in Philadelphia so early as 1775.
During the Revolution, Philadelphia was a seat of much manufacture. We
have in an earlier chapter remarked that Beverly, Mass., had a cotton
factory in 1787. Oxen furnished its power, as a horse did that for the
first Philadelphia mill. A cotton mill was also started very early at
Worcester, but whether in 1780 or 1789 may admit of doubt. There is some
evidence that before July, 1790, a cotton factory run by water, with
ginning, carding, and spinning machines, the last of eighty-four
spindles apiece, was in operation near Statesburg, S. C.; but whether it
was successful or not is not known. Oliver Evans was operating a
single-flue boiler for steam-power by 1786. Soon after he had one with
two flues, and in 1779 a high-pressure or non-condensing engine, the
principle of which he is by many believed to have invented. He was the
earliest builder of steam-engines in the United States, having in 1804
secured a patent for the high-pressure device. His factory furnished
engines to all parts of the country.

England did her best to prevent all knowledge of the new manufacturing
machinery from crossing the Atlantic. The Act 21 George III., c. 37,
denounced upon anyone who should aid toward giving America any tool,
machine, or secret relating to manufacture in any branch, a penalty of
200 pounds and one year's imprisonment. In vain. Partly by smuggling,
partly by invention, the new arts soon flourished here as there. Some
Scotch artisans who came to Bridgewater, Mass., by invitation from Mr.
Hugh Orr, of that town, constructed, about 1786, the first
cotton-spinning machines in America, including the Arkwright inventions.

To build and launch the English machinery with full success was,
however, reserved for Samuel Slater, a native of Belper, Derbyshire,
England, who, in 1790, erected at Pawtucket, R. I., the Old Mill in rear
of Mill Street, which still stands and runs. Slater had served his time
at the making of cotton-manufacturing machinery with J. Strutt, who, had
been Arkwright's partner. In Strutt's factory he had risen to be
overseer. So thoroughly had he mastered the business that, on arriving
here, he found himself able to imitate the foreign machines from memory
alone, without model, plan, or measurement. Having gotten his gear in
readiness, almost solely with his own hands, December 20, 1790, he
started three cards, drawing and roving, also seventy-two spindles, all
on the Arkwright pl