Some time before abandoning the manufacture of the cotton gin, Mr. Whitney established an arms factory in New Haven, and obtained a contract from the Government for ten thousand stand of arms, to be delivered in two years.  At this time he not only had to manufacture the machinery needed by him for this purpose, but had to invent the greater part of it.  This delayed the execution of his contract for eight years, but at the expiration of that time he had so far perfected his establishment, which had been removed to Whitneyville, Conn., that he at once entered into contracts for thirty thousand more arms, which he delivered promptly at the appointed time.  His factory was the most complete in the country, and was fitted up in a great measure with the machinery which he had invented, and without which the improved weapons could not be fabricated.  He introduced a new system into the manufacture of fire-arms, and one which greatly increased the rapidity of construction.  “He was the first manufacturer of fire-arms who carried the division of labor to the extent of leaking it the duty of each workman to perform by machinery but one or two operations on a single portion of the gun, and thus rendered all the parts adapted to any one of the thousands of arms in process of manufacture at the same time.”

His success was now marked and rapid.  His factory was taxed to its fullest capacity to supply the demand for arms.  His genius was rewarded at last, and he acquired a fortune which enabled him not only to pass the evening of his days in comfort, but also to leave a handsome estate to his family.  He married a daughter of Judge Pierpont Edwards, a lady of fine accomplishments and high character.  He died at New Haven on the 8th of January, 1825, in his sixtieth year.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHAUNCEY JEROME.

Any readers of these pages doubtless remember the huge old-fashioned clocks, tower-like in shape, that in the days of their childhood ornamented the remote corner of the hall, or stood solemnly near the chimney in the sitting-room of the old homestead,—­such a clock as that which greeted little Paul Dombey, when he commenced to be a man, with its “How, is, my, lit, tle, friend?—­how, is, my, lit, tle, friend?” Very different from the bright, pretty timepieces of to-day, which go ticking away, as if running a race with time, was the clock of the olden days, as it stood, solemn and dark, in its accustomed corner, from which the strength of two men was necessary to move it, sending the sound of its slow, steady strokes into all parts of the house.  And in the night, when all within was still, how its deep beats throbbed in the dark hall louder and sterner even than in the day.  There was something eminently respectable about an old clock of this kind, and it would have been audacity unheard of for any member of the family to doubt its reliability.  Set once a year, it was expected to retain its steady-going