The growth of a century: as illustrated in the history of Jefferson county, New York, from 1793-1894, Part 7

Author: Haddock, John A., b. 1823-
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Albany, N. Y., Weed-Parsons printing company
Number of Pages: 1098

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shown, while admiring the ingenuity of the invention, declared it of no practical utility! Young Woodruff was discouraged by this verdict of what he considered a superior mind, and dropped the matter from his thoughts. He finished his apprenticeship at carriage building, and then became the expert pattern maker in the Geo. Goulding (now Bagley & Sewall) machine works. While employed there the idea of a railroad sleeping-car came into his mind. It was not, however, until several years afterwards, and when he had removed to Alton, Ill., that his ideas took definite form. There he made his model, and from that city he for- warded his formal application for a patent, which was issued in due time.

Unique as was the design, however, and

THE GROWTH OF A CENTURY.

wholly unprecedented the invention, as soon as its intrinsic value had been demonstrated there were not wanting certain unprincipled railroad officials who attempted to defraud him of the benefits of his invention, claim- ing it not a novelty, but as something used and discarded years before. Like many other inventors, Mr. Woodruff was obliged to defend his patents in the courts at heavy expense before his priority of invention was fully established. He had a car built at one of the railroad shops in Massachusetts, and thenceforth he became a sort of " citizen at large," Jefferson county being no longer his home-entering upon an enlarged experi- ence that involved daily (sometimes un- pleasant) contact with leading railroad men, which soon made his name prominent throughout the United States as an inventor, and later as a civil engineer.

Having procured a car, he succeeded (after much persuasion, and perhaps as the readiest way to get rid of his importunities), in ob- taining Mr. Corning's consent to attaching his car to the night express between New York and Buffalo on the N. Y. Central. Mr. Woodruff personally managed the car, charging fifty cents extra for its use, and was delighted when a dozen passengers took lodging with him for the trip. Gradually his car became talked about among trav- ellers, and it was not long before so bene- ficent an invention began to take position as a factor not to be overlooked in the econo- mies of life's pilgrimage. Surprising as it may now appear, the railroad people were among the very last to appreciate this in- vention, now so popular on all the railways of the civilized world. It may be truthfully said that, the sleeping car was actually forced upon the railroads by the persistent demands of their patrons. This will be perhaps better understood when the fact is recalled that the N. Y. Central actually charged Woodruff full fare while he was conducting and work- ing his car, and trying to introduce its merits to public attention. A vigorous appeal to Mr. Corning finally resulted in a free pass, and he was thus relieved from handing over to the road about seventy per cent. of the earnings of his car.

The cheese-paring parsimony of the N. Y. Central at last wore out Mr. Woodruff's patience, and he resolved to try some other company. Having heard a great deal about the superior management of the Pennsylva- nia Railroad, he concluded to try what could be done with its officials. He transferred his car to Pittsburg, and had it open for in- spection. It attracted the favorable notice of Thomas A. Scott, the superintendent, and Edgar Thompson, the president of that great road. These two men have passed into his- tory as the ablest railroad men of their day, and their intelligent minds immediately grasped the importance of this new develop- ment in railroading, and thus the Woodruff sleeping car was at last appreciated by the right men.

Several of the leading officials of the Penn- sylvania Railroad became interested in the matter, and a strong organization (known as the Central Transportation Company) was soon formed, and the manufacture of cars began. This Transportation Company is still in existence, and has been for many years carrying on a law-suit against the Pullman Company for nearly a million dollars' worth of property sold to the Pullman Company, and alleged not to have been paid for.

Thenceforward Mr. Woodruff's life and name were for nearly ten years connected with the sleeping car. He called to his as- sistance his son George, now a railroad man in California, and his brother Jonah, the artist, who is buried at South Vineland, N. J. Success attended all his efforts, and after several years of decided and well-earned prosperity he sold all his patents to his asso- ciates in the Transportation Company (they afterwards selling to Pullman), and removed to Mansfield, Ohio, where he built and occu- pied for many years the fine mansion now owned by Hon. John Sherman, and used as his homestead. At Mansfield he was con- nected with a bank, and honored as an in- fluential citizen.

