The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1897-04-13

she used to spend most of the winter
evening picking the seed from tho
cotton by hand--with half a dozen
or moro of tho family servants sit
ting in a circle around the fire. Sho
We'd with thom in trying to excel in
the quantity seeded. This was in
Liberty County of this State; and
the cotton waa probably the long
staple variety.
J. Whitney became involved in inter
minable law suits and his gin, which
was for only the short staple cotton,
was not in general use for many years
after it was invented. My father
put up the first gin in Gwil.nett
County in 1928, and seed cotton was
hauled: Ito it from the adjacent coun-
try. /Previous to the use of the gin
it Was considered fair days work
70 seed enough to make a pound of
lint. But the gin with two attend
ants picked 400 pounds in day.
At that time the old fashioned spin
ming wheel was in general use and
days work for the spinner was six
cuts-a cnt being 40 rounds on the
reel, but the first spinning jenny
with ono attendant did eighty times
as much and did it better. Later on
it did 1000 times as much. The
saving in weaving by the power
loom was in similar proportion and
hence it suddenly came about that
ten mon could do the work of ten
thousand. No wonder that Hargrav-
es and Arkwright were driven from
their homes by the spinnors and
spinsters Excuse me for telling the
girls just here that a spinster is the
feminine for spinner and used to
moan a marriageable girl who
had made herself eligible and
/ fitten to be married by spinning and
weaving enough cloth for her own
| troussearl, and sheets and coverlets
! for the bod and table cloths and
napkins for the table. This was the
dowry she brought her husband. But
these inventors went to Nottingham
and put up their mills and made a
monopoly of the business. They
and their associates grew rich so
fast that they determined to o. Jlude
all mankind from acquiring a know
| ledge of their Inventions. The doors
were kept locked and the operatives
sworn to secrecy. New England
tried in vain to buy the right and
could not compete with English
yarns.
But deliverance was not far off,
Samuel and John Slater, who had
worked for Arkwright in England for
seven years, saw large money on this
side the wator. They. came and
brought with them full, knowledge
Of all three of theinventions and how
to use them and how to build fac
tory. Of course thoy met with n
warm reception, and lin; 1906 they
erected mill and planted a town
and named it Statewide. They soon
made q fortune. e.: When John died
he loft his millions. to his son and
when John, Jr., got ready: to- die he
bequeathed a million to our DR.. Hay
good in trust for the education of the
negroes of the South. 1t was q. gift
fit TO be made, for the fathers and
fmothers of these negroes grew the
cotton that made the Slaters rich.
The Skaters not only spun their
yarns; but wove them, and; the; cloth
was called homespun, because it was
woven at homo and not brought from
England. o.:
But although cotton was now king
commercially, it was ranked socially
q by other fabrics 1t was not SO
beautiful as silk nor so strong asflax
nor 80 warm as wool, and hence for
| years it WAS woven only into the COM
mon fabric for the common people.
The calicos that were imported from
Calicdt in Turkey wore spun with n
distaff and woven in tho old fashioned
hand loom. The 'nankeen cloth that
came from Nankin in China was made
by a similar process. I remember
that my father, who was q merchant,
bought some of that nankeen when I
4 was q lad and my mother made mo a
pair Of pants and a round jacket out