The civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, N. Y., from 1683 to 1884, Volume II, Part 45

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909, ed
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York, W. W. Munsell & Co
Number of Pages: 1345

USA > New York > Kings County > Brooklyn > The civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, N. Y., from 1683 to 1884, Volume II > Part 45

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Alfred Boynton, father of Eben Moody Boynton, was de- scended from a son of Sir Matthew Boynton, who came to Newbury Byfield in 1636, and took up a large grant in com- pany with the family of Lieutenant-Governor Dummer, the founder of Dummer Academy. The famous deacon of that church, for fifty years, was Joshua Boynton, a son of the first settler of the name. This worthy man, who was also chair- man of the Board of Control of Dummer Academy, died at the age of ninety-seven. Another member of the family was associate teacher at Rowley with Rev. John Phillips, the an- cestor of the founder of Phillips' Academy, who was edu- cated at Dummer, the oldest founded academy of Massachu- setts. The last surviving pupil of Master Moody, the great uncle of the subject of this article-Enoch Boynton-was famous for having introduced the silk culture into New England, and for his inventive abilities. He died about twenty-eight years ago, at the age of ninety.

Eben Moody Boynton came, at the age of thirteen, from his birthplace on the Western Reserve, in Ohio, to the home of his ancestors, in Newbury, and was, for a short time, an inmate of Enoch Boynton's family, and a great favorite with the old gentleman, who predicted a bright future for the young log-cabin boy. Educated in the schools of New- bury, and Phillips' Academy, Andover, Mass., he subse- quently taught a high school in Amesbury, where he became acquainted with John G. Whittier, the poet. Requiring a more active life, he went into the shipment of black walnut lumber from southern Michigan, where he first perceived the need of improvement in saw teeth. He first suggested the "M"-cutting teeth to his brother, Alfred Boynton, who was in his employ, and whose hook and gauge-tooth Lightning saw was supposed to be the principal element in the first inven- tion, though it afterward proved too complicated for the low state of skill among those using saws. Yet it was the first practical cutting saw ever known in the history of saw manufacture for cross-cutting. Subsequently, Eben Moody Boynton obtained patents on the several improvements now in use for simple "M"-shaped teeth, slightly retreating, which

have been found greatly superior to the former projecting plough-shaped teeth. These saws have proved a great suc- cess, and Mr. Boynton has manufactured several millions of them, which have been sold throughout the world. They are the first practical and scientific gain ever made in the cut- ting points of saw-teeth, providing, as they do, the front cut of a hand-saw, cutting both ways by means of a two-pointed "M"-tooth, perforating the wood in opposite directions as drawn back and forth, the two points of the " M " dressed and set to cut in line, and occupying the same space as the old pyramidical single tooth, the cutting being thrown upon the outer surface of the "M," the two parts of which cut and clean simultaneously with unexampled speed and simplicity.

The difficulty of introducing any new mechanical inven- tion or improvement without capital, experience and skilled labor, is well known, and the intense opposition of the manu- facturers of saws, the numerous infringements of the Boyn- ton patents, and the protracted sui's at law to maintain them, are matters of historic interest. Perhaps the most ingenious among many imitations of the Boynton saws was one pat- terned after the ancient " M"-tooth, of the Netherlands of 1682, which was discovered during the infringement suits. This tooth had one point set one way and one the other, and being sharpened on the inside, instead of on the outside of the "M," was consequently not as good as the ordinary "V"-tooth, though, to the unskilled workman, the saws so made so closely resembled the Lightning saw, that, by its use, unprin- cipled manufacturers and dealers were frequently able to check the enormous demand that was growing for the Light- ning saw, this worthless imitation being often palmed off npon purchasers with the verbal statement that it was the same eaw. Except for this, the Lightning saw would have come into universal use, since it cost no more to manufacture it than inferior saws, and its supremacy in speed and ease of cutting, durability, simplicity and practical utility, are un- questioned by scientific men the world over.

