USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884, Vol. I > Part 68
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564
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
which went on in relays. In October, 1783, the Connecticut legislature gave a patent for fourteen years to Benjamin Hanks, of Litchfield, for a self-winding clock : This Hanks was the father of Truman IIanks, who in 1821 was one of the founders of the business in Hart- ford which subsequently became known as the Woodruff Iron Works. In 1788 Doolittle and Goodyear had a bell-foundry at Hartford. By the latter part of the eighteenth century linen and woollen goods were manufactured at Hartford. The latter had been suggested by John Davis as early as 1736, but nothing seems to have come of the sugges- tion at the time. It is difficult to ascertain when some forms of woollen and cotton manufacture first passed from the stage of household labor to that of manufacture in the common sense of the term. About 1790 a duck-factory was established at Hartford, and it is recorded that cot- ton machinery was made there in 1791. The first cotton-mill in the State was started at Manchester in 1794.1
In speaking of this first period mention should be made of the invention of the steamboat by John Fitch, who was born at Windsor. It is reasonably well settled that he was the first to make practically successful application of the idea of propelling a boat by steam power.
Falling somewhat later in time, but like many of the matters already mentioned in being the first attempt in a new direction, was the manufacture of matches by Alonzo D. Phillips, of Hartford, who received in 1836 the first American patent for friction matches. His factory was in Hartford, on Front Street, above Morgan.
At a comparatively early period there had been repeated attempts to establish a silk industry. It was the subject of legislation in 1732, and in 1747 Governor Law wore a coat and stockings made of New England silk. President Stiles, of Yale College, and Nathan Aspin- wall, of Mansfield, are credited with originating what has since become a valuable industry. The former carried on experiments for nearly forty years, beginning in 1758, and has left a voluminous journal of his proceedings, which is now in the college library. Mr. Aspinwall introduced the white mulberry from Long Island to the town of Mans- field and secured a considerable product of silk. In 1789 President Stiles wore at Commencement a gown made of Connecticut silk.
One of the earliest industries in Connecticut was the tanning of leather, and still another was the making of hats. In 1640-41 the Gen- eral Court ordered that hides should be preserved, and in 1642 that no calves should be killed without the permission of two persons in each town appointed by the court. In 1656 an order was made prescribing the mode of tanning, dressing, and inspecting leather. After being inspected it must be sealed before it might be offered for sale. In 1667 the price to be paid for tanning was fixed by law.
A broadcloth-mill, the first in the country to produce this fabric, was established at Hartford in 1788. It had a capital of £1,250, which was subscribed by thirty-one individuals, among whom were many of the prominent men 'of the State. In the list were Colonel Jeremiah Wadsworth, Jesse Root, Thomas Seymour, and Peter Colt of Hartford, Oliver Ellsworth of Windsor, and Oliver Wolcott.2 The first directors
1 See vol. ii. p. 251.
2 Wadsworth, Root, Ellsworth, and Wolcott had been members of the Continental Con- gress, and Wolcott was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and was at this
Go Robust
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MANUFACTURES AND INVENTIONS.
were Peter Colt, Caleb Bull, Jr., John Caldwell, Barzillai Hudson, and George Phillips. They were chosen April 15, and at the succeeding session of the legislature it was ordered that taxes on the manufactory be abated for five years, and that persons steadily employed there should pay no poll-tax for two years. It is believed that the first product was taken by some of the founders of the enterprise for their own wear ; but in January, 1789, some of the cloth was sent to New York for sale. In the spring of this year the first Federal Congress met in New York, and on inauguration day the President and Vice- President, and most if not all of the Connecticut senators and represen- tatives wore suits of broadcloth that had been made at Hartford.1 The cloth was a dark brown, such as seems to have been a favorite product of the mill, and was subsequently known as "Congress brown." When the next session opened, in 1790, the President again wore a suit of cloth from this mill ; but this time it was " a crow-colored suit of the finest texture, the color of that beautiful changeable hne remarkable in shades not quite black." The product of the mill up to Jan. 1, 1790, was 10,278 yards, and the price was from $2.50 to $5 a yard. For a time the business seemed to be prosperous, and early in 1791 a lottery was authorized, the profits of which were to furnish machinery, implements, and an increase of stock. It is thought to have yielded some $9,000. At this time there had been great improvements in coloring the goods, and the quality and finish of the cloth were considered fully equal to those of English goods in the same grades. The sale, however, was not satisfactory, and two or three times an accumulated stock of cloths was sold at auction. Dec. 10, 1794, a dividend of fifty per cent, payable in goods of the company, was declared, and this was probably the only one ever paid. In the following August notice was given that there would be a final settlement of the affairs of the company. The prop- erty then included one hundred and forty pieces of cloth. The build- ing which was used for this mill stood on the Little River, just above the present Mulberry Street bridge, and was known for many years as the " old soap-factory." It was burned April 3, 1854.
