USA > New Jersey > Essex County > Newark > Biographical and genealogical history of the city of Newark and Essex County, New Jersey, V. 2 > Part 52
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sides with her children in Newark. The family attend the Presbyterian church. Three brothers of Mr. Wallace also came to America-William B., John and An- drew. All located in New York city, where William and John are now prominent and prosperous carpenters and builders. An- drew died in that city, leaving a widow and two children. Another brother, Robert, is a practicing lawyer in Dublin, Ireland.
William H. Wallace, of this sketch, ac- quired his early education in the public schools of New York and at the age of four- teen, after his father's death, accompanied his mother on her removal to Newark, where he entered the law office of Addison H. Hazelton, under whose direction he read law until twenty years of age. By diligence and assiduity, he fitted himself for general law-office work and for the examination of titles, etc., and on the Ist of November, 1892, he accepted a position with the Fi- delity Trust Company, to hunt out and ex- amine titles. So faithful and efficient has he been in this work that he has won the entire confidence and respect of the com- pany, and is now one of their most trusted representatives.
Mr. Wallace is a charter member of the West End Club, of Newark. He gives his political support to the men and measures of the Republican party, and is very popu- lar in business, political and social circles.
CORNELIUS VAN HOUTEN.
For more than half a century Cornelius Van Houten has been prominently con- nected with the business interests of Belle- ville, and he is numbered among the hon- ored residents of the town, for its prosperity
and welfare have been promoted in a great degree by his efforts. Rising above the heads of the mass there has always been a series of individuals, distinguished beyond others, who by reason of their pronounced ability and forceful personality have always commanded the homage of their fellow men, and of this class Mr. Van Houten is an illustrious representative.
He was born in the township of Belle- ville, on Main street, September 29, 1826, and is a son of Abraham and Margaret (Spear) Van Houten. His father was born in Paterson, New Jersey, and was descend- ed from Holland ancestors, who emigrated to this country in the sixteenth century, and for many years resided in the vicinity of Paterson. At an early day Abraham Van Houten came to Belleville, where he fol- lowed the hatter's trade, establishing a fac- tory, which he successfully conducted until his death. He married Margaret Spear, who spent her entire life in Belleville, as did her father, John Spear, who was descended from one of the original owners of a large tract of land in this neighborhood. Mr. and Mrs. Van Houten reared a family of three sons and one daughter; William, Anna M., Cornelius and Abraham, but with the exception of our subject all have now passed away. The members of the Van Houten family gave their support to the Whig party until its dissolution, and then became earnest advocates of the Republic- an party.
The life of our subject has been passed in the town of Belleville, where he attended the public schools. He early entered upon his business career, his first independent ef- fort in life being made as an employe in a clock factory. Later he embarked in busi- ness on his own account, and for fifty-one
11-25
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years, in different capacities, he has been connected with the manufacture of wire and wire cloth,-first as an apprentice, then as journeyman, foreman and superintendent, while now he is treasurer of the De Witt Wire Cloth Company, having become con- nected with that house when it was under the management of William Stephens & Sons. He has for many years occupied his present responsible position, and is a di- rector and heavy stockholder in the enter- prise. He is a very energetic man, keenly alive to the opportunities presented, pos- sessed of sound judgment and keen discrim- ination, and his well directed efforts have won him a leading position in industrial cir- cles and gained him a handsome compe- tence. So entirely has his time been occu- pied with business interests, that he has given little attention to politics, but is one of the earnest Republicans of the county, unwavering in his advocacy of the princi- ples of the party.
Mr. Van Houten has been twice married. He first wedded Miss Eliza A. Stephens, a daughter of Thomas and Augusta (Bou- lette) Stephens, who died in 1873, leaving two children, Clarence S. and Williard B. The former is now engaged in the fruit business in Florida, and the latter is en- gaged in the manufacture of electrical medical machinery in New York city. In 1892 Mr. Van Houten married Cornelia A. Tucker, a representative of one of the oldest families of Stratford, Connecticut. Mr. and Mrs. Van Houten attend the Reformed church, in which he has served as both dea- con and elder. He is a very public-spirited and progressive citizen and has been most active in advancing every movement tend- ing to beautify and improve the town or to promote its material, educational and moral
welfare. The high regard in which he is uniformly held is an index to his well spent life.
