ebruary,
1815, he died, when the honor of first crossing the ocean by steam power
was being contemplated by him, but his fame was established, and need
naught to enhance it.

ELIAS HOWE, JR.

Difference of opinion there may be as to the abstract question, who
first conceived the principle involved in sewing by machinery, or in
respect to who first constructed a machine that would fulfill that idea;
but so far as great results are concerned the world must be considered
as indebted to Elias Howe, Jr., a New England mechanic, born and reared
in obscurity, and at an early age thrown upon his own resources. He was
born at Spencer, Massachusetts, July 9th, 1819. His father was a farmer
and miller, but at sixteen he left home, engaging in a cotton mill.
Space will not permit us to follow him through all the details of his
varied experience during his early years. It will be sufficient to say
that he lived in Boston in his twentieth year, where he was working in a
machine-shop. He was a good workman, having learned his trade at Harvard
by the side of his cousin, Nathaniel Banks, who has since greatly
distinguished himself as a general in the United States army and speaker
of the House of Representatives.

He was married soon after, and when twenty-two or three, his health
failing, he found himself surrounded by a family, and poverty staring
him in the face. The idea suggested itself to Howe in the following
manner, as described by Parton in the _Atlantic Monthly_: "In the year
1839 two men in Boston, one a mechanic, the other a capitalist, were
striving to produce a knitting-machine, which proved to be a task beyond
their strength. When the inventor was at his wit's end, his capitalist
brought the machine to the shop of Ari Davis, to see if that eccentric
genius could suggest the solution of the difficulty, and make the
machine work. The shop, resolving itself into a committee of the whole,
gathered about the knitting-machine and its proprietor, and were
listening to an explanation of its principles, when Davis, in his wild,
extravagant way, broke in with the question: 'What are you bothering
yourself with a knitting-machine for? Why don't you make a
sewing-machine?' 'I wish I could,' said the capitalist, 'but it can't be
done,' 'Oh, yes, it can,' said Davis. 'I can make a sewing-machine
myself.' 'Well,' said the other; 'you do it, Davis, and I'll insure you
an independent fortune.' There the conversation dropped, an