The growth of a century: as illustrated in the history of Jefferson county, New York, from 1793-1894, Part 8

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

USA > New York > Jefferson County > The growth of a century: as illustrated in the history of Jefferson county, New York, from 1793-1894 > Part 8

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James Hargreave, of England, invented a carding machine in 1760, and in 1767 pro- duced a spinning machine which made eight threads at a time. This seemed to be neces- sary to use up the product of his " carder," and it was thought to be a marvellous achievement. In 1769 Richard Arkwright patented his "throttle" frame, a machine drawing ont the fibre by means of rollers. This made a firm, even thread, and almost any number of them at a time. In 1779, Samuel Crompton produced a machine, combining Hargreave's " jenny " with Ark- wright's "throttle," and called it the "mule " jenny. This is practically the mod- ern cotton-spinning machine. The most im- proved machinery from England soon found its way into the United States, and as soon as peace was declared, in 1783, attempts were made to start cotton mills at Beverley and Bridgewater, Mass., and at Philadel- phia, Pa., but with little success. In 1790, Samuel Slater, an Englishman, established at Pawtucket, Rhode Island, a mill which was the first successful cotton mill in the United States. There were in operation, in 1890, 904 mills, which produced fabrics of the value of $267,981,724. The number of mills decreased in the last ten years, because of consolidation and the building of large establishments. Though the number in 1880 was 1,005, the production was only $210,950,383. It is estimated that the annual production equals the capital invested, and that the wages paid annually is about one- fifth of the capital invested in tlie plants.

Great Britain before our revolution, did everything possible to repress the growth of manufactures in the colonies, passing acts of Parliament to prevent them, and making the importation of some machinery a penal offense. Notwithstanding this prohibition, the manufacture of coarse woollens grew to considerable proportions at an early day, by being established as a household industry. A society to promote this manufacture was organized in New York in 1774. It discour- aged the importation of woollen goods and the slaughtering of sheep for food. This had great influence. The first mill is said to have been built in Hartford, Conn., about 1791, to which Alexander Hamilton referred in one of his able state papers. In 1810 the manufactures of woollen is given as $25,608,- 788 in the census. but no mention is made of mills. In 1802 the first merino sheep were imported; and in 1809 another impor- tation of 4,000 sheep was made. Spinning- wheels became staple household equipments in the farm houses, and looms almost as

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plenty, while carding mills were found on hundreds of streams, and thousands of weavers and woolen workers came from Europe in 1774 and subsequent years. Now woolen fabrics are the most important item in textile manufacture, the amount in 1890 being $337, 768,524, including the finest cloths and worsteds known in the market.

The cultivation of silk received considera- ble attention in this country at a very early day. The cultivation of the mulberry as food for the silk-worm became almost a mania, even in Jefferson county, like that of the tulip craze in Holland In 1840, 61,- 552 pounds of silk was raised, but the cul- ture soon declined to a merely nominal amount. The manufacture, however, con- tinued to flourish until at present it is a very important industry. The very best grade of all kinds of silks and ribbons are now made, and find a market in all parts of the world, competing successfully with the best foreign grades. The number of mills, by the census of 1890, was 472, and the annual production of silk valued at $87,298,454. The total an- nual production of our textile fabrics amounts to $693,048,702.

The perfection of the power-loom, which is one of the most wonderful triumphs of man's ingenuity, has contributed largely to the great increase in the manufacture of textile fabrics. While the loom was limited at first to plain goods, except when made by hand, and it needed very close attention from the operator, its production was re- stricted. The greatest improvement in the loom was that of Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1800, by which unlimited fancy patterns can be woven. When, however, a thread of the warp or filling broke, it mnade imperfections. In 1838 Erastus B. Bigelow made the auto- matic stop motion. It would stop when a thread broke. He perfected his device in 1848, so as to apply it to the Jacquard loon, increasing its production from 4 yards a day at 30 cents a yard for a man's work, to 30 yards a day at 4 cents a yard, and needing only a girl for an operator.

