The Whitney Family

Eli Whitney, Sr.

Born Westborough, MA - December 8, 1765
Died New Haven, CT - January 8, 1825

The founder of the Whitney Armory, innovator in interchangeable parts, and inventor of the cotton gin.

Whitney was named after his father, meaning that he was actually Eli Whitney, Jr. or Eli Whitney II. However, he is commonly known as Eli Whitney, Sr. to distinguish him from his son.

Whitney was born in Westborough, MA to Eli Whitney (1740 - 1807) and Elizabeth Whitney, née Fay (1740-1777). His father was a prosperous farmer. The younger Eli Whitney showed technical prowess from a young age. He worked as a farm laborer and teacher to earn money to attend college and enrolled at Yale College in 1789. He graduated in 1792 at the age of 26. Today, Yale University’s program for nontraditional students (undergraduates who enter the university more than 5 years after completing high school) is named in his honor.

After graduation he traveled to the southern states, seeking work as a private tutor. While staying in Georgia, he came up with the idea for the cotton gin, a machine to help separate the seeds from cotton fiber. The cotton gin was a massive success, with wide-reaching consequences for the southern economy and the further expansion of the plantation slavery system. Whitney was unable to enforce his patent on the machine and earned little income from its success. In the late 1790s he returned to New Haven, where he set up an unsuccessful cotton gin factory and then turned his attention to firearms manufacturing, securing a government contract and opening the Whitney Armory in 1798. He spent the rest of his life pursuing improvements in the firearms manufacturing process, with the goal of developing true interchangeable parts. He died at the age of 59 in 1825.

Whitney married his wife Henrietta Frances Edwards in 1817. They had four children:

• Frances Whitney, later Chaplain (1817–1859)
• Elizabeth Whitney (1819–1854)
• Eli Whitney III, known as Eli Whitney, Jr. (1820–1895)
• Susan Johnson Whitney (1821–1823)

Whitney was also instrumental in the education and careers of the children of his sister Elizabeth Fay Whitney Blake (1767-1827), particularly Philos and Eli Whitney Blake, who managed the Armory from 1825 until 1835. For more on them, see below and The Inventions of the Blake Brothers.

Henrietta Frances Whitney, née Edwards

Born New Haven, CT - June 28, 1786
Died New Haven, CT - Apr 16, 1870
 

Henrietta was part of a prominent Connecticut family. Her grandfather was the important Congregationalist preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards. Other ancestors included Thomas Hooker, one of the founders of Connecticut, and James Pierpont, one of the founders of Yale College. Her cousins included Vice President Aaron Burr and Timothy Dwight, 8th president of Yale College. Henrietta’s father was Pierpont Edwards (1750-1826), a New Haven attorney, judge, and congressman. Pierpont Edwards was also one of the signers of Eli Whitney’s 1798 deed to the Armory site.

Henrietta and Eli’s marriage in January 1817 signalled that Whitney had become part of New Haven’s elite.

Henrietta and Eli were married only 8 years before his death. One of their children, Susan, had already died in infancy in 1823. Henrietta was left to raise their three surviving children, all under the age of 10.

Henrietta took an active role in civic life in New Haven and Hamden. In 1834, she gave money and land for the foundation of the Congregational Church in Whitneyville.
 

Eli Whitney, Jr.

Born New Haven - November 24, 1820
Died New Haven - August 17, 1895
 

Eli Whitney, Jr. was only 4 years old when his father died. He followed the tradition of his mother’s family and attended Princeton University, where his great-grandfather Jonathan Edwards had been the president. After graduating from Princeton in 1841, he took over the operations of the Whitney Armory, modernizing and expanding it. Like his father and his cousins the Blake brothers, Whitney, Jr. was an inventor and entrepreneur, pursuing new developments in firearms technology and new business opportunities. In 1860, he constructed the dam to create Lake Whitney and founded the New Haven Water Company. In 1888, he sold the Whitney Arms Company, ending the 90-year history of firearms production at the Armory site.

