Paul Whitin, an American blacksmith who established the Whitin Machine Works, had begun his career as an apprentice in Colonel James Fletcher's forge, and then in 1973, he married Fletcher's daughter.
Col. Paul Whitin, (17671831) was an American blacksmith and pioneering industrialist who in 1831 in Northbridge, Massachusetts established the Whitin Machine Works, which would later become the largest maker of specialty textile machinery in the world. This was to be first of other successive inventions that would establish the Whitin Machine Works as a great textile machinery company. He began his career as an apprentice in Colonel James Fletcher's forge in South Northbridge. In 1793, he married Fletcher's daughter, Elizabeth (Betsey) Fletcher and they would have six children, including five sons. 
