A few weeks ago, I mentioned that Congress had made some changes to the patent law in 1793, making it easier to register new patents. In 1794 a new patent would be registered that would change the south forever.
Mulberry Grove
It all started at the Mulberry Grove Plantation. Before the war, Royal Lieutenant Governor John Graham owned Mulberry Grove, which sits along the Savannah River, just northwest of the city of Savannah. Graham fled back to Britain in 1776, abandoning his property. The patriot government seized the property at the end of the war in 1783.
State officials gifted the plantation to General Nathanael Greene, for his services in defending the state during the Revolutionary War. They gifted the neighboring Richmond Plantation to Anthony Wayne.
Eli Whitney
General Greene had been from Rhode Island. He had incurred massive debts during the war, most of which were to help pay for the military campaigns that he had headed in his defense of the south. Congress, as they were doing with everyone at the time, either denied or delayed his claims for reimbursement. His creditors were not as patient. He ended up selling his home in Rhode Island as part of the effort to pay down his debts, and opted to settle on Mulberry Grove in Georgia.
Mulberry Grove had been a profitable rice plantation before the war. Greene believed he could make it profitable again. In addition to the land, he would need some startup capital. Greene was able to obtain loans, including one from Robert Morris, the Philadelphia merchant who had also helped to finance the war.
Around this time, Greene, who had been raised a Quaker, told a friend that he believed there was no defense of slavery. Despite those moral objections, his desire to support himself and his family caused him to take ownership of more than a hundred slaves. Some had come with the plantation. Others he purchased at auction in Charleston and St. Augustine.
While trying to get his plantation up and running, Greene had to fend off lawsuits from creditors. In June, 1786, Greene travelled with his wife Caty to Savannah in an attempt to convince a creditor to delay his collection efforts. He returned home in an open carriage without a hat. The Georgia sun took its toll and gave him a headache. He went straight to bed, but woke the next morning feeling even worse. They called for a doctor, who bled him, but that did not seem to help. After a few more days in bed, he died on June 19, 1786. Cause of death was heatstroke.
This left his wife, Caty Greene in control of Mulberry Grove. Caty was now a 31 year-old widow with five children. She also inherited all of her husband’s debts. Greene’s first instinct was to move back to Rhode Island to be with her family. But several men, including Anthony Wayne, and her family’s tutor Phineas Miller, convinced her to stay. Her only chance of getting out of debt would be to continue to grow and sell rice on the plantation. Miller agreed to take over management of the plantation.
This change also meant that Greene’s children would need a new tutor. In 1792, they asked Yale President Ezra Stiles if he could recommend anyone. Stiles recommended an older student in his late twenties named Ely Whitney. He had recently graduated and planned to study law, but could not afford law school. Instead, Whitney accepted the tutoring position and moved to Georgia.
On his arrival in 1792, Whitney reported to several friends that Caty Greene and Phineas Miller were essentially living as husband and wife. The two had not married since Greene was still trying to get Congress to pay off her husband’s debts, and they agreed her status as the widow of General Greene would carry more weight with Congress than if she became Mrs. Miller.
Ginning Cotton
At that time, the primary cash crops in the south were rice and indigo. Further north, tobacco still dominated. Cotton grew well in the region but could not be produced profitably. The hard part was removing the seeds from the cotton. It was a slow and tedious process. One person had a hard time extracting seeds from just one pound of cotton in a day. Even with slave labor, that simply wasn’t a profitable use of time. Whitney listened to discussions of locals who had a discussion about the problem at Mulberry Grove.
Whitney didn’t know anything about cotton production until he arrived in Georgia. He had grown up in Massachusetts, where his father had run a mill. As a boy, he saw how machines could accomplish tasks that would be much harder to do by hand. As a teenager, he produced and sold things like nails, hatpins, and walking sticks.
Over the winter of 1792-93, in his spare time, Whitney began working on a machine that could separate cotton from seeds automatically. He came up with a device that passed raw cotton through a rotating wooden cylinder with rows of wire hooks that pulled out the raw cotton fibers and caused the seeds to fall away as the cotton passed through a narrow grate that was smaller than the cotton seeds.
