Rev. Dr. Eliphalet Nott was president of Union College, Schenectady, New York, for more than sixty years. He was born in Connecticut just before the American Revolution. His father was very poor, but a conscientious, godly man. He lived on a farm four miles from the village and the church. During the early boyhood of Eliphalet his father had no horse, and in bad weather, when the family could not walk to church, they were drawn over the rough and hilly roads of that long four miles by their only cow. Yet they were always at church. One winter, Mr. Nott's overcoat had become so shabby that Mrs. Nott told her husband it was not fit to be worn to church any longer. He had no money to buy a new one. Should he stay away from divine service? Not he! To this proposition neither he nor his wife would assent. Soon, however, the good woman devised a plan to free them from the difficulty. She suggested to her husband that they should shear their only "cosset" lamb, and that the fleece would furnish wool enough for a new overcoat. "What!" said the old man, "shear the cosset in January? It will freeze." "Ah, no, it will not," said the wife, "I will see to that; the lamb shall not suffer." She sheared the cosset and then wrapped it in a blanket of burlaps, well sewed on, which kept it warm until its wool had grown again. This fleece Mrs. Nott carded, spun, and wove into cloth, which she cut and made into a garment for her husband, and he wore it to church on the following Sabbath. The first attempt to manufacture woolen cloth other than by hand was made at Newburyport, Massachusetts, by two Englishmen, Arthur and John Scholfield. They had learned the business in England, and now put in operation the first carding machine for wool made in the United States. Upon this they made the first spinning rolls turned out by machinery. The same year they built a factory, three stories high and one hundred feet long, in the Byfield district, at Newburyport. The two brothers carried on the factory for a company of gentlemen who were the stockholders. Arthur was overseer of the carding; John was in charge of the weaving room. This application of machinery to the making of woolen cloth created much interest in the country, and wool was brought from long distances. People visited the factory from far and near. These visitors became so numerous that an admission fee of ten cents was charged. During the first winter after the factory was opened sleighing parties came from all the neighboring towns.