Iron is so important to civilized man that it is not strange that the colonists very early sought to produce it for themselves. The first settlers in Virginia made iron in 1622 ; also at Lynn, Mass., in 1631, The first works were erected in New York, at Sterling, in 1751. This establishment made the great 186-ton chain to bar the Hudson at West Point in 1778. George Washington and others erected charcoal blast furnaces in Virginia in 1724. Iron mannfacture in- creased so rapidly that the English Parlia- ment, in 1750, prohibited its manfacture in the colonies. It has now become so import- ant that the industry is said to be the bar- ometer of the country's prosperity. When iron languishes all industries are dull. When the iron industry is flourishing, all business is said to prosper. The improve- ments in its manufacture have been almost marvellous. The details would fill volumes.

What may be termed the epochs of the de- velopment only can be mentioned. The in- vention of puddling in 1784, by Henry Cort, of Great Britain, was of fundamental im- portance. He also invented the process of using iron rollers to shape the blooms into bars, rods and rails. The methods of mak- ing iron from the ore by the direct and in- direct process are numerous. The more recent are those of Siemens, of England ; Thos. Blair, of Pittsburg, Pa .; Chas. M. Dn- Puy of Philadelphia, and Edward Peckham, of Plattsburg, N. Y., known as the direct process, because wrought-iron is produced from the ore direct, and without being first cast into " pigs." A large number of special furnaces have also been devised. Perhaps the most important are the Siemens "re- generative " furnace, and the " continuous regenerator " of William and George H. Sel- lers, of Philadelphia. The United States and Great Britain fairly divide the honors for inventions to facilitate the manufacture of iron and of iron-working machines, which have been brought to great perfection.

The invention of the hot-blast furnace, attributed to James B. Neilson, of Glasgow, in 1828, was a great stride forward. Daniel Thomas, of Pennsylvania, is said to have heen the first person who realized the value of powerful engines for use in blast furnaces. He also was the first to make the manufac- ture of anthracite pig-iron commercially successful, although Frederick Gersheimer obtained a patent for the process in 1833. The United States is now the leading iron- producing country of the world, the pro- duct being nearly 7,157,000 tons in 1892. Iron-making establishments are also very numerous, of high character, and very ex- tensive. When it is remembered that the first foundry was not established until that of Joseph Jenks, at Lynn, Mass., in 1763, the progress and growth of the iron-working industry can be appreciated.

The manufacture of steel in the United States began in 1802, when the production is put down at 900 tons. In 1860 it was only 12,000 tons. The new process of making steel, popularly ascribed to Henry Bessemer, revolutionize the manufacture. Mr. Bes- semer, who published his process in 1856, has a rival for the honor of the invention. There is good reason for believing that Wil- liam Kelly, of Pittsburg, one of the firm of William Kelly & Bro., iron masters, who had iron works in Eddyville, Kentucky, was the prior inventor. Mr. Kelly was well known among the iron masters in Great Britain as well as in the United States. He was a well-informed, thoughtful experi- menter, and hit upon the discovery, claim- ing it as his own. His right was purchased, or rather his claim was surrendered, on the payment of a large sum of money. and Mr. Bessemer will go down in history credited with the discovery. Already he has been knighted, and has received millions of dol- lars in royalties. The process is simply that

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of forcing air through the melted iron until all the carbon in it has been consumed, to- gether with other impurities, and then add- ing to the iron thus purified a sufficient quantity of carbon, in the form of speige- leisen, or its equivalent to make steel. The percentage of carbon necessary is very small - from 2 to 3} per cent. The expense is comparatively slight. Twenty tons of iron can be made into steel in about as many minutes. When it is considered that a steel ship will carry 25 per cent. more tonnage than an iron vessel of the same size, and that while an iron rail will last only 16 years, a steel rail will wear 40, the immense utility of the so-called Bessemer process can be somewhat appreciated. Works formerly constructed of iron - bridges. buildings, machinery and domestic utensils - are now made of steel. Numerous improvements have been made in steel by various alloys. These compositions take their names from the patentees or from metals composing the alloys. These are used for armor plates, guns and numerous other purposes requir- ing extra strength or other special qualities.

Many new metals have been discovered within the century, and new applications of old ones have been made. Perhaps the most important progress has been the pro- duction and application of aluminum, The existence of this metal has been well known for a long time. It is as widespread as clay, but owing to the difficulty of extracting the metal, but little progress was made in its production until the application of electri- city for the purpose. The price of aluminum has been reduced until it can be used for a wide range of articles, and the prospect is that it may become as cheap as steel. It is nearly as light as wood, and of great strength and practically non-corrosive.