He still needed a way to get the cotton off of the hooks. Caty suggested a second cylinder with brush bristles that would sweep against the teeth and brush the cotton fibers into a separate bin. All of this work could be done by a single person who dumped raw cotton into the top, and then turned a hand crank that did all the work.
By spring of 1793, Whitney had a working model that allowed a single person to produce over fifty pounds of cotton per day. He dubbed it the Cotton Gin. Realizing how revolutionary this would be, he applied for and received a patent signed by President Washington in March 1794.
He also formed a partnership with Caty Greene and Phineas Miller. Greene provided him with startup capital to begin production. Whitney’s first problem was that the south simply wasn’t set up for industrial production. He could not find trained workmen or easily get the materials to produce cotton gins. Instead, he established his factory in New Haven, Connecticut. He had become familiar with the area while attending Yale, knew he could find men who could do the job, and had access to materials through imports from New York City.
He had the factory operational by early 1794, even before he received his patent. By early 1795, he had produced 26 cotton gins. Greene began to advertise their availability in the Savannah Gazette.
The next problem was that farmers didn’t have any money to buy the cotton gins. Farmers were notoriously cash poor and could not afford a large up-front investment. Instead, Whitney would give away the cotton gins, subject to an agreement that the farmer would give 40% of the processed cotton back to the company as compensation. This was a great deal for the farmers. Instead of producing only one pound of cotton per worker per day, they could keep 30 of the 50 pounds that they could produce with the gin.
Things seemed to be moving along well when disaster struck in March 1795 on a day when Whitney was in New York. The workmen left the workshop for breakfast, when a fire broke out and consumed the workshop very quickly. It destroyed the building, all of the specialized tools that Whitney had constructed, as well as twenty nearly completed gins. It also burned all of his drawings and papers regarding his creation of the manufacturing process.
Miller and Greene provided him with additional credit, Greene even put up Mulberry Grove as collateral for a business loan. Whitney was able to rebuild all of his machinery from memory. The rebuilding went remarkably fast. Seven months after the fire, Whitney’s new factory completed twenty-six finished machines to ship to Georgia.
The cotton gin proved wildly popular. Farmers began planting much more cotton. It became an extremely lucrative cash crop.
In May of 1796, Caty Greene travelled with Phineas Miller where they visited the Washingtons. Greene had gotten to know George and Martha Washington during the war, when she spent years with her husband General Nathanael Greene. Washington had visited Mulberry Grove during his 1791 southern tour, and in 1796, Caty returned the visit, calling on the Washingtons at the presidential mansion in Philadelphia. The Washingtons were happy to see her, but expressed concerns that she and Phineas had not married, that it could be problematic for their reputation. Caty and Phineas decided to marry, right there and then. They held a private ceremony in the presidential mansion in Philadelphia, with George and Martha as witnesses..
Unfortunately, Whitney, Greene, and Miller never personally benefitted from the invention as much as the should have. Within a few years, copycat gins began showing up all over Georgia. Farmers did not like having to give 40% of their yield to the inventor. It was much cheaper to buy a pirated gin and keep everything.
Farmers quickly grew resentful of this Yankee who was taking nearly half of their hard earned crop. When Whitney sued for patent violations, most Georgia juries refused to find in his favor. Even when he won cases, Whitney often had to spend more in legal fees than he could collect in damages. Georgia Governor James Jackson, in response to appeals by farmers, even tried to have the state legislature suppress Whitney’s patent.
Despite these legal fights, the Cotton Gin changed southern agriculture, creating a while new cash crop in what became known as King Cotton.
Madison Gets Married
Another marriage took place in Philadelphia around the same time as the one between Greene and Miller. James Madison had been a major player in the establishment of the federal government, but he never seemed particularly lucky in love. He was small in stature, reportedly only 5’ 4” tall and only a little over 100 pounds. He was also rather shy, especially around women. He had courted several of them when he was younger, but never managed to get a yes.
By 1794, Madison was a 43 year old bachelor. Dolley was only 26 years old. She was considered a great beauty, and had a very outgoing personality, something that caused her to struggle with as a young Quaker. She had been born in Virginia, but her family moved to Philadelphia when she was just 15 years old. Her father arranged for Dolley to marry John Todd when she was 21 years old. The following year, 1792, her father died and her mother opened a boarding house to support herself.
