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Whittemore, Amos 1759-1828

Inventor; born in Cambridge, Mass., April 19, 1759; reared a farmer; became a gunsmith; and then, with his brother, a manufacturer of cotton and wool-cards, or card-cloth. He claimed to have invented a machine for puncturing the leather and setting the wires, which was patented in 1797. Before that time the work had been performed slowly by hand. The establishment of spinning machinery in New England (see Slater, Samuel) had made the business of card-making profitable, and so useful was Whittemore's machine that the patent was sold for $150,000. His brother Samuel afterwards repurchased it and carried on the business of making card-cloth. Amos died in West Cambridge, March 27, 1828.

Whittier, John Greenleaf

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