He had now reached nearly his 60th year, an age when most men would have been content to give up business and take their ease. But idleness was to him intolerable, a wicked waste of time, and he resolved to return to Philadelphia, where opportunities for engaging in business would be more fre- quent, and where he had left many friends. He established himself in handsome quarters on Broad street, the finest thoroughfare in the city, and began to look around for an investment of his means. He had $120,000 in government bonds, the income from which would be an ample support, for his personal habits were inexpensive. But he craved an active business that would give employment to his means and afford con- genial occupation for his mind. Against the advice of his friends he finally bought the Norris Machine Works, at Norristown, Pa., sixteen miles from Philadelphia. Tbe plant was an old one, which had been for a time prosperous as a locomotive manufac- tory, but its fame had departed. The ven- ture was a losing one from the start, and in five years Mr. Woodruff had sunk his entire capital, and was not worth a dollar. Re- linquishing his home, everything, to his creditors, he returned to Philadelphia, mak- ing his home with his daughter, Mrs. Gerson.

For a time his financial ruin hore heavily upon him, for he was near seventy, but he gradually recovered his tone of mind, and went resolutely to work to earn a living for himself and his aged partner, who died in 1888, and her remains were brought to Wa- tertown and buried in Brookside. He was yet erect and straight as an arrow, hearing his years as if he were only fifty. He was a gentleman always, firm yet mild in speech

THE GROWTH OF A CENTURY.

and had more the appearance of a retired banker or merchant than of an inventor.

After his losses in business he procured several valuable patents, among the most noted being his steam plow (a wonderful piece of mechanism); an important addition to the surveyor's compass; a method of ap- plying propulsive power to vessels by screws at the side instead of the stern; a metallic self-folding bedstead, and several other in- ventions of less importance but of great utility. His mind was eminently mechani- cal; he possessed the rare faculty of con- structive ingenuity, and his place in history should be with Goodyear, and Howe, and Robert Hitchcock - men who grasped the

needs which life's experiences daily demon- strated, and wrought out in their minds and by their own hands those mechanical appli- ances which have made life easier for all mankind. Few men have been more suc- cessful than Mr. Woodruff in that work to which he gave the very flower of his life; and his loss of wealth in his old age, joined to the awful tragedy of his death, fills the heart with inexpressible sadness.

He was struck by an express train at Gloucester, N. J. (opposite Philadelphia), where he had gone on business connected with his propeller, and instantly killed, in May, 1892, in his eighty-first year. He, also, is buried at Brookside. J. A. H.

THE DISCOVERIES OF A CENTURY.

BY COL. D. M. EVANS, PRESIDENT REDFIELD COLLEGE.

THE achievements of one generation can- not be properly valued by another, for the conditions and circumstances attending the work of the earlier generation cannot be thoroughly apprehended. However gener- ous be the disposition of the historian to ac- cord full measure to the labor done, many important elements. contributing to results, elude his most careful scrutiny, so that, at best. he can convey only a vague impression of what has been most gloriously achieved. Though every generation esteems itself su- perior to its predecessor, this is a very super- ficial estimate. There has been progress, of course. While supplied with the accumu- lated advantages of ages. and armed with the improved implements of science and skill, things impossible before may be done with ease, it does not follow that the gene- ration is more deserving. Energy, industry, and perseverance, and the virtues of honesty, truthfulness, purity, patriotism, and fidelity, the substrata of all manly character, cannot be truly measured by the comparison of mere material achievements.

The pioneers of Jefferson county entered upon the task of subduing the wilderness under circumstances testing their self-reli- ance, courage, sagacity and fertility of re- sources to the degree of heroism. Their success in producing a civilization surpassed in no part of the world, and in developing manhood and womanhood of the most noble type under unfriendly environments, stamps them as men and women worthy of the highest honor, morally, intellectually and physically. Macaulay expressed the idea that men who do not hold in grateful re- membrance the noble achievements of their ancestors, will themselves not do anything worthy of being remembered by their own posterity. Though this be true, there is no danger that such a reproach will rest upon the sons and daughters of Jefferson county, for the influences of their ancestors are so palpably interwoven in the texture of their

lives that no obliteration is remotely possible. A survey of the early conditions of victory cannot fail to constantly brighten its lustre and rekindle continually any waning of re-

COL. D. M. EVANS.

gard and esteem. What were these con- ditions ? What progress has been made in the century past ?