Dolley seemed to be doing pretty well. She and her husband quickly produced two sons. Then came the yellow fever epidemic of 1793. Dolley’s husband, John, sent her with the two children to a small village outside of Philadelphia while he stayed and worked to help victims in the city as well as attend to his business. Most of the family got sick. Dolley remained in bed for weeks suffering from fever and the other brutal effects. As she was getting better, she learned that both her husband and her baby William both died on the same day, October 14.
Dolley, a 25 year old widow with a two year old son Payne, had a total of $19 dollars to support the family. Her mother had fled Philadelphia to go stay with her other daughter Lucy, who had married George Steptoe Washington, a nephew of the president, who lived on a plantation in Virginia. Dolley was on her own in Philadelphia.
She should have had her husband’s estate to support her but her brother in law, James Todd decided to keep her rightful inheritance from her and left her with nothing. Her husband had not named an executor in his will. Dolley, because she was a woman, could not sue on her own in court. She began barraging James with daily letters, demanding her money, but he refused. Finally, Dolley was able to retain an attorney to represent her in court. After several months, she finally received access to her husband’s estate.
Following a period of mourning, Dolley began to be out and about around town. She attracted the attention of many men, including James Madison. As I said, the two were an unlikely pair. He was 17 years older, and four inches shorter than Dolley. She was considered a fun, attractive, outgoing woman, while Madison had a reputation of being rather dour, dreary, and a bit of a hypochondriac.
Madison asked Senator Aaron Burr to introduce him to Dolley. Burr was living in Dolley’s mother’s boarding house and knew her well. In fact, Burr had become the temporary male guardian of Dolley’s living son Payne.
At this time Burr was still married to Theodosia. She was the wife of a British officer who had lived with Burr for many years before her husband died and they were finally married. He and Theodosia had a daughter who was around ten years old at this time. His wife was ten years older than Burr and had been sick for many years. She remained in New York while Burr lived in Philadelphia doing his work as a US Senator. During this time, Burr fathered two other children with an Indian servant named Mary Emmons. There are stories that Burr had his own interest in Dolley. But in this case, he appeared to act as a gentleman and introduced her to a very interested Madison.
Dolley and Jemmy, as she soon began calling him, hit it off almost immediately. Madison was clearly smitten. She also found Madison to be a delight. While Madison appeared very formal, even somber, in public, he apparently had a good wit and loved telling funny stories in private to those close to him. The two were seen all over town, attending concerts, plays, and going to lunch and dinner together.
They also began writing love letters to one another. Well, Madison actually got someone else to write many letters for him. He asked Dolley’s cousin, Catherine Coles, to write the letters on his behalf because the author of the Constitution and President Washington’s speech writer did not consider himself up to the task of writing a good love letter. In one letter Coles wrote to Dolley, “he thinks so much of you in the day that he has Lost his Tongue, at Night he Dreames of you & Starts in his Sleep a Calling on you to relieve his Flame for he Burns to such an excess that he will be shortly consumed.”
While they were clearly in love, marriage raised other concerns. In addition to the age difference, Dolley was a Quaker, James was Anglican. If they got married, Dolley would be expelled from her meeting. She would also likely have to give up living in the city for more time on Madison’s plantation back in Virginia. She would also have to get used to the idea of owning slaves.
Dolley spent some time researching her suitor, reaching out to some of his friends to get their candid views about him. One of them was the attorney who helped her get her estate, William Wilkins, who happened also to be a good friend of Madison’s.
Support for the marriage also came from another source. During the summer of 1794, Dolley received an invitation to the Presidential Mansion. Martha Washington assured Dolley that Madison, who had been a close friend of her husband’s for years, would make a wonderful husband.
Dolley opted to leave town for a while to get some perspective. She went to visit relatives in Virginia. Madison recalled that years earlier, his fiancé, Kitty Floyd had done the same thing, and never came back. She ended up marrying someone else in New York that summer. So Madison had to wonder, would history repeat itself? Madison kept up a steady stream of love letters, most of which were still ghost written by Coles.
In one of the letters that he wrote himself, Madison asked Dolley to marry him. He spent several weeks awaiting the reply. When it finally came, the answer was yes. The two married on September 15, 1794 on Dolley’s sister’s plantation near what is today Charlestown West Virginia.