At the Centennial Exhibition, held in Philadelphia in 1876, a public test of cross-cut saws was ordered by the committee of examination to be made before the Commissioners of all nations, at which Dom Pedro, the Emperor of Brazil, was present; and beside him, holding the watch, was Mr. Corliss, the famous engine builder. A twelve-inch stick of solid gum-wood was sawed off, in precisely six seconds, with a hand cross-cut saw, four and one-half feet long, drawn by the two Boynton brothers, Alfred and Charles. Many of the principal saw manufacturers of the world were present and expressed astonishment at what they saw, and it has never since been attempted to match that record. All com- petition the world over has been distanced by the Boynton saw in every public test, at various State fairs, at the Ameri- can Institute fairs, New York, at the National Centennial Philadelphia; and at the great Exposition of the South Seas at Sydney, Australia, in 1879, the first award was given without further test, upon the world-wide fame and record known to the Commissioners of all nations represented there. It is unnecessary to say that the Lightning saw has always received the first medals and awards wherever exhibited. Each saw bears a $500 challenge that the Lightning saw is the fastest saw in the world, and no competitor has ever dared to publicly contest againet either the tool or the time recorded.

Mr. Boynton has been awarded some fifteen patents relat- ing to saw teeth, saw frames, saw handles, saw sets and saw

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HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

files, as well as to compartment ships and railways. In 1867 he purchased the side-wheel, 120-horse power steam tug, the "Charles L. Mather," of New York, and ran it to Newbury- port, and began experimenting to open the Merrimack River for navigation to Lawrence, Mass. He sent to Lowell the first scow-load of coal ever received by water at the harbor of Newburyport, from the Philadelphia & Reading coal steamers ; towed it to Lawrence, and passed it through the canal, to Gen. B. F. Butler, at Lowell, Mass. Mr. Boynton has since expended over $50,000 from the rev- enues of his saw business in opening up the navigation of the Merrimack, with a view to giving cheaper coal and lum- ber freights and water transportation to the large manufac- turing cities on its banks, where about 500,000 tons of coal are used annually, and manufactures aggregating $100,000,- 000 annually are produced. The improvements of the chan- nel, aud the delivery of $80,000 worth of coal by water, caused the railways to reduce their freights in carrying coal to one-half the former charge, on the plea of competition. . An opposition so formidable has thus far prevented sufficient capital being embarked to complete an enterprise fraught with so much benefit to the 300,000 people engaged in manufacturing near the summer home of Mr. Boynton; thoughtful men predict that the measure must ultimately prove a great success. The transportation of coal by steam upon the Merrimack, as far as Haverhill, Mass., was first be- gun by Mr. Boynton and associates in 1864, and has been a constant success ever since, all the coal to Haverhill and the lower towns being now received by water, an indication of the result which enlarged channels and facilities will give to the great manufacturing cities above Haverhill in the near future. In order to admit the deeper draft coal steamers, and open the port for foreign commerce, Mr. Boynton first pro- posed to the United States Government the construction of jetties at the mouth of the Merrimack, in a letter addressed from his etore in New York, of which the following is a copy :

" OFFICE OF E. M. BOYNTON, NEW YORK, Nov. 18th, 1879. 5

"Hon. GEORGE W. MCCRARY, Secretary of War,

Washington, D. C.

"Dear sir :- I want a preliminary survey of the mouth of the Merrimack River, near Newburyport. It is desired to ex- tend the narrow channel between Plum Island and Salisbury, continuing it in the same width out to twenty-five feet depth in the sea. By driving double rows of piles and forming jetties, the shifting sands that obstruct the harbor will be prevented, and the confined channel instead of spreading like a fan as it now does, and changing in every storm, will be rendered as deep as it is between Plum Island and Salis- bury, where for half a mile it averages thirty-five feet in depth.

Coal steamers of one thousand tons arrive and depart twice each week at great peril, bringing about one hundred thousand tons of anthracite coal this year. About five hun- dred thousand tons are used in the valley, the population of which is nearly half a million people. About one hundred millions of dollars' worth of products are sent away an- nually, and it is desirable that the coal and lumber, corn and cotton, in which the entire country is interested, shall have free access. The government has already accomplished much in river improvements, which goes for naught unless the harbor be rendered accessible. I will furnish steamers and men, and pay all the expense, if you will request Gen- eral Thom to meet me and make the preliminary survey. The coast survey furnishes the principal data needed. I have consulted General Thom, who is alive to the vast import- ance of the interests involved and the pressing need of im- mediate action. With great respect, I remain

"Yours, very truly,

(Signed)

"'E. M. BOYNTON."