The treaty of peace concluded at Paris, September 3, 1778, between Great Britain and the Colonies, represented by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, Henry Lawrence and Thomas Jefferson (who did not serve), secured independence. The country was dormant, or rather, slowly

THE GROWTH OF A CENTURY.

· recuperating from the long struggle of the war, during the following ten years. Wash- ington, Franklin, Jefferson and their com- peers who piloted the people through the grand ordeal were consolidating them into a nation. The fierce conflict of opinions on political affairs left but little time for plans for developing the material resources of the young nation. The settlements still hugged the seaboard and navigable rivers. But after the adoption of the Federal Constitu- tion in 1788, the inauguration of Washing- ton as President at New York in April, 1789, and the meeting of the first Congress at the same place, and which passed as its second Act a measure for the encouragement and protection of home industries, the people seemed to take a long breath, as if a great work had been accomplished, and gird them- selves for the laborious undertaking of sub- duing the interior wilderness of our vast domain. The lake region of northwestern New York was the first to feel the throb- bing impulse of this progress and to receive the embrace of the most enterprising and self-reliant of the pioneers who blazed their pathless way to Jefferson county. This was not a speculative immigration, bent on making fortunes to be spent elsewhere in ease and luxury, but it was a pilgrimage of families- home makers, imbued with a de- termination to win for themselves the com- forts of civilization and a heritage for their children, worthy of the sons and daughters of freemen. How grandly successful they were, will appear as the story unfolds. The English would not treat the independent colonies as a nation, and held much of the country in the west until after the adoption of the Constitution. The forts were not given up until 1796. This threatening aspect retarded somewhat the movement for new settlements.

The question of transportation, however, was the great impediment. There were, of course, no railroads, nor canals, nor many common roads. The invention of the steam engine gave the first glimmer of light on this subject. Although Thomas Newcomet invented a steam cylinder and piston by which he was able to pump water from a mine and which was patented in 1705 in England, James Watt, a Scotchman, im- proved the engine so much and patented his invention in 1769-extended by Parlia- ment to 1800-that he is regarded as the practical inventor of the modern steam en- gine, with the governor, throttle valve and barometer, which he afterwards added. This wonderful invention soon found its way to the United States, and it has been perhaps the most important factor in the developing the country, notwithstanding the abundance of water-power.

A great stride forward was made when coal began to be used for fuel. Coal is sim- ply the heat of the sun absorbed by plants, which under pressure and heat are trans- formed into coal. Over 180,000,000 tons are

now mined annually in the United States and 180,000,000 tons in Great Britain. En- gineers and other scientists, comparing the energy produced by the steam emanating from the combustion of 300 pounds of coal, and taking a man's yearly labor as a factor, announce the following as the result of their investigations, which we give for what it is worth:

Estimating the annual production of coal in the United States to be only 150,000,000 tons of 2,000 lbs., we have 300,000,000,000 pounds. Suppose only one-fifth of this be applied to the production of power, and that the remaining four-fifths will pay for mining the whole output, then it will be seen that the amount of coal applied for motive power, is equal to the yearly labor of 200,000,000 men, working without pay and requiring no food nor clothing. This is an annual contribution to the weath of the nation. The total production of coal during the century in the United States alone, has been upwards of 2,000,000,000 tons; in Great Britain about 6,000,000,000, and in the principal countries of the world nearly 12,000,000,000 tons.

Coal was discovered in the United States, first in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania in 1768. Mining was commenced in Pittsburg in 1784 and in Rhode Island in 1808. The people did not know how to burn it. Even in England, where it is said the ancient Britons used coal, and where certainly it was burned before 1300, for Henry III. granted a license to dig coal in 1272, it was not in common use until 1600, for it was deemed prejudicial to human health. It was declared a " public nuisance," and Par- liament petitioned the King to prohibit its use. The United States has about 200,000 square miles of coal area, and Great Britain 5,400 square miles of coal field. The total in the world is estimated to be 471.800 square miles, capable of producing 303,000, - 000,000 tons, sufficient to last the world 1,000 years.

After coal mining was commenced in the United States the output increased at a rapid rate, as may be seen from the progress in one State-Pennsylvania. The output in 1820 was only 365 tons; in 1840, 1,300,000 tons; in 1850 there were 7 canals and 27 railroads constructed expressly to carry coal. and in 1893, the production was 99,- 036,000 tons. The production in the whole United States in 1888 by the census of 1890 was 183,422,710 tons.