EDWARD WESTON.
This distinguished inventor and elec- trician was born at Brynn Castle, near the town of Oswestry, Shropshire, England, on May 9, 1850. His parents were moderately well-to-do people and owned a good but not very large farm. His father was a man of quite remarkable mechanical skill and possessed of considerable originality. He was particularly skillful in the use of tools and well known as a man who could do excellent work in wood, metals or other materials. Indeed, his father was a mechan- ical genius of a rather high order, but lacked persistence and force of character. His mother, however, was a woman of great force of character and unusual business ability and tact.
When young Weston was about seven years old his grandfather died, and a bitter dispute arose between his father's brother and his father in regard to the division of the estate, and long and expensive litiga- tion ensued, which finally resulted unfav- orably to his father. Shortly after the ter- mination of the suit the family decided to move out of Shropshire, and later settled in the thriving mining, metallurgical and industrial town of Wolverhampton, in Staf- fordshire. What appeared to be the fath- er's misfortune proved to be the boy's good fortune; for the removal from Shropshire to Staffordshire resulted in bringing the boy into contact with the intense activity of a busy manufacturing, mining and metal- lurgical center, with the result that in a short time his impressionable but keenly
The Lewis Pib Co Chicago
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logical mind became much interested in the processes and operations connected with the numerous mining, metallurgical, chemi- cal and mechanical industries carried on in that section of the country; and no detail connected therewith appeared to escape his attention, nor was he satisfied until he knew the reason for every operation and compre- hended the principles involved. His studi- ous character and inquiring mind soon at- tracted general attention, and he quickly became acquainted with a number of the most prominent manufacturers and scien- tific men in that neighborhood and was al- ways welcome to their establishments. Young Weston was recognized at once as being very different from other boys. His spare time was sedulously given to keen observation, close study, and to experi- mental and constructive work, and much of the latter was characterized by excellent and marked originality.
His primary education was obtained at the schools of the Established Church, but later he received careful training under the care of a very able man of the name of Lucas. At a later period he attended St. Peter's Collegiate Institute and while there was under the care of Mr. Henry Orton, B. A., who was an enthusiastic teacher and a man of very varied scientific attainments. Mr. Orton's example and teaching greatly stimulated young Weston's desire for scien- tific knowledge thus giving increased impetus to his strong natural inclina- tions.
The boy was always fascinated by ma- chinery of all kinds and took great pleasure in studying the motions and functions of the respective parts and was never satisfied until he had fully mastered the underlying principles and mode of operations of any
machine he saw. He became apt in the use of tools and constructed excellent model steam-engines and other appliances.
When about nine years old he obtained a copy of Smee's "Elements of Electro Metal- lurgy" and at once became greatly inter- ested in the electro-desposition of metals, devoting much time to the experimental study of the subject. In this way a great many new chemical facts and theories were brought to his attention, and chemistry and electro-chemistry became of great and real- ly absorbing interest to him. He soon took up the special study of chemistry with great ardor and fitted up a room in his father's house as a laboratory, and much of his spare time was spent in most earnest work in that direction. His early experiments and study of electro-metallurgy naturally made him desirous of obtaining a further knowledge of the wonderful force which so quietly brought about such remarkable phenomena as the separation of the metals from their salts in solutions, and he began a special course in electricity, and con- structed with his own hands the various machines and apparatus necessary for an experimental investigation of the laws gov- erning its generation and action. His first efforts were in that branch known as static electricity, and he constructed the various forms of frictional machines then employed for transforming mechanical energy into electrical energy. He soon acquired a very full knowledge of all the phenomena of static electricity and of the then prevalent theories to account for its production and the phenomena of its action.
