204 Memoir of the Life of Eli Whitney. 
the stamp on the blade. This he would likewise have executed, had 
not the tools required been too expensive for his slender resources. 
When Whitney was fifteen or sixteen years of age, he suggested 
to his father an enterprise, which was an earnest of the similar un- 
dertakings in which he engaged on a far greater scale in later life. 
This being the time of the Revolutionary War, nails were in great 
demand, and bore a high price. At that period, nails were made 
chiefly by hand, with little aid from machinery. Young Whitney 
proposed to his father to procure him a few tools, and to permit 
him to set up the manufacture. His father consented, and he 
‘went steadily to work, and suffered nothing to divert him from his 
task, until his day’s work was completed. By extraordinary dill- 
gence, he gained time to make tools for his own use, and to put in 
knife blades, and to perform many other curious little jobs, which ex- 
ceeded the skill of the country artisans. At this laborious occupation, 
the enterprising boy wrought alone, with great success, an with 
much profit to his father, for two winters, pursuing the ordinary le- 
bors of the farm during the summers. At this time he devised a plan 
for enlarging his business and increasing his profits. He whispered 
his scheme to his sister, with strong injunctions of secrecy 5 and re- 
questing leave of his father to go to a neighboring town, without sp 
cifying his object, he set out on horseback in quest of a fellow Jabor- 
er. Not finding oneso easily as he had anticipated, he proceeded from 
town to town, with a perseverance, which was always a strong trait of 
his character, until at the distance of forty miles from home, he found 
such a workman as he desired. He also made his journey subser- 
vient to his improvement in mechanical skill, for he called at every 
work shop on his way, and gleaned all the information he could re 
pecting the mechanic arts. 
At the close of the war, the business of making nails was 9° lon- 
ger profitable ; but a fashion prevailing among the ladies of fastening 
on their bonnets with long pins, he contrived to make those wi" 
such skill and dexterity, that he nearly monopolized the business 
although he devoted to it only such seasons of leisure as be 
redeem from the occupations of the farm, to which he now principal 
ly betook himself. He added to this article, the manufacture ¥ 
walking canes, which he made with peculiar neatness. 
In respect to his proficiency in learning, while young; 
formed that he early manifested a fondness for figures, 
common aptitude for arithmetical cAlculations, though in the 
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