The improvements in the use of steam power came in rapid suc- cession, and are largely responsible for the enormous advance in manu- factures of the present century. There is no better illustration of the radical change made within a hundred years than is furnished in Colt's Armory. These works are notable not merely for the magnitude of their operations, the variety of their products, and the number of successful inventors and mechanical organizers they have produced, but also as the outgrowth of an idea which was conceived by a boy of sixteen and persistently worked out, so that at the age of twenty-one he organized a company with a capital of $300,000 for the manufacture of the product. Samuel Colt was born at Hartford, July 19, 1814. His
time Lieutenant-Governor of the State. Ellsworth had been a member of the constitutional convention, and was afterward Chief Justice of the United States. Root became Chief Justice of Connecticut. Colt was Treasurer of the State, and Seymour was Mayor of Hartford for some thirty years.
1 Senators - William Samuel Johnson and Oliver Ellsworth ; representatives - Jonathan Sturges, Roger Sherman, Benjamin Huntington, Jonathan Trumbull, and Jeremiah Wads- worth. Those as to whom there is a doubt whether they were dressed in this cloth were Messrs. Johnson and Sherman.
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
father, Christopher Colt, was a manufacturer; and the boy, who had early shown a turn for mechanics, was employed for a short time in his factory at Ware, Mass., when only ten years old. Then he was sent to school, and at the age of sixteen went to sea. On this voyage he made a rough model of a revolver which contained the germ of the idea after- ward fully developed in his pistol. Returning after a voyage to Calcutta, he worked in the dyeing and bleaching department of his father's factory, obtained some chemical knowledge, and especially became interested in nitrous oxide. He conceived the idea of giving lectures illustrating the use of this gas, - laughing-gas, - and set out on a tour for this purpose at the age of eighteen. He travelled under the name of Dr. Coult, and followed this life some two years with such success as to obtain money for developing his invention. In 1835 he went to Europe and took out patents there, the American patents being taken out on his return. In 1836 he founded a company with a capital of $300,000 at Paterson,
N. J., for the manufacture of liis revolver. The money was sunk in
developing the invention, and the concern became insolvent in 1842, but had produced revolvers which were used in the Seminole War with such success that the experience of army men with them was what gave him a new start in the business in 1847, through a Government order at the breaking out of the Mexican War. Meantime he had constructed his submarine battery and laid a submarine telegraph cable to Coney Island and Fire Island Light. This was the first cable of the kind successfully laid and operated. The Government order above men- tioned was the first step in his career of success. It was for one thou- sand revolvers, and he made arrangements to have them built at Whitneyville, New Haven. In the following year he began to manu- facture in Hartford, in a small building on the north side of Pearl Street, a little west of Trumbull Street; but within a very few years conceived the plan of the South Meadow improvement and built the present armory. Part of the plan was to enclose a tract of some two hundred acres with a dyke a mile and three quarters long, securing it from the encroachments of the spring freshets. The plan was laughed at; but it was promptly carried out, and in the autumn of 1855 the dyke and the armory were finished. The armory was the largest private estab- lishment of the kind in the world. With the later addition it measures five hundred feet on each side, the main buildings being arranged like a double letter H. Its buildings average three stories in height, and it has over three acres of floor room. Its engines are of about one thousand horse-power. About half was built at the outset and the remainder in 1861. On the 5th of February, 1864, occurred the great fire which swept away the whole of the original building. The value of the machines destroyed was estimated at $800,000, and that of the stock at about $400,000. In addition to this, great quantities of valuable drawings were lost and several remarkable original models. The building was restored entirely fire-proof, on the old foundations, and so as to make very nearly a fac-simile of that destroyed.