In 1845 Whitney married Sarah Perkins Dalliba (1824-1909), who was born in New York City. They had four children:

• Eli Whitney (1845-1846)
• Eli Whitney IV, known as Eli Whitney III, (1847-1924)
• Susan H. Whitney, later Brewster (1849-1885)
• Henrietta E. Whitney (1851-1913)
   

Eli Whitney, III

Born New Haven - January 22, 1847
Died New Haven - June 12, 1924
 

Eli Whitney III graduated from Yale in 1869. He was an important and well-respected businessman and civic leader in New Haven.

He married Sarah Farnam (1850-1926) in 1873. They had seven children, all daughters: Anne (later Debevoise), Henrietta, Sarah (later Sanford), Elizabeth, Louise (later Gaillard), Susan, and Frances (later Knight).

Eli Whitney Sr.’s sister Elizabeth Fay Whitney (1767-1827) married Elihu Blake (1764-1849) around 1790. They had ten children:

• Philos Blake (1791-1871)
• Elizabeth Fay Blake, later Barstow (1792-1869)
• Elihu Blake Jr. (1793-1875)
• Eli Whitney Blake (1795-1886)
• Maria Georgianna Blake, later Burgess (1801-1841)
• Josiah Whitney Blake (1807-1882)
• George Washington Blake (1808-1844)
• John Adams Blake (1808-1877)
• Edward (dates unknown)
• Frances Louisa Blake, later Orcutt (dates unknown)

Four of the sons, Philos, Elihu, Eli Whitney, and John, came to New Haven. Eli Whitney Sr. also took responsibility for his niece Elizabeth’s education.

After Eli Whitney Sr.’s death in 1825, Philos and Eli Whitney Blake ran the Whitney Armory. In 1835 they left the Armory to found their architectural fittings firm, Blake Brothers, along with their youngest brother John Blake. Philos and E.W. Blake were both active inventors, patenting many new inventions and technological improvements.

Elihu Blake Jr. trained as a doctor and also had the family talent for invention, developing a variety of dental devices. His children included the noted geologist William Phipps Blake (1826-1910).

Josiah Whitney was a businessman in Boston with an interest in South American trade. His brother George represented his interests in Argentina, and died there.
 

Philos Blake

Born Westboro, MA - March 4, 1791
Died New Haven, CT - July 11, 1871

Philos Blake was Eli Whitney Sr.’s nephew and the eldest of the Blake siblings. As well as his work running the Armory and Blake Brothers, he patented a new corkscrew design in 1860.

He served in the Connecticut Militia during the War of 1812. He married Esther Hotchkiss (1795-1878) in 1813 and they had seven children together, including another Eli Whitney: Eli Whitney Blake, MD (1820-1873).
 

Eli Whitney Blake

Born Westboro, MA - January 27, 1795
Died New Haven, CT - August 18, 1886
 

Eli Whitney Blake was Eli Whitney Sr.’s nephew. He attended Yale College, graduating in 1816. As well as his work running the Armory and Blake Brothers, he patented a stone-crushing machine for paving roads in 1853.

He married Eliza Maria O'Brien in 1822, and they had twelve children, including Eli Whitney Blake Jr. (1836–1895),  a scientist and professor at Brown University, and Henry Taylor Blake, a founding member of the New Haven Commission on Public Parks who was involved in the development of East Rock Park. Blake Field, the baseball complex south of Willow Ave, is named in his honor.

John Adams Blake

Born Westboro, MA - January 11, 1808
Died New Haven, CT - February 3, 1877
 

John Adams Blake was Eli Whitney Sr.’s nephew. The youngest of the Blake brothers, he joined his siblings in business in New Haven.

He married Sarah Hotchkiss (1815-1891) and they had at least nine children.
 

None of the Whitney family homes survive today, with the exception of the boarding house where Eli Whitney Sr. lived before his marriage. When Whitney died in 1825, the inventory of his properties included “A Building Lot containing about one & a half acres, fronting on Elm, Wall, & Orange Streets in New Haven with the Barn thereon standing.” This property would later be the home of Whitney’s widow Henrietta, and several of their children and grandchildren are also known to have lived there. It was located across Elm Street from the home of Pierpont Edwards, Henrietta’s father and Eli’s occasional business partner.