At the beginning of the period under re- view, but few metals were known. These were gold, silver, iron, copper, mercury and tin. Now, there are fifty, counting tellur- ium, which is sometimes regarded as a metalloid. Sir Humphrey Davy discovered potassium in 1807. This led to the discovery of sodium and lithium. In 1828 Wohler produced aluminum. The spectroscope has revealed a large number of metals-rubid- ium, cæsium, thalium, and others, the last being iridium. Magnesium was discovered in 1849, and gallinum in 1875. While many of these are yet only the curious pro- ducts of the laboratory, the possibilities of their usefulness are beyond estimate. Al- ready it is proposed to use selenium to transmit pictures by telegraph, because of its variation of conductivity in light.

It will not do to pass over the discovery of gold and silver in California and the West- ern States, and the discovery of gold in Australia. The story of gold discovery on the Suter estate on the Sacremento by con- tractor Marshal in 1847, has often been told, but its immense importance in the develop- ment of the Pacific coast is rarely appre-

ciated. To say that it raised the population of San Francisco from a village of 200 in- habitants to a city of 40,000 in three or four years, gives but a faint idea of the human swarms which settled on that coast. The production of gold reached as high as $65,000.000 in one year in California alone. It is estimated that $1,500,000,000 of gold have been produced in that region since then, and perhaps even more value in silver in that State and those adjacent. The influence of such vast wealth has been im- measurable, not only on the Pacific coast, but over the whole country, and even the world. The gold fields of Australia were discovered in 1851, and the fields were de- veloped until they produced $50,000,000 a year, and great empires have grown up as the direct result of the immigration to those far-off islands. It may be worthy of re- mark, that one nugget of gold found at Ballarat, Australia, weighed 2.166 ounces, valued at $41,880. Models of this and other similar nuggets have been exhibited in Europe and America.

The modern wonder, however, is electri- city. Frictional electricity, or static. as sometimes called, was discovered 500 years before the Christian era, by the Grecian philosopher, Thales, who noticed the attrac- tion of amber when rubbed. This has given us the name, from " electron," the Greek for amber. From this small beginning has arisen this modern giant. In 1752, Franklin proved the identity of electricity and light- ning. In 1786, Luiga Galvani, a lecturer on anatomy at Bologna, accidentally touched the leg of a frog and provoked a muscu- lar contraction with his scalpel. This led to investigation; and in 1793, Alesandro Volta, a professor of natural philosophy at Pavia, announced to the Royal Society at London the theory of this electricity, which was the contact of dissimilar substances. The first Voltaic battery was set up in 1800. This gave the necessary foundation for the tele- graph, the ocean cables and the telephone, now considered indispensable to civilized life. It also brought into use electric sig- nals of great variety in connection with many pursuits; but the limit of usefulness is far from being reached, as new appli- ances of the electric battery are announced almost daily. Professor Elisha Gray has recently brought out a device for transmit- ting pictures by telegraph. It is called the " Telautograph," and the time seems not far distant when, with this invention, and the long-distance telephone, friends may talk face to face, however far apart.

The triumphs of the telegraph and tele- phone, as marvellous as they are, and a3 great as their influence has been on social and commercial affairs, promise to be eclip- sed by the dynamo. This modern machine, which produces what might be called me- chanical electricity, is the newest engine of force; and although already Titanic in power, is yet in its infancy. Electric railways

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are multiplying with great rapidity; giving promise that villages and farms will soon be connected with the trolley or its equiva- lent, and the mails delivered hourly in places now deemed out of the way. Niag- ara Falls has been harnessed to this modern giant for the transmission of power, and the limits of this application are not yet (Janu- ary, 1894) fully known. It may bring power to every house, as it will certainly make' it available for 50 or 100 miles around. The Canadian side of the Falls is also to be used for the same purpose. Steps have already been taken to this end by a company, of which Col. A. D. Shaw, a distinguished citi- zen of Jefferson county, is president.

