in all parts of the country before the
Revolution, especially in the Southern colonies, and these continued to
be used by the women in their houses many years after the erection of
cotton factories.

DENISON OLMSTED

Mr. Whitney had scarcely set his foot in Georgia when he was met by a
disappointment which was an earnest of that long series of adverse
events which, with scarcely an exception, attended all his future
negotiations in the same State. On his arrival he was informed that Mr.
B. had employed another teacher, leaving Whitney entirely without
resources or friends, except those whom he had made in the family of
General Greene. In these benevolent people, however, his case excited
much interest, and Mrs. Greene kindly said to him: "My young friend, you
propose studying the law; make my house your home, your room your
castle, and there pursue what studies you please." He accordingly began
the study of law under that hospitable roof.

Mrs. Greene was engaged in a piece of embroidery in which she employed a
peculiar kind of frame called a tambour. She complained that it was
badly constructed, and that it tore the delicate threads of her work.
Mr. Whitney, eager for an opportunity to oblige his hostess, set himself
at work and speedily produced a tambour-frame made on a plan entirely
new, which he presented to her. Mrs. Greene and her family were greatly
delighted with it, and thought it a wonderful proof of ingenuity.

Not long afterward, a large party of gentlemen came from Augusta and the
upper country to visit the family of General Greene, consisting
principally of officers who had served under the General in the
Revolutionary Army. Among the number were Major Bremen, Forsyth, and
Pendleton. They fell into conversation upon the state of agriculture
among them, and expressed great regret that there was no means of
cleaning the green-seed cotton, or separating it from its seed, since
all the lands which were unsuitable for the cultivation of rice would
yield large crops of cotton. But until ingenuity could devise some
machine which would greatly facilitate the process of cleaning, it was
in vain to think of raising cotton for market. Separating one pound of
the clean staple from the seed was a day's work for a woman; but the
time usually devoted to picking cotton was the evening, after the labor
of the field was over. Then the slaves, men, women, and children, were
collected in circles with one whose duty it