Location: ELI WHITNEY, SR./P. & E.W. BLAKE/ELI WHITNEY, JR.

As the United States' first major commercial arms maker, Eli Whitney's New Haven plant, which began production in 1798 and continued under family control for the next 90 years, was one of the more important American arms manufactories of the 19th century. Its products, accordingly, are eminently collectible. Moreover, during its 90 years of operation, Whitney clan produced a number of unusual arms, some exact copies of regulation U.S. martial longarms, other variations and derivatives of U.S. and foreign longarms, a variety of percussion revolvers and finally a variety of single-shot and repeating breech-loading rifles in an attempt to capture a portion of the burgeoning market in these cartridge arms during the post-Civil War period. Contrary to the prevailing myth, Eli Whitney Sr., who also invented the cotton gin, did NOT perfect a system of interchangeability of parts in the arms industry. His contributions in this line were more as a propagandist for the concept that was brought to fruition by others, notably Simeon North and John Hall.