Whitney had his roots in New Haven, and established his cotton gin factory there. He kept his manufacturing business in New Haven and was one of the founders of industrial Connecticut. Other members of the American inventor/manufacturer’s hall of fame who started in southern Connecticut were Simon Ingersoll, a Stamford resident who invented the friction clutch and spring scale, and was the founder of what would become Ingersoll-Rand. Stamford’s Linus Yale invented the cylinder lock, the start of Yale locks. In Bridgeport Elias Howe perfected the sewing machine.

As American manufacturing turned from water to steam for power Connecticut’s industries remained along the banks of the state’s rivers. The rivers were used, as they long had been, as transportation routes. Later, when river transport was replaced by rail, the railroads took the easiest routes to their customers—they followed the rivers. ...

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