Later he took up in the same thorough manner the study of dynamic electricity. In this branch of work his mechanical skill, ingenuity and originality became more ap-
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parent, and he constructed most of the then known forms of apparatus needed for illus- trating the production and mode of action of this subtle force. He constructed and studied the various forms of primary bat- teries, electric motors, electric bells, induc- tion coils, electric clocks, telegraph instru- ments and small magneto-electric gener- ators. He was an indefatigable worker, a most industrious and earnest student and absorbed information on every subject very rapidly. To produce the insulated wire necessary for making the various electro- magnetic apparatus needed, he designed and built a very simple and efficient wire- covering machine.
Any difficulties encountered always stim- ulated him to greater effort, and he always made it a rule to accomplish everything he undertook. To illustrate with what per- sistence and perseverance he would pursue a subject, the following may be instanced: His first voltaic battery consisted of two cells, the negative elements of which were a pair of old copper scale pans, and the pos- itive elements consisted of thin sheet zinc, such as is commonly used for making zinc utensils. He was somewhat disappointed at the smallness of the spark obtained from these cells and the rapidity with which their activity decreased. After constructing other and better forms of copper-zinc batteries and becoming more fully aware of their de- fects, he was anxious to construct the more advanced type of two fluid cells, known as the Grove or Bunsen. The Grove form was out of the question, on account of the high cost of platinum, and the Bunsen form seemed to be beyond his reach on account of the difficulty of obtaining properly shaped carbons in those early days. But young Weston resolved to make the car-
bons himself. His first step was to visit the gas works in search of a suitable mass of the most dense form of artificial carbon known, which is formed as a troublesome lining on the interior surfaces of the retorts in which the coal for making illuminating gas is subjected to destructive distillation. He found what he required and took it home in triumph, but on attempting to saw out a suitable shaped piece he found it so extremely hard that he was reluctantly compelled to abandon that method, and set to work to chip out from the obdurate ma- terial pieces of carbon of the required shape and size, and after some failures and days of patient labor he finally secured two fairly well shaped pieces. Porous cells were fortunately more easily obtainable, and these he secured from the chief operator of one of the telegraph companies in town. Zinc plates of the proper thickness were obtained from a zinc-working establish- ment. Some home-made contacts, or ter- minals, and some glass jars completed the mechanical parts of the battery. After securing the necessary acids, and cleaning and amalgamating the zinc plates, the two cells were set up and young Weston felt amply repaid for the labor and time ex- pended, by the possession of a battery which enabled him to melt wires, explode. gunpowder and perform most of the then known electrical experiments in a quite sat- isfactory way. Armed with this quite pow- erful battery, his experiments and studies. were carried on with much greater ease and vigor than before, and he proceeded to con- struct the more usual forms of apparatus employed for exhibiting and studying the phenomena and laws of dynamic electricity. He also constructed and operated a small telegraph line, in which the wires were in-
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sulated from their wooden supports by glass insulators made from necks of vials.
About this time steam propulsion on common roads was again attracting atten- tion and one of the principal difficulties ap- peared to be that of the cutting of and consequent serious injury to the surface of the roads by the propelling wheels. Young Weston suggested that this could be en- tirely overcome by the use of sufficiently thick, wide rubber tires which he claimed would roll and pack the material of the surface of the roadway, thus improving rather than injuring it. Owing to the ex- pensive nature of the experiments, young Weston could not undertake them person- ally and no one then appeared to believe that the rubber tire would accomplish the results predicted by him. We are now in a position to judge of the value of the suggestion, for the bicycle and other wide rubber-tired vehicles tend to improve the road by rolling and packing in the manner he claimed.
Before young Weston was quite sixteen years of age he had acquired such an inti- mate knowledge of the then known facts concerning the generation and action of electricity, and had constructed such a large quantity of apparatus that he was induced to deliver a public lecture on the subject, which attracted much attention and made him quite well known in the district in which he lived.
