The Earle family : Ralph Earle and his descendants

106 THE EARLE FAMILY [Sixth
with which he accomplished this engagement, led his attention to the
invention of a machine with which to prick the leather for cards
and about the year 1797 he accomplished the desired object by
inventing the machine now in general use for the manufacture
(pricking) of ' twilled ' cards."
The principles involved in that machine, the patent for which was
not issued until December 6, 1803, formed the basis of all machines
for pricking twilled cards for many years, and until those machines
were superseded by that remarkable example of human ingenuity,
the machine for pricking the leather and cutting and setting the
teeth at one process, which is now in general use.
It has hitherto been generally believed, by all persons interested in
the subject, that the first experience of Pliny Earle in the manu-
facture of machine cards was in making those which were ordered
by Samuel Slater. This is a mistake. He had made machine card
clothing of the only style then known in America, that is, with
the teeth set in what is technically called the "plain" form,—and
had covered machines with it, before the arrival of Samuel Slater in
the United States.
Slater landed in New York November 11, 1789. One week prior
to this, on the fourth of the same month, Almy & Brown, of Provi-
dence, R. I., with whom Slater was afterwards associated, wrote to
Pliny Earle desiring that he should cover a carding machine for
them, and mentioning a similar work which he had previously done
for a company in Worcester.
Appendix.
For a verbatim copy of this letter see
The business firm, Pliny Earle & Brothers, which consisted of the
eldest three brothers, Pliny, Jonah and Silas Earle, was formed in
1 791, and their business soon became one of the most extensive of
its kind in the United States. In the manufacture of machine card
clothing it was probably unequalled. Prior to the year 1800, they
sent an agent to South Carolina, there to conduct the sale of hand-
cards for cotton, which were largely used upon the plantations of the
southern States. Some of these cards were transported by horse-
teams which took them at the factory and delivered them in Charles-
ton.
In 1802 they extended their business by adding to it the building
of machines for carding both cotton and wool. In 1804 upon some
stream in each of several towns in Worcester County and on one in
;