The experiments of Nickola Tesla, before the Royal Institute, of London, and subse- quently before the Franklin Institute, of Philadelphia. have astounded the most pro- found scientists, and revealed possibilities almost miraculous. Mr. Tesla put a sheet of tin-foil on the ceiling of a room and a sheet on the floor, and connected them with the poles of a generator. The space between the sheets of foil became so electrified that a glass tube from which the air had been ex- pelled, placed in the space, without attach- ment of the wires of the generator, "glowed like a flaming sword." He showed that a room could be made so electric that a vacuum-bulb placed anywhere in it, with- out any connection with wires, would per- fectly illuminate the room without heat or any inconvenience to the occupants. The film of an incandescent-light bulb, placed in the space, glowed as if connected with electric wires. A stone wall is transparent to electrical waves a foot or two in length. He showed, for the first time, great light without heat, and indicated how telegraph- ing might be done without posts or wires. He demonstrated the harmlessness of his high potentials by taking hold of the termi- nal wire and permitting a current of 50,000 volts to pass through his body without effect.

Illuminating gas is one of the convenien- ces, due to the progress of the century, which has added much to the comfort of life, and greatly assisted the workman in his labors. As early as 1739, John Clayton, of England, discovered that he could make illuminating gas from coal, but the fact was put to no practical use until William Mur- dock applied the gas to light his house and office at Redruth, Cornwall, in 1792. His success led to a contract to light with gas, in 1798, the celebrated foundry of Watt & Boul- ton, the great manufacturers of the Watt steam engine, at Birmingham." The Lyceum theatre, of London, was lighted with gas in 1803 : and the great cotton mill of Phillips & Lee, at Manchester, using 1,000 gas jets, in 1805. Dublin introduced gas in 1818. The new system of lighting made its way slowly in London, but became general in 1820. Gas light was first tried in the United States at Baltimore, in 1821. Boston in

1822 ; and New York in 1827. Some of the most eminent scientists of the day ridiculed the idea, and among them was Sir Hum- phrey Davy, who sarcastically said that they would use the dome of St. Paul's catlie- dal as a gas holder. But the new light won its way, as did ocean steamers, in spite of the frowns of scientists.

Household illumination for the common people made but little progress until the discovery of petroleum in commercial quan- tities on Oil creek, Venango county, Penna., in 1858. Previous to this, petroleum had been collected in small quantities in many places from very early times. There is evi- dence that the aboriginies in this country collected it 500 years ago. It was also manufactured from coal. Selligue, in France, was the first to manufacture petro- leum on a large scale. Between 1838 and 1843 he made and sold 15,000 barrels. Abra- ham Gesner, in Prince Edwards Island, made oil from coal in 1846, and obtained patents in the United States. which were sold to the Kerosene Company, of New York. The first oil factory in the United States was established by the Kerosene Oil Company, at Newtown, in 1854. In 1860 there were 40 coal-oil factories on the Atlan- tic coast, making 200,000 barrels a year, and 25 oil factories in Ohio of corresponding production. But Pennsylvania petroleum soon put a stop to this increasing industry. In 1858 Colonel G. L. Drake, superintendent of the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company, which had been collecting oil at Oil Creek. Penna., by saturating blankets in the oil floating in ditches, and then squeezing it out into tubs with but little profit, began to bore for oil, greatly to the amusement of his friends, who ridiculed the idea, and re- garded the project as absurd. He, however, persevered, and struck oil at the depth of 71 feet, Ang. 29, 1859. He obtained 400 gallons a day, which he sold at 55 cents a gallon. To say that a very great excite- ment was created, gives little idea of the craze which set in. There was a great rush for the oil-fields, and a forest of drilling derricks soon grew up. Fortunes were made with amazing rapidity. Farms almost worthless before were sold for thousands of dollars per acre. Royalties from wells on farms reached very high figures-$3.000 a day. Some wells yielded 2,000 barrels a day without pumping. The business soon set- tled down to a steady basis, and new wells were put down in West Virginia, Ohio, and other places, until to-day the petroleum in- dustry is of very large proportions. It gives to the home, with the Hitchcock lamp, almost an ideal light. The production is 100,000,000 gallons a year in the United States, or since 1859 about 20,000,000,000 gallons have been mined.

People were without matches at the be- ginning of the century, and there are men and women now with us who can tell inter- esting stories of the care and trouble in-

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curred to save the household spark of fire. The flint and steel must be in order, and the tinder just right. In 1805, Chancel, of Paris, put asbestos, saturated with sulphuric acid, in a bottle. Splints coated with sul- phur, and a mixture of chlorate of potash and sugar, thrust into this would ignite. John Walker, a druggist of England, made the first friction matches in 1827. The present phosphorus friction matches seemed to appear almost simultaneously in differ- ent countries about the year 1833. They are now made by ingenious machinery in amaz- ing quantities.

