SAMUEL SLATER AND THE OLDEST COTTON 
MACHINERY IN AMERICA 
By Freperick L. LEwTon 
Curatcr of Textiles, U. S. National Museum 
[With 3 plates.] 
According to the census of 1920, there were in 1919, 33,718,933 
cotton spindles at work in the United States; yet it was only 136 
years ago that all the cotton yarn made in this country was spun 
by hand. The building of the first cotton spinning machinery in 
America and the starting of the first cotton mill in 1790, marked 
the foundation of one of America’s greatest industries. Many per- 
sons will be surpised to learn that part of the machinery of that 
first cotton mill is still in existence preserved in the collections of the 
United States National Museum. This cotton machinery, the pro- 
genitor of the millions of spindles whose daily revolutions convert the 
greater part of our cotton crop into yarn for thread and cloth mak- 
ing, was for many years lost and forgotten and was only recently 
brought out of its hiding place and placed on public view. 
The account of the building of America’s first cotton machinery 
reads like a romance, and although parts of the story have been 
told before, the books containing them are now out of print and 
are not available to the general reader. 
The machines now in the National Museum, a carding engine 
and a spinning frame of 48 spindles, are two of the five machines 
built by Samuel Slater and started in operation by him on Decem- 
ber 20, 1790, with power obtained from the old fulling mill water 
wheel in Ezekiel Carpenter’s clothier shop on the east bank of the 
Blackstone River at the southeast abutment of Pawtucket Bridge. 
Slater’s three cards and two spinning frames were operated for 
nearly two years in the old clothier shop, during which time several 
thousand pounds of yarn accumulated for which there seemed to 
be no demand, so small a quantity in those days sufficed to supply 
the market. Although every exertion had been made to weave it 
up and sell it, the market was glutted and the machinery was 
stopped for some months, 
Upon starting the machinery in 1790, Mr. Slater set four persons 
at work in his “ mill’: Arnold and Charles Torpen, Smith Wilkin- 
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