Samuel W. Collins

[2] One innovation was selling axes that were ready to use out of the box, having been sharpened in Connecticut on grindstones driven by water power.

By 1845, Connecticut was the most densely industrialized state in the nation, where 25 axe manufacturers were joined by brass foundries and factories producing firearms, hardware, machine tools, and consumer goods.

[1] By 1835, Collins was selling 250,000 axes per year at $20 per dozen, largely to cotton plantations on slavery's expanding frontier.

[1] For reference, in western Tennessee, an enslaved man using a sharp axe could clear about 4 acres of natural forest land per year, turning it into fields.

By 1860, one county there had 65,570 acres of cleared agricultural land, at the cost of 16,000 enslaved man-years of axe work.