Although this plan was at first objected to on behalf of the government by General George Thorn, Colonel of En- gineers U. S. A., on the ground of the magnitude of the cost of the necessary boring, sounding, surveys and current

observations, undaunted by the prospect that on account of these objections the work would be delayed for years, and the refusal of the War Department to accept his offer to pay for preliminary surveys, Mr. Boynton next procured copies of the surveys of the United States Navy of 1851 and of 1878, and on February 16th, 1879, he forwarded copies of the same, showing the changes of sand at the harbor bar, and giving the data necessary for appropriations. Ten days later the Secretary of War forwarded to Mr. Boynton the approval of General Thom and of the War Department, of his project for constructing jet- ties at Newburyport, at the mouth of the Merrimack, estimating the cost of granite work as not to exceed $600,000, and an appropriation was secured, after one rejec- tion, by the committee, of $50,000 to begin the work. The adoption of Mr. Boynton's plan was complete, and over $100,000 has since been expended, and granite jetties ex- tend respectively five hundred feet from the southern shore and fourteen hundred feet from the northern shore, and are to be extended four thousand and twenty-five hundred feet respectively, thus compressing the immense waters of the Merrimack and tidal currents by a harbor in the ocean, with an entrance one thousand feet wide. This is the first work of the kind in the section, and its completion will be a mon- ument of granite, as enduring as the continent, to Mr. Boyn- ton's labors in behalf of the Merrimack valley and the an- cient historic city of Newburyport.

In 1877, Mr. Boynton was selected by Messrs. George Opdyke, William Orton, Peter Cooper, Wallace P. Groom, John Williams, and other members of the Executive Com- mittee of the New York Board of Trade, to represent the city of New York, at the meeting of the Association of Chambers of Commerce of Great Britain, at Westminster Palace Hotel, London, in February of that year.

The courtesies received at our Centennial by the Commis- sioners of the British Association mentioned, led to the invi- tation, in reponse to which Mr. Boynton was commissioned, and he was the first to take part as a delegate from the United States in that distinguished body. He participated actively in debate during three days' sessions.

Speech of Mr. E. M. Boynton, of New York, at the Dinner given by the Association of Chambers of Commerce of the British Empire, at the Westminster Palace Hotel, London, England, February 21st, 1877, Lord Salisbury Presiding.

His experience of England was a succession of surprises. On his first night here he had been permitted a seat on the floor of the Parliament House, and listened to the very in- structive debate on Indian finances, trade, and resources. And here we listen to the noble Lord Salisbury, who was the delegated absolute ruler of that wonderful land. Solomon in all his glory ruled less than ten millions of people; Xerxes never fifty millions; imperial Rome, scarce ever a hundred millions; and at my side is a Christian Gov- ernor-General of India, who rules absolutely two hun- dred and fifty millions, ten thousand miles away. It crushes a Republican to think of such personal responsibility. What it would be to feel it he did not know; but he was sure that the Bible, which Queen Victoria gave as the secret of England's greatness must be his guide, and that God his helper, to succeed in meeting his responsibility. He was glad to know that not one of the sixty thousand Englishmen in India could strike the poorest native without liability to answer before a magistrate to English law.

America is free. They had some civil troubles, from abol- ishing an ancient institution-slavery-in fifteen States. The work of freedom it took England six hundred years to ac- complish has been completed in the past twelve years. Statesmanship was, however, springing up in those States; the love of peace and pride of country found new expres- sion recently where least expected. Neither execution nor confiscation followed their war, in which three million

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BIOGRAPHY OF EBEN MOODY BOYNTON.

soldiers sincerely battled. No right hands of the conquered were severed on the scaffold; all would now shield the na- tion's honor if threatened from abroad; while their Presi- dent slept securely without soldier or sentinel.

Mr. Boynton did not wonder at our pride of country, this beautiful land, filled with such memories as cluster round Westminster Abbey. Yet the poets, statesmen, heroes, scholars and history of Britain, were shared by their children in America. His ancestors came from Britain to Massachu- Betts two and a half centuries ago, yet more and more was England honored in New England and the United States - your great dead men walk and breathe the air of America. The church and the school were abroad in his country, and the masters of English literature were read quite as much there as are here Longfellow and Whittier and Bryant and Holmes. We have no such grand antiquities of human · hands in America; but if any here present landed at Halifax, they might ride in one direction four thousand miles, en route to their Pacific states-visit New York, the com- mercial port of the continent, and other large young cities -crossing wide states and prairies of limitless fertility - sweep on swift palace trains over many mountain ranges higher than the Alpine passes trod by Hannibal and Napo- leon. Yet they had a few antiquities. When Adam was young their great California redwood trees had sprouted. (Applause). When the morning stars sang the song of crea- tion, their Niagara joined in the chorus. (Applause). Eng- land owned the Canadian, we the American half of that four thousand feet wide of mingled falling waters. And, as he had often looked at the blended mountain of spray that rose to the clouds from Niagara, the sun-blaze on its fore- head, linking the rainbows round its throne, was to him a symbol of perpetual peace between England and America; to promote such peace and reciprocity and good-will should ever be the object of his life. (Applause).

