The Eli Whitney Gun
Factory by William Giles Munson, oil on canvas, 1826-8.
Courtesy of the Yale University Art Gallery, Mabel Brady Garvan
Collection.
Contents:
1. Mill River
2.
The Eli Whitney
Armory
3. The Town
Bridge
4. Whitneyville
1825
Mill River: Water Power and
Water Supply
The Mill River, which
flows through the Whitney Armory site is on its way to Long Island
Sound, has played a crucial role in its history. Eli Whitney, Sr.
came to the site in 1798 specifically in order to use the water's
power for running machinery; sixty-two years later his son turned
the river into the first public water supply for the city of New
Haven. For some decades thereafter, the river continued to provide
power not only for the Armory's machinery, but also for pumping its
own water into the network of pipes reaching New Haven's buildings
and hydrants. Eventually it gave way, as a power source, to steam
engines and electric motors, but it continues to this day to supply
water for the city.
The low dam and waterwheels that Eli
Whitney, Sr. installed made possible the Whitney Armory with its
adjacent small settlement, Whitneyville. Like many another New
England water-privilege site, but unlike the larger planned
waterpower complexes such as Lowell or Holyoke in Massachusetts, the
community remained of modest size. Constrained in large part by the
natural limits on its water power, Whitneyville did not grow into an
industrial city, but led him first in the 1840s to replace the
waterwheels with hydraulic turbines, the latest advance in
waterpower technology, and then to make the dam five times higher in
1860. The other purpose of this move - to form Lake Whitney as the
as the first reservoir for the New Haven Water Company - was what
paid for the construction of the dam we see at the site today. The
creation of Lake Whitney in turn prevented further industrial
development at waterpower sites upstream - by flooding them - thus
leaving the Armory as southern Hamden's only industrial site until a
later era.
Whitney's Improved Fire-Arms
Advertisement, c. 1862
New Haven Colony Historical
Society
From the book, Windows on the Works: Industry on the
Eli Whitney Site 1798-1979
The
Eli Whitney Armory: The Social Matrix
When Eli
Whitney made his plans to supply the government with muskets, water
power and machines were two of his immediate concerns. The third,
but no less important component of his scheme for a gun manufactory
on the Mill River was a workforce. And Whitney had given
considerable thought to what characteristics he wanted his workers
to have:
My intention is to employ steady sober people and
learn them the business. I shall make it a point to employ persons
who have families, connections, and perhaps some little property to
fix them to the place - who consequently cannot be easily removed to
any considerable distance.
How well Eli Whitney succeeded
in recruiting "steady, sober people" is not clear. Research that can
tell the story of the Whitney workers, their relationship to Whitney
and each other, their feelings about their jobs, and the changes
that occurred in both their domestic and vocational choices is only
now beginning.
Boarding House, now the
Connecticut Trust for Historical
Preservation
Preliminary appraisals suggest that the
social microcosm that Whitney created at Mill Rock fits no easy
model. We know that the buildings on the west side of Whitney Avenue
had a primarily social rather than a manufacturing function. Despite
some ambiguity concerning its date and construction, the boarding
house for unmarried workers, located at the corner of Whitney Avenue
and Armory Street, was probably one of the first structures that
Whitney built after completing those structures essential to the
gunmaking operation. The series of buildings on Armory Street that
Whitney built for his married workers no doubt followed close
behind. Benjamin Silliman wrote that they were "beautifully
constructed and arranged upon one plan. And William P. Blake, a son
of Whitney's nephew, Eli Blake wrote that there were,
Whitneyville in 1832, engraving by
J.W. Barber
From the book, Windows on the Works: Industry on
the Eli Whitney Site 1798-1979
ten
or more dwellings besides the boarding house, erected for the
convenience and comfort of the operatives. The village, built by the
elder Whitney (the first 'Whitneyville) consisted of six houses of
stone, covered with stucco... Some of these buildings were removed
when the construction of the high dam rendered a change in the
direction of the road necessary.
