COTTON GIN— LEWTON 559 



pounds delivered to him in the seed he will return one pound of clean cotton 

 fitted for market. 



For the encouragement of planters he will also mention that ginning machines 

 to clean the green seed cotton on the above terms will actually be erected in 

 different parts of the country before the harvest of the ensuing crop. 



Phineas Miller, 

 Mulberry Grove, Near Savannah. 

 March 1, 1794.28 



This was 2 weeks before Whitney, who was then in New Haven, 

 was granted his patent. Miller, his energetic partner, who had 

 furnished the money for launching the invention, proceeded to pur- 

 chase water-power sites and set up Whitney gins as fast as Wliitney 

 could turn them out from his factory in New Haven. 



Professor Olmsted states that "by 1796 Miller and Wliitney had 30 

 gins in eight different places in the State of Georgia." ^° Some of 

 these were run by water power and others were turned by horses or 

 oxen. 



Phineas Miller, in a letter to Whitney dated September 28, 1797, 

 says: 



In taking the titles to the place which I received on the Partnership account 

 from Durkee, I have as yet let them stand in my name, specifying in my books 

 that they were held in trust, on account of making a legal reconveyance sbould 

 it be required.^' 



Miller's reference "to the place which I received on the Partner- 

 ship account from Durkee" was the site on Upton Creek in Wilkes 

 County, Ga., where he located a gin operated by the water power. 

 After Miller's death in December 1803, the records show his widow 

 transferred the power site to a company of local people who operated 

 a spinning mill there for a few years. 



Other historians have mentioned "the Partnership account from 

 Durkee," in the following quotations telling of the water-power 

 gin operated on this spot: 



I rode, a few days since, six miles below this place (Washington, Ga.) to see 

 my old friend Thos. Talbot, and his kitchen and barn. Mr. Talbot is 83 years 

 old, in full possession of his faculties, and is living where he settled 62 years ago. 

 Whitney, the inventor of the Cotton Gin, settled a plantation adjoining him, 

 on which he placed one of his gins; the first that was used in Wilkes County ; perhaps 

 the first in the State. He and his partner Durkee, erected a gin house, and a 

 large cotton house. The latter to hold the cotton they expected to receive from 

 customers to gin * * *_ Durkee, Whitney's partner, being dissipated and 

 inattentive to business, he sold out his place, and the gin and cotton house coming 

 into the possession of Mr. Talbot, he moved them to his place. The former is 

 now his kitchen * * *_ -phe cotton house makes a large and commodious 

 barn. (Judge Garnet Andrews, 1852.) ^2 



a» Georgia Hist. Quart., vol. 3, p. 146, September 1919. 



'0 Amer. Journ. Sci. and Arts, vol. 21, p. 217, January 1832. 



«» Amer. Hist. Rev., vol. 3, p. 110, 1897. 



" Southern Cultivator, vol. 10, October 1852. 



