1882.] TRANSACTIONS. 41 



Whitin assumed control of the Ma chine- Works, which have grown 

 into an immense establishment, employing over 700 men. He bought 

 the Holyoke Machine-Works, in 1860, but, after running them success- 

 fully for four years, he sold them ; concentrating all his energies on 

 the works at home which in 1870, were organized into a stock com- 

 pany as the Whitin Machine Works." 



His death occurred upon Saturday, April 22d, in the current 

 calendar year. 



As a prominent manufacturer of machinery, in New England ; 

 whose name was a synonym throughout the Republic for that of 

 an upright and energetic citizen ; to whom failure, or mishap, in 

 business, was unknown because never even tolerated in contem- 

 plation ; John C. Whitin towered among the giants of a genera- 

 tion from whom, in some inexplicable way, was spawned the so- 

 called American System, to which their own lives had been a 

 conspicuous and vital defiance. Accepting its inevitable boun- 

 ties ; which indeed he could not reject by indirection ; he yet, in 

 conversation with your Secretary^ repudiated them as an 

 unnatural stimulus, and therefore not beneficial to their recipi- 

 ents. But the wealth which they finally aggregated, at first 

 almost without effort; and thereafter, by the very momentum of 

 the system ; could not have filled cleaner or better hands, ani- 

 mated by a larger heart. 



Whoever has seen Whitinsville (why, longer, ' ville' ?) has 

 beheld a village of neat and homelike settlement. Our lamented 

 friend could not tolerate a slouch and abhorred what was 

 slovenly. If he was reclaiming a wood land of Eighty (80) 

 Acres, the stumps must be eradicated, and the rocks consumed 

 by a wall not less than seven (7) feet in breadth and height. 

 He even confessed to your Secretary^ on their return from a 

 Corporation Meeting, in Providence ; both being in a condition 

 of shareholding acquiescence and servility ; that he fully 

 accepted the theory of Ensilage. Can any one doubt it, who 

 has seen his large and extensive Silos? He had faith in honest 

 and durable work; and therefore he built for posterity. But, 

 so building, — no account for depreciation needed to be opened 

 in his lifetime. 



His contributions to your Exhibitions have been manifest, if 

 not from their frequency ; which could scarcely be expected 