Mr. Boynton received invitations to many cities and towns in Great Britain, and was presented to her Majesty, Queen Victoria, and the Royal family at Buckingham Palace. His speeches at London and afterward at the Plymouth meeting attracted great attention, and he received thirty invitations which he could not accept.

After visiting France and Italy, and examining various engineering works of harbor and river improvements, Mr. Boynton returned. He was tendered a dinner by the New York Board of Trade, which he declined. He received the thanks of the President, Hon. George Opdyke, in tones of highest eulogy. In sad contrast, Mr. Boynton, with Messrs. Francis B. Thurber and John F. Henry, after- ward constituted a committee to draft eulogies upon the life and character of President Opdyke upon his death, which occurred June 12, 1880. December 15th, following, as delegate of the Board of Trade to Washington, Mr. Boynton took a prominent part in the discussion of important measures, and introduced the chairman of the Committee on Commerce, Messrs. Reagan of the House of Representatives, and Beck of the Senate, at the banquet held December 17th.

Mr. Boynton was at that time contesting member of Con- grese versus George B. Loring, from the famous Sixth Mas- Bachusetts Essex county district. He had reluctantly per- mitted his name to be used as that of an Independent and National candidate, and supposed that he had been defeated hy less than one hundred votes; but the discovery of a much larger number of illegal votes led General Butler and Hon. Caleb Cushing to believe Mr. Boynton elected, and it took two years to decide the matter. He refused to make any terms with either of the old parties, and therefore was pre- vented from obtaining the seat to which these able coun- Belors, and such men as General Weaver (a minority of the committee), General Regan, and Alexander H. Stephens, declared him entitled.

The question was not finally decided until just before the inauguration of President Garfield, thus giving Mr. Boynton two years of Congressional observation, which has proved of great value to him, and had the effect of thoroughly dis- gusting him with politics.

Mr. Boynton took part in the inauguration of President Garfield, as his last political act, and has since devoted him- Belf to literature and farming. He sold out his patents in 1882 to an incorporated company at 36 Devoe street, Brook- lyn. They were valued at $300,000; having the preceding year under his own management, earned $63,000 gross and $30,000 net profits, and whatever discouragements in manu-

facturing or losses may hereafter occur, the Lightning saws up to that date had been an unquestioned success the world over. The cutting of wood with cross-cut saws by farmers, and the saving of fuel because the short-sawed blocks are so easily split, it is computed by the American Agriculturist, in speaking of this saw, that it causes a saving of $50,000,000 or more annually in the United States alone, which is largely due to the improvements introduced by Mr. Boynton. The sale of cross-cut saws has increased twenty-fold in the United States since he began his public experiments, the saws super- seding the use of axes, which wasted all tough and knotty timber, to say nothing of chips and the loss of time in cutting. The waste of fuel was thirty per cent., now saved by the use of saws.

Mr. Boynton was nominated for member of Congress by the Democratic party in Essex county, in 1880, in a district which, with one exception, has been almost unanimously Re- publican, (since the days when Rantoul and Choate and Cushing represented it), yet Mr. Boynton received about 2,000 more votes than had previously been necessary to elect; the largest vote ever given a Democratic Congressional can- didate in that district. It being presidential year, the Re- publican party prevailed, although many Republicans pre- ferred Mr. Boynton; and his opponent's native city, Newbury- port, though overwhelmingly Republican, gave Mr. Boynton a large majority, showing how high was the estimation in which he was held by his neighbors and townsmen. Extracts are annexed from a Congressional speech of Hon. Mr. Boyn- ton, which has been pronounced to contain the best defense of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which has ever been given, and it is predicted that the extension of suffrage by Massachusetts in conformity therewith, is only a question of time. We copy from the Congressional Record :

"Men of Massachusetts, dare you take this responsibility ? Loring has quoted young Ohio, the daughter of Massachu- setts; Ohio does not do this deed of disfranchising weakness and wickedness. Iowa does not perform this infamy: Maine does not disfranchise her people. New Hampshire, adjoining Massachusetts, with a similar people in every respect, does not find it necessary. Shall Massachusetts dim the lustre of her heroes, go back upon the teachings of her history, give the lie to her professions? Shall she act the part of those rulers in Judea, who, when Jesus was crucified, would not enter the judgment hall for fear of being defiled, yet when the stern and bloody Roman governor said, " I find no fault in him," cried out " Let him be crucified! Give us Barrabas, the robber!