A century ago all transportation of pas- sengers and merchandise was by animal power. As all new roads are bad, the diffi- culties of exchange and intercourse were very great. At times the roads were en- tirely impassible for loaded teams. Costly transportation means low prices to the far- mer and manufacturer and high prices for the consumer. It cuts both ways and be- comes the very greatest impediment progress meets. The water ways were the earliest

THE GROWTH OF A CENTURY.

thoroughfares for communication and for transportation where the streams were suit- able. They were so popular that the send- ing off of goods by any conveyance has come to be called a "shipment." Goods are "shipped " no matter whether sent by land or water. Where no streams were avail- able "turnpikes" were constructed and canals dug. The stage coach and packet for the conveyance of passengers made in- tercourse easier and mails more frequent and regular. But it was not until steam was harnessed for these purposes that any great progress was made. Ingenious men in all parts of the civilized world seemed to be at work at the same time on the problem of steam navigation first, and then steam vehicles for land purposes. The travel by water was first settled.

As early as 1763 William Henry, of Penn- sylvania, made a steamboat and success- fully ran it on the Conestoga River. John Fitch invented a steamboat driven by pad- dles or oars, and made successful trips on the Delaware River in 1786. An English firm, Miller, Taylor & Symington, in 1788, constructed a steam tug capable of hauling a boat at the rate of five miles an hour, but it washed the banks so badly that the enter- prise was abandoned. Similar partially successful experiments were made in France. Robert Fulton, of New York, procured a steam engine of the most approved pattern from Messrs. Watt & Boulton, England, the inventors and greatest manufacturers of steam engines, and proceeded to build a boat to be driven by it. Robert J. Living- ston, of New York, advanced the funds for the project. On August 7-9, 1807, Fulton's steamboat, called the " Clermont." made a trip from New York to Albany and return, at the average rate of 5 miles an hour. In view of this success, Fulton and Livingston were granted a monopoly of sailing steanı- boats on the Hudson, and that method of navigation hecame assured. But Fulton narrowly escaped the honor attached to his name, for John Stevens, of New York, was at work on a similar boat, and finished it only a few days after the successful trip of the " Clermont." Finding that he could not sail his boat on the Hudson by reason of the monopoly already granted, Stevens took his boat by sea to the Delaware river, thus demonstrating that such boats could sail in rough water when every one believed that they were not serviceable at sea. This was a revelation. In 1812 a small steamer called the "Comet" was built in England and made successful trips. In 1819 the little steamer "Savannah" sailed from Savan- nah, Ga., to England and thence to Russia, the pioneer of the vast army of steam ves- sels of every nation which now plow the waters of all oceans. The exported mer- chandise of the United States in 1892 amounted to $1,015, 789,607, and the imports, $827,391,284. About seven-eighths of this vast aggregate was carried in steam vessels.

. The development of land transportation was more tardy. It involved a more diffi- cult problem. The vehicle must not only be propelled, but a roadway must be devised for it to travel on. Railroads, with timber rails, on which ran heavy carriages drawn by horses, were used in and about Newcastle, England, for hauling coal from the mines as early as 1602. At Whitehaven, England, a short iron road was laid in 1738. A simi- lar one, near Sheffield, was constructed in 1776, but was destroyed by the colliers. A road with iron rails was built at Colebrook Dale, of considerable extent, in 1786. A patent for a high-pressure locomotive was issued in England, to Trevethick and Viv- ian, in 1802. William Hedley, of Wylam colliery, England, is said to have been the first to use a steam engine for animal power in a coal mine, in 1813. George Stephenson built his first locomotive for the Killings- worth (Eng.) colliery, in 1814. This had a flue boiler, and it is regarded as the parent of the modern locomotive. It could not make steam enough to run more than three miles an hour. To avoid the noise of the escaping steam, about which a complaint had been made, Stephenson turned the steam into the smoke-stack, with a view of smothering the noise. This increased the draft of the furnace, and doubled the speed of the engine. The Stockton and Darling- ton road (Eng.), 37 miles in length, was opened for general traffic in 1825. For the new road between Manchester and Liver- pool, the directors offered a reward equiva- lent to $2,500 for a locomotive which could haul three times its own weight on a level road at a speed of 10 miles an hour. Rob- ert Stephenson, Jr., nephew of George Ste- phenson, the engineer of the road, won the prize, producing an engine called the " Roc- ket," in October, 1829, weighing 73 tons, which drew 44 tons at the speed of 14 miles an hour.