It is not clear if the family had already built their home on the Elm Street property by the time of Whitney’s death. No building or contents are listed on the inventory; however, the boarding house building is also not listed. Additionally, the inventory lists only goods associated with the Armory business and other enterprises, not Eli’s personal possessions or the family’s household goods. If there was a home, it was probably excluded from the inventory as family property. If the young family did not have their own home in 1825, it is likely that they lived with Henrietta’s family. Either way, a house was soon built on the Elm Street property, and Henrietta Whitney lived there until her death in 1870. Her daughters Frances and Elizabeth also lived at the house, but both died in the 1850s.

By the late 1850s, Eli Whitney Jr. and his young family were living in a stylish new home with a small estate near the Armory property. A map from 1858 shows the property bordered by Whitney Avenue, Cliff Street, Prospect Street, and Highland Street. (The streets that now cross this property, Edgehill, Ogden, East Rock, and Huntington Roads, had not yet been built.) The map depicts the house, showing us that it was a villa or small country house in Alexander Jackson Davis and Andrew Jackson Downing’s “bracketed” style. This style of architecture was very popular in the late 1840s and 1850s, and Whitney would have been highly familiar with it. It cannot be said if the home was actually designed by Davis, but this is not outside the realm of possibility: Davis was Ithiel Town’s business partner and active in New Haven.

It is not known exactly when Eli Whitney Jr. and his family left their villa, but it was likely around 1870, when his mother died. He donated the southern part of his estate to the city’s Catholic orphanage, and in 1876, the large building of St. Francis Orphanage opened near Highland Street. At the time of Whitney’s own death in 1895, his primary residence was given as the family home on Elm Street, with a summer home in Sharon.

There is a great deal of confusion in sources about the connection between the Whitney family and Ivy Nook, the large Victorian mansion on the estate that became Edgerton Park. Is it possible that the 1858 map is incorrect and Eli Whitney Jr.’s 1850s villa did sit on that property, directly adjoining the rest of Whitneyville. However, Ivy Nook was not Whitney’s home, and it was a much larger mansion in later Victorian style, as can be seen on an 1879 aerial view of New Haven.

An 1868 map of New Haven shows a large building on the Ivy Nook property and labels its owner as “E Suydam,” with a line of buildings closer to the road owned by E Whitney. By 1875, the Ivy Nook property was owned by Dr John Jacob Crane and his wife Caroline, née Whitney  (1823-1905); the two had married in 1874. Caroline’s first husband had been Ferdinand Suydam, a New York merchant who died in New Haven in 1872. It seems most likely, then, that the “E Suydam” was meant to be F., and Caroline Whitney had lived at the property since at least 1868. After her second husband’s death, she married Nathan Adolphus Baldwin (1824-1898).

Caroline Whitney was born and raised in New York City. Many sources say she was a niece of Eli Whitney Sr., which would have made her Eli Whitney Jr.’s cousin - however, they were actually unrelated. Caroline’s father was Stephen Whitney, one of the wealthiest merchants in New York in the first half of the nineteenth century. They were descended from Henry Whitney, who came to Norwalk, CT from England before 1649. Eli Whitney, meanwhile, was descended from John Whitney who immigrated from England to Watertown, MA in 1635.

Caroline’s father Stephen Whitney had been born in Derby, CT, and the family seems to have retained ties around New Haven. Caroline Whitney’s brother Henry (1812-1856) attended Yale (class of 1830) and settled in New Haven. Like Eli Whitney Jr., Henry had a fashionable home built on Whitney Avenue. The estate, which lay on the east side of the road, was bordered by Canner, Orange, and Edwards Streets. Henry Whitney’s house was designed by Alexander Jackson Davis in a Neoclassical style. The plans and drawings of the front and side elevations survive at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was demolished in 1924.

While Caroline Whitney’s family connections to New Haven might have drawn her to the area, it seems to only be a coincidence that she and her husband purchased land formerly owned by Eli Whitney and his family. After her own death, the property was sold to Frederick F. Brewster, who built the Edgerton mansion.