death called forth "the voice of deep lament" save from "the rancorous Jacobin, the scoffing deist, the snivelling fanatic, and the imported scoundrel." "Were I asked," said an apologist, whether General Hamilton had vices, in the face of the world, in the presence of my God, I would answer, No." Another poetized of the Great day When Hamilton-disrobed of mortal clay- In 1800 instrumental music might have been heard in some American churches. There were Roman Catholic congregations in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Baltimore had its Catholic bishop. The Protestant Episcopal Church in America had been organized. Methodism, independent of England since 1784, was on its crusade up and down the land, already strong in New York and the South, and in 1790 a Methodist church had been gathered in Boston. The manufacture of corduroys, bed-ticking, fustian, jeans, and cotton-yarn had been started. Iron ore and iron ware of nearly all sorts was produced. Syracuse was manufacturing salt. Lynn already made morocco leather, and Dedham, straw braid for hats. Cotton was regularly exported in small quantities from the South. In New York one could get a decayed tooth filled or a set of false teeth made. Four daily stages ran between New York and Philadelphia. The Boston ship Columbia had circumnavigated the globe. The United States Mint was still working by horse-power, not employing steam till 1815. had been invented in 1793. Conn., was making clocks. Whitney's cotton-gin There were in the land two insurance companies, possibly more. Cast iron ploughs, of home make, were displacing the old ones of wood. Morse's "Geography," and Webster's "Spelling-book" were on the market, and extensively used. The great industrial inventions which were to color the entire civilization of mankind had a powerful effect upon America. So early as 1775, in England, Crompton's mule-jenny had superseded Hargreaves's spinning machine. The latter had improved on the old spinning-wheel by making eight, and later eighty, threads with the effort and time the old arrangement had required for one; but the threads were no better, and could be used only for woof, linen being required for warp. Arkwright's roller arrangement was an improvement upon Hargreaves's. It bettered the quality of the threads, making them evener, so that they could serve for warp as well as woof. Crompton's mule was another quantitative improvement, combining the excellencies of both Hargreave and Arkwright. One man could with this machinery work twenty-two hundred spindles, and they went much faster than by the ancient wheel. Then came steam-power. Watts's engine was adapted to spinning and carding cotton at Manchester in 1783. Two years later the cylinder printing of cottons was invented, and a little after began the use of acid in bleaching. These mighty industrial devices did not cross to America immediately, but were all here before the time of which we now write. A spinningjenny was indeed exhibited in Philadelphia so early as 1775. During the Revolution, Philadelphia was a seat of much manufacture. We have in an earlier chapter remarked that Beverly, Mass., had a cotton factory in 1787. Oxen furnished its power, as a horse did that for the first Philadelphia mill. A cotton mill was also started very early at Worcester, but whether in 1780 or 1789 may admit of doubt. There is some evidence that before July, 1790, a cotton factory run by water, with ginning, carding, and spinning machines, the last of eighty-four spindles apiece, was in operation near Statesburg, S. C.; but whether it was successful or not is not known. Oliver Evans was operating a single-flue boiler for steam-power by 1786. Soon after he had one with two flues, and in 1779 a high-pressure or non-condensing engine, the principle of which he is by many believed to have invented. He was the earliest builder of steam-engines in the United States, having in 1804 secured a patent for the high-pressure device. His factory furnished engines to all parts of the country. England did her best to prevent all knowledge of the new manufacturing machinery from crossing the Atlantic. The Act 21 George III., c. 37, denounced upon any one who should aid toward giving America any tool, machine, or secret relating to manufacture in any branch, a penalty of £200 and one year's imprisonment. In vain. Partly by smuggling, partly by invention, the new arts soon flourished here as there. Some Scotch artisans who came to Bridgewater, Mass., by invitation from Mr. Hugh Orr, of that town, constructed, about 1786, the first cotton - spinning machines in America, including the Arkwright in ventions. To build and launch the English machinery with full success was, however, reserved for Samuel Slater, a native of Belper, Derbyshire, England, who, in 1790, erected at Pawtucket, R. I., the Old Mill in rear of Mill Street, which still stands and runs. Slater had served his time at the making of cotton-manufacturing machinery with J. Strutt, who had been Arkwright's partner. In Strutt's factory he had risen to be overseer. So thoroughly had he mastered the business that, on arriving here, he found himself able to imitate the foreign machines from memory alone, without model, plan, or measurement. Having gotten his gear in readiness, almost solely with his own hands, December 20, 1790, he started three cards, drawing and roving, also seventy-two spindles, all on the Arkwright plan, the first of the kind ever triumphantly operated on this side of the ocean. President Jackson styled Slater "the father of American manufactures," and 1790 may be taken as the birth-year of the American factory system. The Tariff, the embargo policy of President Jefferson, and the hatred toward England, taking form in organizations pledged to wear only homemade clothing, all powerfully stimulated the erection of factories. A report in 1810, of Albert Gallatin, Madison's Secretary of the Treasury, states that by the end of the year preceding, eighty-seven cotton factories had arisen in this country, calculated for eighty thousand spindles. The power loom, however, not used in England till about 1806, did not begin its work here till after the War of 1812.* *See, further, Period II., Chap. VIII. |