MEMOIR OF DANIEL TRE ADWELL. 



1 



the more famous inventions, and understood the difficulties overcome, and the means devised 



for overcoming them, he would accord to those invention a very high plac among mod a 

 machines." 



Mr. Tread well did not escape the ordinary consequence of a successful 

 invention; they testify to the value of the invention, but are of little direct use 

 to the inventor : — 



"In a few years after the successful establishment of my spinning-machine, imitators and 

 pirates sprung up in all directions. I never undertook the Legal defence of my rights, prefer- 

 ring to suffer pecuniary loss rather than endure the delays and vexations of a suit, as the law 

 of patents was then administered." 



* 



Seventy-six of Mr. Treadwell's machines are at this time (October, L887) in use 

 and in good condition in the Government ropery at the Charlestown Navy Yard, 

 spinning day by day yarn that has never been excelled. The rope made by the 



Government for the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, in IS76, was spun upon 



them, and was exhibited as the best rope then made. After more than half a century, 



by the perfection of their products they still bear testimony to the wonderful inge- 

 nuity and faithful workmanship of their inventor and maker. 



The development of machine spinning may be interred from the fact, that, in 

 1886, 125 millions of pounds of hemp, valued at about ten millions of dollai . were 

 spun upon machines in the United States alone, valued as cordage tit fifteen millions 

 of dollars. 



" In 1831," says the Autobiography, " being then in my fortieth year, I mar- 

 ried Miss Adeline Lincoln, a daughter of Dr. Levi Lincoln of 1 1 in _ ham. She has 

 been my faithful and devoted companion to the present time (1854), and I trust will 



be preserved to me to my end." * 



This most happy union he communicated to his friend, Dr. Sweetser, in the 



following letter : 



To Dr. Samuel Sweetser. 



Roston, October 14. 1831. 



Dear Doctor, — Let me draw you a domestic scene. It is a gentleman sitting in his own 

 well-furnished parlor before a comfortable fire, the evening beimr cool, his wife, good-humored 

 and well pleased of course, beside him, now plying the needle, now casting a glance at the misty 

 future, now dropping a word on the domestic economy or proposing some improvement in the 

 household affairs, and then instancing the application of some fact of history or trait of 



* Mrs. Tread well was born on the 24th of May, 1804, and died, without issne, on the '^8th of May, 1885, 