Photography seems at first thought to be of but little practical utility. But it is be- coming constantly more indispensable, and it may be justly regarded as one of the wonders of the century. Like many other discoveries and inventions, photography has numerous claimants, but it is generally con- ceded that M. Niepce, of France, afterwards partner of M. Daguerre, who was discovered to be working on the same line, made the first permanent sunlight picture in 1814. Before the process was perfected Niepce died, and his son took the father's place in the firm. It was 1839 before the process was published with Daguerre's name attached to it. It has been so improved in details that the originators of the art would hardly recognize their offspring. The taking of portraits is now one of its minor uses. The astronomer finds it his most valuable assist- ant. Stars, invisible by the largest teles- cope, are now faithfully reported by the camera. An astronomer had worked thir- teen years to make a map of one of the con- stellations, but when photography was brought to bear on the same space. it made a far better map in a few hours. The art is now the adjunct of every observatory, and is applied to all celestial phenomena, giving results far more satisfactory than ever be- fore obtained.

Photography is also the basis of the best modern system of engraving. At first the photo-engraving processes were etchings or electrotypes. But in 1865. Walter B. Wood- bury, of England, invented a process by mechanical pressure. This has been so im- proved that the finest pictures printed are made with the aid of photography. Even the wood engraver resorts to this art for the basis of his work. By the aid of photogra- phy, what is now known as the "Ives" precess is so manipulated by Crosscup & West, of Philadelphia, as to produce, for the common printing press, the beautiful half-tone pictures shown in this History.

The spectroscope is another marvellous instrument of great utility. It was in- vented in 1859 by Kirchhoff, of Germany, and has been improved by Rutherford, of New York; Cooper, of Cambridge: Lock- yer, of London; Grubb, of Dublin; and Stokes, of England. It is used in the manu- facture of steel, to show the moment of the disappearance of carbon, which is indicated

by the change in the spectrum. It tells us of the composition of stars, comets and nebulæ. With it the motion and direction of travel of stars are discovered, so remote as to seem immovable by the most delicate tests which could be applied before the spec- troscope was invented. The rays of the prismi have revealed to us substances hitherto unsuspected. It is used to detect traces of blood on garments, and poisons and adul- terations of dyes, drugs and liquors. In medicine, astronomy mechanic arts, and in chemistry the spectroscope is invaluable.

The progress in medicine and surgical science during the century, has kept abreast of the advancement in other lines of activ- ity. Dr. Edward Jenner, of London, after a series of experiments covering many years, announced his discovery of vaccina- tion in 179 <. He was led to his research by the remark of a milk maid, who, when cautioned in regard to the small-pox then prevalent, said that she could not take the disease as she had had the cow-pox. Jen- ner then began to examine the subject, and finally made his culminating experiment on one James Phillips, in 1796. He then waited two years before making the public an- nouncement. It met with great opposition, but 70 of the most eminent physicians and surgeons of London soon gave it their en- dorsement, and it became a recognized pre- ventive of the small-pox scourge.

The relief from pain in dental and surgi- cal operations has been a valuable boon to the human race. Although it is said that the Chinese and other eastern nations ad- ministered Indian hemp and some other drugs to produce unconsciousness, the appli- cation of anæesthetics to prevent pain is of recent date in Europe and America. Sir Humphrey Davy suggested the use of ni- trous oxide for this purpose in 1800. This was first used by Dr. Horace Wells, a den- tist of Hartford, Conn., in 1844. Dr. W. G. T. Morton of Boston, used sulphuric ether to perform a surgical operation on Dr. War- ren at the Massachusetts Hospital, Boston, in 1846. Dr. Guthrie of Sackets Harbor, N. Y., is credited with the discovery of chloroform in 1831, but he seems to have known but little of its anæesthetic proper- ties. Sir J. Y. Simpson of London an- nounced its discovery in November, 1847. In that same year Flourins, of Paris, ex- perimented and published observations on the anaesthetic properties of chloroform, and it soon came into general use. Its dis- covery should undoubtedly be credited to our own Jefferson county's Dr. Guthrie, in 1831. It has saved many lives and pre- vented an incalculable amount of distress, besides making feasible many surgical ope- rations previously impossible.

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The growth of a century: as illustrated in the history of Jefferson county, New York, from 1793-1894, Part 8

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