Worcester
had an admirable Bar, admirable clergymen, and physicians
of great skill and eminence. Among her clergymen was Edward
Everett Hale, then in early youth, but already famous as a
preacher throughout the country. There was no Unitarian pulpit
where he was not gladly welcomed. So his congregation here,
by way of exchange, heard the most famous pulpit orators of
the country.
Among the physicians was Dr. Joseph Sargent, a man then without
a superior in his profession in Massachusetts. The friendship
I formed with him in 1849 lasted till his death, more than
forty years afterward.
The mechanics of Worcester were unsurpassed for their ingenuity
anywhere on the face of the earth. Worcester was the centre
and home of invention. Within a circle of twelve miles radius
was the home of Blanchard, the inventor of the machine for
turning irregular forms; of Elias Howe, the inventor of the
sewing machine; of Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton
gin, which doubled the value of every acre of cotton-producing
land in the country; of Erastus B. Bigelow, the inventor
of the carpet machine; of Hawes, the inventor of the envelope
machine; of Crompton and Knowles, the creators and perfectors
of the modern loom; of Ruggles, Nourse and Mason, in whose
establishment the modern plow was brought to perfection, and
a great variety of other agricultural implements invented
and improved.
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