Selecting indiscriminately from each of the piles, he put together ten muskets, an achievement which was looked on with amazement."** * See the letter from Jefferson to John Jay, of April 30, 1785, cited in Roe, "English and American Tool Builders", p.
129.
** Roe, "English and American Tool Builders", p.

133.
While Whitney worked out his plans at Whitneyville, Simeon North, another Connecticut mechanic and a gunmaker by trade, adopted the same system.

North's first shop was at Berlin.

He afterwards moved to Middletown.

Like Whitney, he used methods far in advance of the time.
Both Whitney and North helped to establish the United States Arsenals at Springfield, Massachusetts, and at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in which their methods were adopted.