state's develop- ment. Prior to the advent of the cotton gin, slavery had come to be ' burdensome but the enlarged area of planting operations now endowed it with fresh vitality and made its continuance essential. Whitney's invention wronght a wonderfully stimulating effect upon the industrial growth of the South, especially in the cotton-producing states. It cansed new towns and cities to leap into life, as if by magie, galvanized those already in existence, called for more negro labor in the fields, started New England to building factories, and enlarged the princely holdings of the southern planter, making his fertile acres baronial in extent; but it committed the South to the ruinous policy of cultivating a single crop; it put an end to diversification ; and eventually it riveted upon the South an institution destined within a half century to precipitate a revolution and to rend a continent-the institution of slavery.
WHERE AN IMPORTANT BATTLE WAS FOUGHT .-- On October 17, 1793, the last engagement between the Cherokees and the whites in Upper Georgia occurred near the forks where the Oostanaula and the Etowah rivers meet at Rome. Human bones have been found in large numbers on this old battle-field. The fight here was occa- sioned by an attack of the Cherokee Indians upon Knoxville. General Sevier pursued the savages across the Tennessee line in Georgia, destroying numerous towns and villages along the way and finally engaging them in desperate battle near the site of the present city of Rome. So panic-stricken became the Indians, under the galling fire of the American guns, that they are said to have dug holes in the river bank, in which to secrete themselves. But they could not elude the wily Tennesseean; and these places of refuge became little more than catacombs, in which the fugitive Indian found only a grave for his bones. General Sevier was supported in this expedition by Col. John Lowry, who was wounded in the arm while watering his horses at the ford of the Coosawattee. Hugh L. White, afterwards a senator from Tennessee and a candidate for President of the United States, was in this engagement .- L. L. K.
CHAPTER VI
GEN. ELIJAH CLARKE'S TRANS-OCONEE REPUBLIC-AN EPISODE OF GOV- ERNOR MATHEWS' ADMINISTRATION-WEARY OF INCESSANT TROUBLES ALONG THE EXPOSED BORDER, GENERAL CLARKE ADOPTS A NOVEL COURSE-TAKES THE LAW INTO HIS OWN HANDS-HIS ORIGINAL PLAN, HOWEVER, WAS TO RECOVER LOUISIANA FOR FRANCE AND TO SEIZE FLORIDA- WON BY THE FRENCH EMISSARY, GENET, HE AC- CEPTS A COMMISSION IN THE FRENCH ARMY-GENERAL CLARKE A MORTAL ENEMY OF SPAIN-WASHINGTON'S SUSPICIONS AROUSED- RESOURCES INADEQUATE, THIE SCHEME PROVES ABORTIVE-BUT FIND- ING IHIMSELF AT THE HEAD OF AN ARMED FORCE, GENERAL CLARKE ENTERS THE TERRITORY OF THE INDIANS-SEEKS TO FORM AN INDE- PENDENT NATION-PUBLIC CENSURE CONDEMNS GENERAL CLARKE- JUDGE WALTON'S CHARGE TO THE GRAND JURY OF WILKES-THIE WAR DEPARTMENT TAKES A HAND -- GENERAL CLARKE'S DESIGNS ARE SET FORTH IN A PROCLAMATION ISSUED BY GOVERNOR MATHEWS-GENERAL TWIGGS IS SENT TO ARREST GENERAL CLARKE-BOTH PATRIOTS OF THE REVOLUTION -- GENERAL CLARKE VOLUNTARILY SURRENDERS-BUT No LEGAL ACTION IS TAKEN-THOUGH HIS REPUTATION WAS BE- DIMMED BY THIS EPISODE OF HIS LAST DAYS, THERE WAS DOUBT- LESS NO INTENT TO COMMIT AN ACT OF TREASON-COLONEL CHAP- PELL'S OPINION-BURIAL PLACE OF GENERAL CLARKE RECENTLY DISCOVERED.
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