In these great shops was carried on a business that was not only enormous in itself but marked by important novel features. It was all shaped on a comprehensive plan, and the most striking feature was the high development of the idea of division of labor. This was carried to a degree beyond what had been illustrated before that time. Not only was
EGE
THE WORKS OF THE COLT PATENT FIRE-ARMS COMPANY.
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MANUFACTURES AND INVENTIONS.
the mechanical work so divided, but a kindred idea was embodied in the elaborate system under which contractors came in between the owner and the fifteen hundred workmen. The company furnished rooms, power, machinery, and samples of what was to be made. Contractors in these rooms undertook to make, within a certain time and at a certain price, a specified number of exact duplicates of the sample furnished. When these multitudes of small pieces were finished, each was put to a test, and if it had any blemish or imperfection it was thrown out. Having passed inspection, the pieces were to be "assembled;" that is, the proper number of each to make up a pistol or musket were taken up at random, put together, and there was the finished arm. To do this re- quired a wonderful development of the plan of making interchangeable parts. The devising of machinery to carry out these processes was a work requiring qualities as exceptional as those that were concerned in developing the system. The factory was in full operation five years before the breaking out of the Civil War. During this time the aver- age annual product of pistols was about 33,000. In 1861 it rose to 69,655, in 1862 to 111,676, and in 1863 to 136,579, falling off for the remainder of the war. The new building was at first used chiefly for the making of muskets, of which 8,500 were produced in 1862, 49,844 in 1863, and 46,201 in 1864. In the midst of the war Colonel Colt died, Jan. 10, 1862. The business which he had created was left to the care of competent and experienced men.
The Colt Patent Fire-Arms Company had been incorporated in 1856, and since 1849 Mr. E. K. Root had been connected with the business as inventor and superintendent. He was born at Belchertown, Mass., May 5, 1808, and before coming to Hartford had been connected for seventeen years with the Collins Company as overseer and general superintendent. Ile was an illustration of a rare type of man, an in- ventor who joined to high inventive power great prudence, and the power of so directing his inventive energy as to waste little time in di- rections where the pursuit, though fascinating, did not give solid promise of results that would have a practical value. When he was engaged by Colonel Colt he applied himself to the production of machinery by which the whole process of manufacture was simplified and made coherent and economical. In the building of Colt's Armory he devised methods which saved much material and labor. On the death of Colonel Colt, Mr. Root became president of the corporation, and so continued until his death, July 5, 1865. He was succeeded by Mr. R. W. H. Jarvis. General William B. Franklin has for most of the period since the war been vice-president and general manager.
After the close of the war reduced the demand for revolvers and muskets, the company leased portions of the armory to various persons or corporations, reserving the original main building for its own use, and employing from six hundred to seven hundred men in making pistols, breech loading guns, Baxter engines, dise engines, sewing- machines, and several other specialties. The famous Gatling gun is made here. It is the invention of Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling, who was born in North Carolina, Sept. 12, 1818. He conceived the idea of this gun during the early days of the war, and made his first revolving bat- tery gun in 1862, firing in the spring of that year, at Indianapolis, over two hundred shots a minute. Twelve of these guns were used by
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
General Butler on the James River. In 1866 the United States Gov- ernment ordered one hundred and fifty. They have since been adopted in many countries, and are now made at Colt's, and at Vienna, and in England. Among those whose works are at the armory is Asa S. Cook, who has built much intricate machinery for the making of wood-screws, including the fitting up of the screw department of the Russell & Erwin factory at New Britain. Part of the value of the Colt Works lies in the fact that they were for years an educating force in applied mechan- ics. They presented such a comprehensive plan, and such perfect adaptation, as could probably be found nowhere else in the country, and perhaps not in the world. It stimulated invention, energy, and the struggle for perfect results; and turned out many men whose experi- ence there was the foundation of their later success.