Later on the question of a suitable pro- fession for the young man began to receive serious consideration, and, from the dif- ferent views of his parents and himself, it was evident that it was not going to be an easy matter to select a line of work which would meet with the approval of all. The boy had a strong liking for some profession
which would permit him to use to the best advantage such scientific knowledge and mechanical skill as he had acquired, and to give full scope to the inventive facul- ty and capacity for original scientific in- vestigation which he felt certain he pos- sessed. He had a strong preference for something akin to mechanical engineering, in which he thought he saw ample scope for the full play of his powers, and for the con- tinuance of his beloved studies. In this and kindred lines he felt certain of brilliant success and felt assured that he could be of more use to his fellow men in some line of work in which the useful applications of science were most marked, than he could in other fields of labor. But his parents pos- itively disliked to see him take up a line of work which savored so much of the dirt and grease of the machine shop.
While the matter was under considera- tion a prominent dentist named Owen, who was well acquainted with the family, and who had noticed the boy's mechanical gen- ius and skill, considered it would be a wise thing for him to learn dental surgery, think- ing that he would there find abundant scope for his abilities. With this idea in view, young Weston was placed in his care, but it was soon discovered that the young man's tastes lay in quite another direction, and that he very much disliked the busi- ness. His parents now desired him to take up the study of medicine, and con- formably thereto made an arrangement with Drs. Edward H. and J. M. Coleman, both men of distinguished ability in their calling and both possessing considerable taste for science. Under their care the young man pursued his medical studies, his taste for scientific knowledge thereby nat- urally being fostered. The system of
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medical education in England was then rather different from what it is in this coun- try. In addition to attending lectures it was necessary, in order to graduate in Eng- land as a fully fledged medical practitioner, to be associated for the space of at least three years with some duly qualified prac- titioner in regular practice. Usually these two requirements were met during the same period of time, the student, while at- tending lectures, etc., giving part of his time to attending to minor surgical cases and other general work, as an assistant to some regular practitioner. In young Weston's case it soon became evident that he would never follow medicine as a profes- sion, since most of his spare hours were still devoted to his favorite studies, and be- cause the drudgery of the profession and the uncertainty still lingering about its re- sults were equally distasteful to him. Medi- cine is pre-eminently an art and will not, because of the complexity of the phe- nomena with which it deals, attain the dig- nity of an exact science for many years yet to come.
The apparent want of stability on young Weston's part led to considerable trouble with his parents: they never seemed to have completely understood the boy's powers, or they would certainly not have endeavored to force him into a profession he evidently disliked. After giving three years of his time to medical studies, and finding little sympathy with any with whom he was brought in contact, he determined to cut loose from his home and strike out for him- self. This he considered he could do better by leaving England entirely. He therefore packed up his things, and left for this coun- try some time in the month of May, 1870.
He arrived in America with compara-
tively little money, some few books and some of his favorite apparatus, and a few letters of recommendation. Armed with these letters, he started for some of the in- stitutions of learning in and around New York, and applied for a situation, among others to Professor Chandler, of Columbia College. Chandler treated him with great consideration, but could not give him any- thing to do. He gave him letters to a num- ber of concerns in New York, which con- cerns Weston next visited, but without re- ceiving the least encouragement. . After several months of fruitless effort he began to fully realize the difficulties attendant upon beginning life anew in a strange coun- try, but he did not become discouraged. After about a year of fruitless effort he se- cured a position at a very small salary, with a small firm of manufacturing chemists in New York, which position he retained until a better one was offered him by the Ameri- can Nickel Plating Company, a company which was engaged in trying to establish the nickel-plating industry on a commercial basis. Nickel-plating was then a novelty, and in the experimental stage, and the pro- cess was most uncertain, and good work was more the result of good luck than in- telligent action, and the methods employed were of the crudest character.
