The Earle family : Ralph Earle and his descendants

Gen.] GENEALOGY. 105
As has already been seen, Robert Earle, senior [89-9], conveyed,
in 1792, his homestead to his grandsons, Pliny and Jonah Eai-le.
The house was at the junction of what are now Mulberry and Earle
streets.
—
Pliny immediately made the place his home, and his grandfather
lived in the family until his decease, in 1796. A barn was erected
in 1792, ten or twelve rods southwest of the house. In 1793, the
house was removed directly across the road (Mulberry street),
enlarged, and made the factory in which Pliny Earle & Brothers
carried on the manufacture of hand and machine cards.
A larger dwelling was immediately erected upon the old site, the
family, meanwhile, making the new barn their temporary home.
This house, with some alterations and additions, is still standing.
Its framework is a model for strength and durability, and with simi-
lar usage will outlast most of the. wooden dwelling-houses erected at
the present day.
As a combination of circumstances led the subject of this notice
into a work of no inconsiderable importance in the introduction of
manufactures into the United States, it is proper that some account
of that work should be inserted here.
From Washburn's History of Leicester, published in 1826, we
make the following extract :
" Pliny Earle is the great-grandson of Ralph Earle, one of the first
settlers of the town, and possesses much of the mechanical ingenuity,
in addition to a great fund of general knowledge, which has seemed
to characterize those of that name in this town."
"The manufacture of cotton and wool hand-cards * * * was
commenced [in Leicester] about the year 1785, by Mr. Edmund
Snow ; and amongst those most early engaged in its prosecution was
Mr. Pliny Earle. (He began it in 1786.) About the year 1790,
Mr. Samuel Slater, the venerable originator of cotton factories in the
United States, * * having in vain endeavored to procure suitable
cards for his machinery in the principal cities of the Union, applied
to Mr. Earle. Machine cards had, till then, been made in the
manner called by manufacturers ' plain.' A part of the cards used on
a machine is called ' filleting,' and this part it was desirable to have
made what is termed ' twilled.' For this purpose, Mr. Earle was
obliged to prick the whole of the filleting with two needles, inserted
into a handle, in the manner of an awl. This process was extremely
tedious, but Mr. Earle at length completed his undertaking, and
furnished to Mr. Slater the cards by which the first cotton was
wrought that was spun by machinery in America. The difficulty
*4