In March of 1799, about a year after Whitney received his first contract for muskets, North received his first contract for horse-pistols, 500, which were to be delivered in one year. This was followed by others for 1500 in 1800; 2000 in 1802; 2000 in 1808; 1000 in 1810, and others not known. By 1813 he had made at least 10,000 and was employing forty or fifty men. In none of these contracts was there any mention made of interchangeability, but some time during these years North began to use interchangeable methods. The correspondence quoted in the previous chapter and the quotations already given show that Whitney was working on the same basis from the start. It is a great pity that Colonel North’s papers were destroyed after his death, as they might have thrown some light on the question as to how and when he began to use interchangeable methods. It is impossible now to say how much Whitney and North influenced each other if they did at all. In 1812 the Secretary of War visited North’s shop at Berlin, Conn., and urged him to increase his plant. On receiving the contract of 1813, North purchased land in Middletown, Conn., and built a dam and a three-story brick armory, 86 x 36 feet, on the best lines known at that time, involving in all an expenditure of $100,000. The old factory was run in conjunction with the new one until 1843, when it was closed. North began making barrels of steel in 1848, only a year or two after Eli Whitney, Jr., and contributed many improvements in the design of the pistols and guns which he built. The Remington Arms Company, the Savage Fire Arms Company, the Maynard Rifle Company and the Massachusetts Arms Company, all trace back in some way to him, and, like Whitney, he deeply influenced the practice of the United States Government in its armories at Springfield and Harper’s Ferry. Colonel North’s first contract with the Government was made in 1799; his last was finished in 1853, a year after his death, covering in all about 50,000 pistols and 33,000 rifles. He worked under sixteen administrations, representing all parties, and in all the fifty-three years he never received a reproof or a criticism of his work. He had an old-fashioned sense of honor. In 1826 he was called on to pay a note for $68,000 which he had indorsed. Although advised that he could not be held legally, he said that his name was there and he would stand by it. He placed a mortgage on his property, and it was twenty-two years before he had made good the loss, which, principal and interest, amounted to over $100,000. But for this endorsement he would have died, for that time, a wealthy man. Colonel North was a country-bred man, strong, quiet and almost painfully modest. He lacked Whitney’s education and influence, but like him he represented the best which American mechanical and business life has produced. CHAPTER XIII THE COLT ARMORY