In 1821 Alpheus and Truman Hanks bought the foundry of Good- win, Dodd, & Gilbert, on Front Street, in Hartford, and began a busi- ness which, continuing under different firm-names, became, in 1853, the Woodruff Iron Works, and did an enormous business in heavy ma- chinery and steam-boilers. They built the engines for the Hartford water-works, for the Brooklyn, N. Y., water-works, for Colt's Works, the engines of the United States war vessel "Hartford," Farragut's flagship, and a number of other Government boats. They devised many new patterns. They were also among the earliest makers of iron ploughs. In 1871 the firm ceased to do business, and the boiler department passed to H. B. Beach & Son, who have continued to do a large business. The remainder of the works passed into other hands, and after several changes they are now occupied by the Schuyler Electric Light Com- pany. The Woodruff Iron Works, known also as the Woodruff & Beach works, stood very high among the makers of heavy and compli- cated machinery, especially such as required skill and ingenuity in designing.
Christian Sharps received a patent in 1848 for a breech-loading rifle, which, as afterward manufactured at Hartford, is believed to have been the first thoroughly successful attempt to produce an arm of this kind. The Sharps Rifle-Manufacturing Company was chartered in 1851, with a capital of $1,000,000, and began operations at the place now occupied by the Weed Sewing-Machine Company. It did a large busi- ness for a number of years, and in 1871 removed to Bridgeport. The first president was John C. Palmer, and the master armorer was R. S. Lawrence.
The Pratt & Whitney Company is one of the largest builders of ac- curate and ingenious tools and machinery in the country. Its specialty is the making of tools and instruments of precision, and its products go to all parts of the world. Here was built (in duplicate) the Rogers- Bond comparator,- one apparatus being for Professor Rogers, and the other for the service of the Pratt & Whitney Company, where its use is to determine the size of standard gauges. By this it is possible to re- produce any measurement within a limit of i 50000 og of an inch ; and this without wear of the original standard, which is a line measure of hard- ened steel. The production of standard sizes involves an accurate investigation of subdivisions as to aliquot parts of a given length, for which this apparatus is especially fitted. In 1882 the committee on standards and gauges of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Menshan Jeunes
571
MANUFACTURES AND INVENTIONS.
reported on this comparator, and described one test in which it detected a variation of of an inch. This apparatus is the work of Pro- fessor William A. Rogers and Mr. George M. Bond. The fact that this wonderfully accurate and very costly device is needed by the company indicates the character of the work it undertakes. At this place has been developed and is now made the Gardner machine gun, which has successfully passed rigorous Government tests and been ordered for service by different Governments. A large order for Italy is being filled while this account is writing. The annual product of the company varies from year to year, but has reached $820,000. The business was begun about 1860 by F. A. Pratt, Amos Whitney, and Monroe Stannard. It has now a capital of $500,000.
The Phoenix Iron Works were founded by Levi Lincoln in 1834, and at his death the business was continued by his two sons George S. and Charles L. Lincoln. Mr. Levi Lincoln was the inventor of the card- setting machine, the molasses-gate, known and used almost universally, and the first known hook-and-eye machine. This passed to the Norths, of New Britain, and became very valuable. The firm has made a spe- cialty of architectural iron-work, which it has produced on a very large scale ; machinists' tools, including the Lincoln milling-machine, which has very general use ; and also general foundry-work. Mr. George S. Lincoln, for many years the senior partner, retired in 1885, and the firm is now Lincoln & Co., - Charles L. Lincoln and his sons, Charles P. and Theodore M. Many leading mechanical engineers received their training here.
The Jewell Belting Company, the largest manufacturer of leather belts in the world, was founded by Pliny Jewell, in 1849, as a private venture. He soon associated with him his four sons, Pliny, Marshall, Lyman B., and Charles A. Jewell, and for a long term of years the concern was known as P. Jewell & Sons. The leather comes from Michigan, where the company has a tannery with a capacity of fifty thousand hides a year. Marshall Jewell, the second son, was, from the close of the war until his death in 1883, one of the conspicuous figures in state and national politics, as well as active in many of the business enterprises of the city, where his large executive ability and his abun- dant public spirit made him a natural leader. He was born in Win- chester, N. H., Oct. 20, 1825, and came to Hartford in 1850. After vigorously sustaining the Government during the war, he was made the Republican candidate for Governor in 1869, and was elected then, and in 1871 and 1872. He was appointed United States Minister to Russia, in 1873, by President Grant, and removed with his family to St. Peters- . burg. He was recalled to enter Grant's Cabinet as Postmaster-General in 1874. In 1880 he was Chairman of the National Republican Com- mittee conducting the campaign. In Hartford Mr. Jewell was a direc- tor of the Hartford National Bank, the Phenix Insurance Company, the Travelers Insurance Company, and other large concerns, and he had also important interests in the development of the telephone, and in manufactories in other parts of the State and at the West.