Waterfall built by Eli
Whitney, Jr. in 1860
The remaining houses were
torn down in 1912. Finally, the Barn, built in 1816, was the
centerpiece of the Whitney farm. It was the focus of agricultural
activities which supplied the boarding house kitchen and provided
shelter for the draft animals used at the Armory. Whitney's friend
Silliman considered it "a model of convenience and even taste and
beauty," and further described the unique features of its
design:
It is perfectly characteristic of Mr. Whitney that
his attention was directed to the mangers for his cattle, and to
their fastenings. The latter are so contrived, by means of a small
weight at the end of the halter, that an animal could always move
his head with perfect facility, but could not draw out the rope so
as to become entangled in it, nor could he easily waste his hay. The
fastenings of the doors, as well as all the other appendages and
accommodations are equally ingenious.
That Whitney took
an active role in the design and construction of the non-Armory
buildings on his site is thus well established. The need for housing
to accommodate his workforce was obvious given the distance of the
Armory from any other suitable lodgings. The farm was necessary to
provide food for the unmarried workers and probably supplemented the
gardens of the married workers living on Armory
Street.
The Town
Bridge
In 1820, the architect Ithiel Town wrote to
Eli Whitney requesting a written opinion of the model of a wooden
bridge on which Town that year had filed a patent. Whitney's reply,
"its simplicity, lightness, strength, cheapness & durability,
are in my opinion such as to render it highly worthy of attention,"
recognized the admirable qualities of Town's bridge, which was in
fact a major design innovation.
Town's Patent Drawing of the Lattice
Truss, 1820
Ithiel Town Papers, Yale University
Library
A current view of the
bridge
The lattice truss was an uninterrupted
series of closely spaced diagonal timbers. The resulting web of
overlapping triangles affected the distribution of stress to all
members, so that the independent action of any one triangle was
impossible. Ordinary pine or spruce planks were used for the
diagonals and wooden connecting pins or tree-nails fastened the
members at their points of intersection. This "garden trellis fence"
concealed a truss design of considerable strength.
Not only
was Town's design strong and made of economical standard-dimension
lumber, it was also easy to build: it did not require fancy mortises
and tendons and could thus be erected by a common carpenter's gang;
it did not have to be custom-fitted to piers or abutments as arch
bridges did. And the lightness of its timbers reduced the amount of
labor that had formerly been needed to erect the pioneer bridges of
Town's predecessors, Timothy Palmer and Theodore Burr. Thus the
lattice-truss bridge combined the features of strength and economy,
which had great appeal, especially to those engaged in the expansion
of the nation's transportation network of highways and later,
railroads.
Whitneyville
1825
In 1827, William Giles Munson drafted a now
famous portrait of Whitneyville, the manufacturing village that Eli
Whitney had developed for 25 years. Whitney died in 1825. Munson's
painting records buildings Whitney had built or had planned.
Painters, journalists and presidents visited Whitneyville. It was an
accessible and popular sampler of change that was sprouting next to
rivers all over New England.
Munson's Whitneyville is
thoughtfully organized, peaceful, and in easy harmony with the river
and hills that surround it. By the time the Industrial Revolution
had reached full force, few factory towns kept Whitneyville's
idyllic balance. Munson's painting is an image that finds its way
into text books that describe the beginning of the Industrial
Revolution in part because it recalls a beginning of friendly human
scale and dignity not yet darkened by smoke.
Factories are
places of change. At least 18 buildings have come and gone since
Whitney Sr's time. We are still digging into that history. With the
painting and map, however, you can still find artifacts of Whitney's
era and mind.
Drawing of the barn, from Eli
Whitney's Gun Factory
Drawing of the fuel shed, from Eli
Whitney's Gun Factory
Drawing of
the men's boarding house, from Eli Whitney's Gun
Factory