Eli Whitney, whose portrait is shown in Fig. 30, was born in Westborough, Mass., in 1765. He came from that best school of mechanics, the New England hill farm. Most of the early American mechanics, like him, came from the country and had the same training of hard work with simple implements, and learned to turn their hand to nearly everything, and to work with few and rough tools. From his boyhood he showed mechanical talent. When he was fifteen, with his father’s consent, he began making nails with the aid of such rudimentary tools as he could contrive. This was during the Revolutionary War, when nails were in great demand and brought a high price. By hard work he built up a profitable little business which he carried on for two winters in addition to the ordinary work of the farm during the summer. The business grew beyond his capacity to care for alone, so he set out on horseback to a neighboring town in quest of a fellow laborer. Not finding one as easily as he had anticipated, he rode from town to town with the persistence which was a strong trait in his character, until forty miles from home he found such a workman as he desired. During this journey he called at every workshop on his way and absorbed all the information he could respecting the mechanical arts. When the nail business ceased to be profitable after the war, he turned his attention to knife blades and to the making of the long pins for bonnets then in fashion. He showed so much skill that he nearly monopolized the latter business. When nineteen years old, Whitney determined to obtain a liberal education, but he was not able to gain his father’s consent until he was twenty-three. Then, in 1788, with money made partly in his little manufacturing business and partly from teaching school, he entered Yale College. He completed his college education with but little expense to his father who paid a few of the last of his college bills, for which the son gave his note and which he paid soon after graduation. His work at college was creditable, rather than brilliant; he left a marked impression behind him for good judgment, sound reasoning and steady, intelligent work.[170] [170] The best sources of information on Whitney are: Olmstead: “Memoir of Eli Whitney, Esqr.” New Haven, 1846. Blake: “History of Hamden, Conn.” New Haven, 1888. Blake: “Sketch of the Life of Eli Whitney,” “New Haven Colony Historical Society Papers,” Vol. V, 1894.