The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1876-05-04
InYentIon of the Cotton Gin.

prlntS an interesting aTtlcle CohCefLluS
the cotton gin, the main points of which
are here reproduced:
Some time ago Mr.. w. F. Herring, one
of the largest cotton dealers in this city,
advertised in several papers of the State
for an original "Whitney cotton-gin."-
He intends making an exhibition at the
Centennial cf cotton in all its various
stages of planting, cultivation, and man.
ufacture. A few days ago he received
from Col. James R. Aiken, cotton-buyer
of Winnsboro, S. c., letter, and enclosed
in the same envelope was an ancient doc
ument signed by George Washington,
President of the United States; Timothy
Pickering, secretary of State, and Charles
Lee, attorney-general, granting to Hog
den Holmes, a citizen of Augusta, letters
patent for machine for ginning cotton"
for fourteen years from the 18th of April,
1896. The document was printed on
parchment, and signed as above on the
18th day of May, 1896. The names of
Seaborn Jones and w. Urquhart attested
the signature of Holmes. The following
is the letter written Mr.. Herring by Col.
James R. Aiken, of Winnsboro. 1t might
be proper to state that he is brother OF
Hon. D. Wyatt Aiken, and the genuine.
ness of the contents of the document in
question is further attested by the sigma
lures of Ex-Governor Bonham and Gen.
M. G. Butler, of South Carolina:
The history of the enclosed paper is
this: Hogden Holmes, native of Scot
land, but citizen of your own city, in
Its was the original inventor, and his
machine was locked up in Hamburg, s.
c., when Whitney, through the influence
of negro, got diagram of it. 1t was
then known as "patent for taking burrs
out of wool" On this Infringement
Whitney got a patent, and called it "a
machine for ginning cotton" This
created a lawsuit in Georgia. In the
the meantime Holmes expended SOME
5000, and died insolvent. His suit was
continued to the United States Court,
and Whitney sold his claim to the State
of South Carolina for $4,000. Holmes
left but one heir, and the case was aban-
doned. That heir was my wife's mother
(the wife of DR.. William @. Cloud, of
Edgefeld, G. H.) No one being left to
prosecute the case, and no one able to
contend against State, patent was
taken in 1895, and Col. William Nc
Creight, of Winnsboro, bought the exclu-
sive right for twenty years, and did make
and sell all the cotton.gins furnished for
the entire Southern States up to 1878. I
married the oldestdaughter of DR.. Cloud
in 1887, and among the funeral effects Of
Hogden Holmes, which had not been
disturbed for forty-two years, / found the
parchment (the letters PATENT with a
spread-eagle seal of beeswax on it, about
four inches in diameter, which has long
since crumbled into dust. I might also
add it is genuine in every particular as
compared with the Congressional Record
in the United States Patent Office lin
1S44) By myself. There is book pub.
Iished giving full historical record Of
the invention, and the lawsuit, (not very
creditable to Whitney, but the title Of
which now forget. 1t is thirty years
Carolina College. Yours truly,
JAMES R. AIKEN.
S.-Holmes died about 1895, but re-
ceived the patent before his death. No
one at that time being interested, and his
daughter quite young, the shop in Ham
burg shut for want of funds. After
Holiness death only few gins we're
manufactured for sale in Augusta.
J. R. A.
So, it would appear from the above,
that Holmes is as much entitled to the
honor of giving the world this wonderful
invention as Whitney. The citizens of
New Haven, Conn.,, his place of nativity,
have long since erected monument to
his memory, and thus poor Holmes has
been cut out of his share of such things,
and Augusta robbed of her fame as the
original cradle of the great king. For a
long time Augusta was the biggest cotton
market in the world, but she has been
crowded out until she is, at the present,
about the twenty-fifth in Importance.