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Whitney “Good and Serviceable” Military Shoulder Arms  365. Eli Whitney Jr. was four years old when his father died in 1825. The manufactory , sometimes known as the Whitney Armory, was operated by the younger Whitney’s, nephews, Philo and Eli Whitney Blake, until 1830. For the next 11 years, the armory was administered by attorneys, Edwards & Goodrich, as trustees for Eli Whitney Jr. During this period, the Whitney Armory produced thousands of Model 1816 muskets for the federal government. Upon reaching the age of 21 in 1842, Whitney took over the management of the arms manufactory started by his father. In that year, this company received its first government contract to produce Model 1841 rifles. Deliveries of these rifles, which were in the newly adopted percussion ignition system, began in 1844 and continued to late 1855. During these 11 years, Whitney delivered a total of 27,600 Model 1841 rifles under three federal contracts, more than were delivered by any other contractor, and even more than were produced by the national armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Fortunately, Eli Whitney Jr. maintained a personal journal; this journal has been of help in learning what took place at the Whitney Armory before the Civil War. It is from this journal and his other surviving records that we learn he augmented his contracts to produce Model 1841 rifles for the Ordnance Department by producing arms for others. He wrote that he had completed 1,600 muskets from components remaining from the armory’s government work following his assumption of the armory’s leadership in 1842. These flintlock muskets were reportedly sold to the U.S. Navy. Samuel Colt approached Whitney in November of 1846. They agreed that Whitney would produce for the U.S. dragoons what would be later known as the Colt “Whitneyville Walker” revolvers and their appendages. Colt’s contract to produce 1,000 revolvers for the U.S. government was dated January 4, 1847. The Whitney Armory was already making preparations for the production of these arms by that date. In spite of numerous changes to the original design and problems with Ordnance Department inspection, the first lot of 320 revolvers was delivered and accepted on June 30. On August 6, 280 revolvers were delivered and accepted. The final lot of 500 revolvers was delivered and accepted on September 7. The revolvers made under Colt’s subsequent government contracts for dragoon revolvers were produced at Colt’s facilities in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1849, Whitney also produced 274 Model 1841 rifles that were sold to William Glaze of South Carolina. These rifles were fabricated from components made by Whitney under his U.S. contracts that had failed inspection. The rifles Part III 452 were considered to be serviceable but second-quality arms; they are discussed in section 215.63 of this text. There is evidence that Whitney sold some metal components for Model 1841 rifles to the Palmetto Armory in South Carolina. If true, they were used in the production of the 1,000 rifles produced at Palmetto Armory and that are described in section 201.3 of this text. Ordnance Department correspondence reveals that Whitney was considering the manufacture of breechloading arms as early as 1851. On February 24 of that year, he wrote to the chief of ordnance regarding the production of Sharps breechloading arms, but received little encouragement. An employee of Whitney’s, Fordyce Beals of New Haven, Connecticut, received a U.S. patent on a revolver of his invention on September 24, 1854. Whitney produced about 3,200 revolvers based on this patent, but this does not appear to have been a commercially successful venture for Whitney. When the Model 1855 series of arms were introduced, the federal government discontinued the procurement of muzzleloading infantry shoulder arms from private contractors. Until late 1861, all regulation infantry muzzleloading shoulder arms were produced at the national armories. A relatively few breechloading arms continued to be purchased from private gun-makers before the Civil War. The loss of the government’s business came as a severe blow to the commercial arms manufactories whose production facilities were specifically oriented to the manufacture and assembly of muzzleloading military shoulder arms for the U.S. government. For more than half a century, the Whitney Armory’s primary customer had been the U.S. government, augmented by a few states’ purchases of Whitney arms. Whitney’s December 22, 1855, entry in his personal journal...

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