The honeymoon was probably not much of one. For starters, Dolley’s two sisters, Anna and Lucy accompanied them. They visited friends and relatives, but the trip was cut short when Dolley became ill with the flu. They then had to return to Philadelphia when Madison had to be back in Congress. As expected, Dolley was forced to leave her Quaker Meeting.
Madison moved out of his boarding house and rented a house on Spruce Street, recently occupied by James Monroe. Madison’s old friend and rival had been appointed to replace Gouverneur Morris as Ambassador to France, and had left Philadelphia. Dolley’s youngest sister Anna, age 14, also moved in with them. Her two year old son Payne also rejoined the household after returning from Lucy’s Virginia plantation, where he stayed during the honeymoon trip.
Monroe, when he arrived in France, was happy to help purchase French furniture, carpets, and china for the Madisons. The Madisons also began attending more social gatherings in Philadelphia. Even John Adams, who rarely had anything good to say about anyone, wrote to his wife that “Mrs. Madison is a fine woman.”
Madison seemed to adapt happily to his new life as a husband and father. He would later tell friends that his marriage to Dolley was the most fortunate event of his life.
Next week: Congress decides it is finally time for the government to have a navy
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Next Episode 384 Rebirth of the US Navy (coming soon)
Previous Episode 382 Yellow Fever and Genêt Downfall
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Further Reading
Websites
“Correspondence of Eli Whitney Relative to the Invention of the Cotton Gin.” The American Historical Review, vol. 3, no. 1, 1897, pp. 90–127. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1832812
Federico, P. J. “Records of Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin Patent.” Technology and Culture 1, no. 2 (1960): 168–76. https://doi.org/10.2307/3101059
Woodbury, Robert S. “The Legend of Eli Whitney and Interchangeable Parts.” Technology and Culture, vol. 1, no. 3, 1960, pp. 235–53. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3101392
Nathanael Greene https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/nathanael-greene-1742-1786
A Madison love affair https://www.breezejmu.org/life/a-madison-love-affair/article_dd5d4b4c-37d7-11e0-88d3-00127992bc8b.html
“Catharine Coles to Dolley Payne Todd, 1 June 1794,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-15-02-0249
Free eBooks
(from archive.org unless noted)
Brant, Irving James Madison: Father of the Constitution, 1787-1800. Bobbs-Merrill Co. 1950 (borrow only).
“Ely Whitney” Young Folks Library of Choice Literature, March 1, 1896.
Olmsted, Denison Memoir of Eli Whitney, Esq. New Haven: Durrie & Peck 1848.
“Ely Whitney” Young Folks Library of Choice Literature, March 1, 1896.
Olmsted, Denison Memoir of Eli Whitney, Esq. New Haven: Durrie & Peck 1848.
Books Worth Buying
(links to Amazon.com unless otherwise noted)*
Allgor, Catherine A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation, Henry Holt & Co. 2006.
Chadwick, Bruce James and Dolley Madison: America’s First Power Couple, Prometheus Books, 2014.
Chernow, Ron Washington, A Life, Penguin Press, 2010.
Chervinsky, Lindsay M. The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution, Belknap Press, 2020.
Green, Constance Eli Whitney and the Birth of American Technology, Little Brown & Co. 1956.
Elkins, Stanley M. and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788–1800, Oxford Univ. Press, 1993 (borrow on archive.org).
Lakwete, Angela Inventing the Cotton Gin: Machine and Myth in Antebellum America, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2003.
McCullough, David John Adams, Simon & Schuster, 2001.
McDonald, Forrest, The Presidency of George Washington, Univ of Kansas Press, 1974.
Meacham, Jon Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, Random House, 2012.
Miller, John C. Alexander Hamilton and the Growth of the New Nation, Routledge, 2017.
Mirskey, Jeannette and Allan Nevins The World of Eli Whitney, Collier Books, 1952.
Patchett, Kaye Eli Whitney: Cotton Gin Genius, Black Birch Press, 2004 (borrow on archive.org).
Thane, Elswyth Dolley Madison, her Life and Times, Crowell-Collier Press, 1970 (borrow on archive.org).
Unger, Harlow G. "Mr. President": George Washington and the Making of the Nation's Highest Office, Da Capo Press, 2013.
* As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
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