The first railroad in the United States was built from Quincy to Boston, in 1826-7, to furnish granite for the patriotic purpose of erecting the Banker Hill monument. The second road, completed in May, 1827, only a month or two later than that of the Quincy quarries, was one of nine miles in length, from the coal mines of Mauch Chunk, Pa., to the Lehigh River. This ran the loaded cars down by gravity, the empty cars being hauled up the incline by mules. In 1828, the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company built a road from Honesdale, Pa., to their canal. In 1830, the Baltimore and Ohio road and five other roads were commenced. In the spring of 1829, before the great tri- umph of Mr. Stephenson's engine, "Roc- ket," in England, an English-built engine, procured by the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, made the first trip ever made by a steam locomotive on this conti- nent. Horatio Allen was the engineer, and the route was over 16 miles of the Hones- dale, Pa., road. It is worthy of note, also,

THE GROWTH OF A CENTURY.

that on the recommendation of Mr. Allen, who was chief engineer of the South Caro- lina road then being constructed, the board of directors, January 14, 1830, selected the locomotive engine as the motive power, this being the first action by any corporate body in the world adopting the locomotive on a road for general passenger and freight trans- port. A contract was made with the West Point (N. Y.) Foundry Co., to build a loco- motive for the road. This was put in ser- vice November 2, 1830, and was the first built in the United States for railroad ser- vice. The first railroad in New York was that between Albany and Schenectady, opened for general traffic in 1833. From this time on the development was very rapid. The mileage in the United States in 1891, was 170,601 miles. The great trans- continental lines. now five in number, are the marvel of the world.

Although cotton had been known from time immemorial, in the eastern hemisphere, and had been woven into fabrics of great beauty by rude appliances, its culture in the United States was of slow growth, and the present century is entitled to the credit of the won- derful development of the cotton-manufac- turing industry of the world. Some cotton was found in 1536, in Texas. It is also known to have been grown in Maryland in 1736, and one bag of cotton is said to have been exported from Savannah, Ga., in 1737. An American ship was seized in 1784, be- cause it had on board eight bags of cotton, a quantity greater than it was thought pos- sible could have been raised in the United States. The short staple began to be culti- vated in a regular way in 1785, and in 1795 1,000,000 pounds were exported from Charleston, S. C. In 1860, the product was 4,675,000 bales.

The seed of the cotton boll was at first cleaned by hand, or by a rude sort of rake. The process was slow, and left the fibre in a twisted and tangled condition, so that it was impossible to make a smooth, strong thread of it. The yarn was spun one thread at a time, like wool on the old-fashioned spinning-wheel. The cotton yarn thus spun could be used only as " filling " for wool warp.

Eli Whitney, of Massachusetts, a veritable " Yankee schoolmaster," saw the clumsy operation of cleaning off the seed, and, in 1793, invented a practical machine, called a " cotton-gin," for doing this work. This in- vention revolutionized cotton culture. Whereas the industry had been so little profitable that there was a strong tendency towards the emancipation of slaves as un- profitable laborers, and public steps had been taken towards this end in some com- munities, notably in Virginia, the introduc- tion of Whitney's machine made slave labor desirable, and therefore put a stop to anti- slavery agitation in the South. What has been the effect on the nation, and even on Great Britain, which prepared to use the

greatly-increased product, would be an in- teresting study. When it is remembered that the cotton-gin of Whitney and the steam-engine of Watt, nearly coincident in- ventions, were supplements to the " spin- ning-mule" and power loom inventions, barely completed in England, the wonderful advance in the manufacture of textile fab- rics is fully explained.

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The growth of a century: as illustrated in the history of Jefferson county, New York, from 1793-1894, Part 7

Author: Haddock, John A., b. 1823- Publication date: 1895 Publisher: Albany, N. Y., Weed-Parsons printing company Number of Pages: 1098

Author: Haddock, John A., b. 1823-
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Albany, N. Y., Weed-Parsons printing company
Number of Pages: 1098