The young man had at last found a place which would serve to prove whether the confidence in himself (which led him to the daring, and apparently foolish move, of leaving home, friends and brilliant pros- pects) was well placed or misplaced. Luck- ily young Weston found that in the nickel- plating enterprise there was much need for a man of his calibre; and his skill, knowl- edge and ingenuity were soon brouglit into play to overcome the then really serious dif-
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ficulties encountered in carrying on the op- erations and trying to lay a foundation of a new industrial art. It was not long before he had effected such improvements as to at- tract the attention of the executive officers of the company, who quickly began to de- tect in the modest and quiet young man elements of sterling worth and ability of a very high order, and he soon was looked upon as an oracle to be consulted on all matters connected with the technical side of business. In about a year he revolution- ized the technical branch of the business and invented new processes for treating and preparing the work preparatory to plating, which greatly reduced the cost, removed all uncertainty in regard to the quality of the resulting work, and improved the quali- ty and beauty of finish to an extent which has never since been excelled. In fact nearly every detail of the practical processes of nickel-plating as now practiced, was either entirely worked out by Weston or so greatly improved as to forever bear the im- press of his mind. In the early stages of the business much loss and annoyance was caused by the strong tendency of the nickel- coating to "strip" or peel off the surface of the plated articles in flakes, and in the case of some metals and alloys it seemed to be practically impossible to secure firm adhe- sion of the nickel deposit to the underlying metal. Mr. Weston made strenuous efforts to discover the causes of these failures, and to devise processes of treatment of the work which would insure perfect adhesion of the deposit to any metal or alloy which it was desired to plate. By radically changing the methods of preparing work, and modifying the treatment according to the chemical nature of the metal or alloy to be plated, he succeeded in reducing the cause of all fail-
ures to secure firm adhesion to the simple one of carelessness on the part of the em- ployes. Prior to the time of Mr. Weston's labors, the successful nickel-plating of large or intricate pieces was an exception, and failure the rule. When the deposit peeled from the surface of an article, it was prac- tically impossible to replate that particular spot in a manner which could insure satis- faction; and to replate the entire article was the only proper course to pursue. To do this, however, it was necessary to remove every vestige of the original nickel-plating, and to repolish the surface of the article. The removal of this defective nickel coating was one of great labor and expense, be- cause it was then only possible to remove it by mechanical means, such as grinding or other methods of abrading. With intri- cate or delicate work, this was practically impossible, on account of the very high cost, and this was equally true of the larger articles, so that it was frequently cheaper to pay the manufacturer of the article the full amount of its value, rather than attempt to free its surface from the defective coating and refinish it and replate it. Mr. Weston changed all this by devising a most ingen- ious chemical means of completely dissolv- ing the nickel coating without injuriously affecting the surfaceof the underlying metal. It then became a simple matter to repolish and replate the article. We will endeavor to explain the process. Nickel is very slowly acted upon and dissolved by sulphuric acid. Hydrochloric acid acts upon it and dis- solves it more readily, and nitric acid at- tacks it very vigorously and dissolves it very rapidly. To attempt to dissolve the nickel coating by the action of sulphuric acid would result in failure from two causes; first, because the process would be very
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slow and therefore impracticable and, sec- ond, because in most cases, the sulphuric acid would attack the metal of which the article was composed with such vigor as to seriously injure or destroy it before the whole of the nickel coating could be remov- ed. The same is true in regard to the hydro- chloric (muriatic) acid. Nitric acid is practi- cally useless for such purpose, because it at- tacks most of the metals from which articles to be nickel plated are made, with even greater vigor than it attacks nickel; conse- quently it would ruin the article before the nickel coating was removed. But Mr. Wes- ton's successful plan involved the use of nitric acid, and the controlling of, or so regulating, its action as to make it impossi- ble for the nitric acid to injure or even sensibly affect the surface of the inferior metal of which the article was composed. This was accomplished by using a combina- tion of nitric and sulphuric acids in such proportions as would result in the forma- tion of a coating of anhydrous or partly an- hydrous salts of the inferior metals, which salts acted as an effective protective coating against possible further action of the acid on the metal of the article, but which never- theless permitted the nitric acid to act upon and remove the nickel coating. In this way it was found perfectly possible to remove easily and completely nickel deposits from even such easily oxidizable positive metals as zinc and iron or steel, without injury to the article. This process of chemical strip- ping is in use throughout the world, and but few of its users know who invented it. With a little care in mixing the acids in proper proportions, it may be used to strip the nickel coating from the most intricate and delicate articles without the slightest injury thereto.
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