The National Screw Company did a very large business for some years, beginning in 1866, and was then bought by the American Screw Company, of Providence.
The machine-shop of Dwight Slate deserves notice because of the
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
reputation of the proprietor, a man who is better known among skilled mechanics in Europe than by most of his neighbors. He made on a sub-contract the barrels and cylinders of the thousand pistols ordered of Colonel Colt for use in the Mexican War, as already described.
The Weed Sewing-Machine Company was established in 1863, and for years did a large business with its sewing-machines, gradually adding other specialties as the market for sewing-machines ceased to offer the advantages it had afforded during the life of the early patents. It now makes, besides its sewing-machines, the Columbia bicycle and tricycle. Its capital, which was originally $600,000, was some time ago reduced to $250,000.
The Hartford Machine Screw Company was founded in 1876, with a capital of $100,000. It makes machine screws by machinery invented by Mr. C. M. Spencer, which has within a few years revolutionized this form of manufacture and has proved very profitable. Mr. Spencer was born at South Manchester, and was as a boy employed in the Cheney silk-works. He is the inventor of the Spencer repeating rifle and shot- gun, which is made at Windsor.
The United States Stamped Envelope Works are located at Hartford, and produce stamped envelopes and newspaper wrappers for the Gov- ernment. The business has been in Hartford since 1874. The proprie- tors are the Plimpton Manufacturing Company of Hartford.
Smith, Bourn, & Co., makers of saddles and harness, are the succes- sors of Normand Smith, who established the business in 1794. It is believed to be the oldest manufactory of the kind in the country.
A notable industry of the county in which Hartford has a share is the silk manufacture of the Chency Brothers. They have mills at Hartford and at South Manchester, and make both sewing-silk and silk fabrics, the former being considered superior to any European product, and the latter holding a very high place in public favor. The works have for years been owned and conducted by a large family of brothers, and by some of the descendants of the original owners. The capital employed is $1,000,000.1
Other manufactures that deserve mention, by reason of special char- acter or extent, are those of the Hills Archimedean Lawn-Mower Com- pany ; the Hartford Woven-Wire Mattress Company ; the Billings & Spencer Company, one of the early makers of drop forgings ; the car- riage manufactories of Justin Mansny and S. N. Hart; the boiler-feed manufacture of I. B. Davis & Son; the chuck-factory of Cushman ; the plated-ware manufactory of E. M. Roberts & Son, and that of the William Rogers manufacturing company ; the Schuyler and the Mather electric light companies, each making dynamos and arc and incandescent lamps ; the Hartford Hammer Company ; the gold-beating establish- ment of James H. Ashmead & Sons; the brush-factory of Holcomb & Sperry ; the boiler and engine works of Pitkin Brothers & Co .; the belt-works of N. Palmer & Co .; the large manufacture of dye-stuffs of Beach & Co .; the Smyth manufacturing company, which makes a book- stitching machine ; and the Washburn car-wheel company.
The total capital invested in manufactures in Hartford (including cases in which the works are located elsewhere, although owned here)
1 See, in the second volume (pp. 255, 256) some account of the origin and growth of the Cheney Brothers' Silk Manufacturing Company. Their mill in Hartford was built in 1854.
a
Justin Gun Dunham
)
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MANUFACTURES AND INVENTIONS.
is not far from $14,000,000, being chiefly put into joint-stock companies formed either under the general law or by special charter. For the whole county the figures exceed $20,000,000. It is to be remembered that part of what is thus credited to the city of Hartford is for works elsewhere which are under Hartford ownership or control.
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