"Men of Massachusetts, shield not yourselves behind your illustrious names. As well might Loring, petitioning for national appointment, go to the gravestones of our ancient Salem for names to secure it as to seek to answer the points of law and fact in this case by taking refuge behind the his- tory, the fame, and the glory of our ancient Commonwealth. Massachusetts is not that little space between the hills of Berkshire and the sands of Barnstable; she is now fifteen mil- lion of descendants, whose warehouses are in every portion of the Republic from Maine to San Francisco; it is the liberty- loving men of America, it is the ideas that come down to us from the scaffold of Sidney, from the words of Locke in his exile, from the pilgrims and Puritans, from John Hancock, Adams, Warren, from James Otis, insisting that taxation without representation is tyranny, speaking for universal manhood suffrage in the old cradle of liberty. I adjure you by all her immortals and by the kindred revolutionary heroes of Virginia, by the Sumters and Marions of South Carolina, by every battlefield of the Revolution, by the liberty won in our last sad, fratricidal strife, that you be true to your official oaths, be true to the genius of American liberty and manhood suffrage, and true to the destiny of this the great master re- public of our world.

" You stand at the dividing line between a free and a re- stricted ballot. Beside you are vast syndicates and giant corporations that urge you to disfranchise the people; that urge you to make the people weak and helpless; that urge you to take from millions of citizens of the United States their lawful rights and erect an empire."

* * * * *

** * *

"The United States Census of 1880 shows that from the same population three men voted in Maine and New Hamp- shire, Ohio and Indiana, where only two voted in Massachu- setts, in a population of similar intelligence and employment. If Maine, that up to 1820 shared and illustrated the history of Massachusetts, safely gives equality, why cannot the

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HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

mother State? Does it dim the splendor or retard the success of Ohio because she does not refuse a vote to the poorest freed- man in her borders? Have we not in America's three hundred thousand free schools, academies and colleges, security that intelligence shall rule, without making the poor and the unfortunate tremble at the loss of his manhood suffrage." * * * *

* *

* * *

"Had the equality proclaimed in our immortal Declaration of Independence been real, a million men would not have died to write freedom in the Constitution. Two hundred thousand black men fought for their liberty. The colored people alone outnumber our nation when it won independence. You legis- late for our fifty millions of to-day, for the five hundred mil- lions that will celebrate our next centennial. No power can compel you to do justice and keep your oath at freedom's al- tar. Will you refuse and dim the splendor of the hero-crim- soned flag that is destined to gather in all the States of the New World-destined to teach law and liberty, peace and fraternity to all mankind. That flag is alike for the lowly and the strong; touching earth, it sweeps the stars.

" The uncounted generations that have come and gone, the slow advance of freedom through sixty centuries, the mis- takes that have darkened history, warn us vigilantly to guard the summit of man's liberty, our Constitution so dearly won. The morning gilds our mountain heights of freedom; when surpassed by noon it shall only make the men that held their passes immortal."

Mr. Boynton expects to give great attention to the railway problem in the near future, and is confident that the uew bicycle trains he has invented will permit a possible attain- ment of speed that will carry them across the continent, with perfect safety and great economy, in a single day, and render the use of sleeping-cars, or stoppages for sleep and rest, unnecessary, while they will admit of the automatic handling of grain and coal without the use of elevators. We have traced Mr. Boynton's inventions in saws until they have passed from his hands into the control of a corporation, and his enterprise in improving the Merrimack river and harbor, which is now superseded by government action that it is believed will ensure its final and complete success. There are two other inventions of great importance relating to the construction of compartment ships. His experience in running the rapids of the Merrimack, below Lawrence, with scows, and his recognition of the danger of their sink- ing, when pierced, and thus obstructing the channel, as well as becoming a total loss, led him to invent a system of plank partitions dividing the scows lengthwise and crosswise into compartments six feet square, these partitions bolted to- gether taking the place of knees with greater economy of construction, supporting the decks upon which the railway tracks and sixteen cars rest, and rendering the sudden sink- ing of scow and cargo impossible.

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The civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, N. Y., from 1683 to 1884, Volume II, Part 45

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909, ed Publication date: 1884 Publisher: New York, W. W. Munsell & Co Number of Pages: 1345

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909, ed
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York, W. W. Munsell & Co
Number of Pages: 1345