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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
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John Fritz
Encyclopedia of Pennsylvania
BIOGRAPHY
BY
JOHN W. JORDAN, LL.D.
Librarian Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Author of "Colonial Families of Philadelphia;" "Revolutionary History of Bethlehem," and various other works.
ILLUSTRATED
V. 3 VOLUME III
Gc 974.8 En19 V.3
NEW YORK LEWIS HISTORICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY
1914
Sauthem - $ 15.00 (quale)
1236211
BIOGRAPHICAL
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
FRITZ, John,
Mechanical and Metallurgical Engineer.
(By Rossiter W. Raymond, New York, N. Y., and Henry Sturgis Drinker, South Bethlehem, Pa.)
John Fritz, one of the most distinguished mechanical and metallurgical engineers, was born August 21, 1822, in Londonderry, Chester county, Pennsylvania. His father, George Fritz, a native of Hesse Cassel, was brought to this country by his parents in 1802, with three brothers and a sister, to whom were subsequently added three daughters born in America. The family settled in Pennsylvania. George Fritz mar- ried the native-born daughter of a Scotch Irish Presbyterian immigrant of 1787, and they had four girls and three boys, of whom John was the first. He was named after his grandfather, the foreign form, Johannes Fritzius, being Americanized into John Fritz. Thus he was descended from stanch and sturdy stock on both sides. His ancestors came here when faith in the new Republic and the future development of its domain under free institutions, brought to its shores the bravest and most enterprising of pioneers. It was the era of dauntless, independent individualism, and it produced among us a generation of strong men, whose personal gifts and ambitions could be de- veloped freely in the stimulating atmosphere of liberty and opportunity.
The "Autobiography of John Fritz," pub- lished in 1911, bears unconscious testimony to the effect of this environment upon in- nate genius. His father, a millwright and mechanic, could not be content with farm- ing, but repeatedly followed the call of the trade which he loved better ; and the sons, inheriting his talent and his predilection,
after dutifully following the plough in their youth, abandoned it for mechanical engi- neering, in which, educating themselves without the aid of technical schooling, they all achieved high position. Another in- fluence, not to be overlooked, was that of the large family, with its necessary de- velopment of mutual affection and happi- ness. It was a sad thing for Jolin Fritz, brought up in such an atmosphere, that to him and his beloved wife, during their long life together, only one child was given -- a daughter, who died at the age of seven ; but it may be fairly imagined that this ex- perience had something to do with the fatherly and brotherly affection which he lavished upon the sons of others. If he had had, like his father, many children of his own, perhaps there would not now be so many to call him gratefully "Uncle John Fritz!" It should be added that both his ancestry and his early life endowed him with splendid health and strength. Finally, we cannot omit to mention (what John Fritz was wont, on all occasions, to emphasize) the moral influence of his God-fearing father and mother upon his whole life. Under that influence, added to all the rest, he became the strong, gently, simple- hearted, high-souled man we knew and loved, combining with his own inborn genius the warm Irish heart, the steady German head, and the American courage and elastic- ity of endeavor.
Like other American boys, he had the benefit of some schooling ; but his own epi- grammatic summary, "Five days in the week, for three months in the year, is too short a time for the study of Bennett's Arithmetic," tells the whole story. In 1838, at the age of sixteen, he became an ap-
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prentice in the trades of blacksmith and machinist-the latter comprising repairs of agricultural and manufacturing machinery, including the simple blast-furnaces of that day. At the end of his apprenticeship he returned to work for a time on the paternal farm, with his mind made up to engage somehow in the manufacture of iron, with special relation to its use on railroads. This early decision was illustriously justified by his subsequent career.
It was not until 1844 that he succeeded in making an entrance upon this career, by getting employment in a rolling-mill at Nor- ristown, Pennsylvania, then in process of erection. He was put in charge of all the machinery, and soon discovered many weak spots in design and construction which he afterwards remedied either by his own in- ventions or by those which he adopted and introduced. Among these were the two- high rolls and their cog-gearing, which he determined to abolish, if he ever got a chance. Meanwhile he seized the oppor- tunity to master thoroughly the thing near- est to him, outside of his immediate task. This happened to be the puddling-furnace. John Fritz worked through a long day at his job as superintendent and repairer of machinery, and then spent the evening in the exhausting work of a common puddler, studying, while he rabbled or drew the glow- ing charge, the apparatus and the process. Months of such toil and thought made him at last not only a master-puddler, but also an expert, qualified to improve the old con- struction and practice. This accomplish- ment, however, he merely stored for the time when he should be able to use it, and meanwhile, turned his attention to the heating, rolling, and finishing departments of the mill, with each of which, by the same method of actual practice at night, he ac- quired a similarly thorough familiarity.
Having learned what was to be learned in that particular business, he accepted in 1849, with the sympathetic approval of Moore & Hooven, his employers at Norris-
town, a position in a new rail-mill and blast- furnace at Safe Harbor, Pennsylvania, by Reeves, Abbott & Co. The salary was smaller ($650 a year, instead of $1,000!) ; but he wanted to learn all about blast-furn- ace practice and the manufacture of rails. His strenuous and successful work at Safe Harbor was cut short after a few months by an attack of fever and ague. During this interval, he made a trip to Lake Superior, and saw the great Cleveland and Jackson iron-ore deposits in the Marquette district. After his return, he tried in vain to interest Pennsylvania capitalists in Lake Superior iron-mines, as a source of supply even for Pennsylvania. He was told that he might as well dream of bringing iron-ore from Kamschatka as from Marquette-to which he replied that, within ten years (this was in 1852), iron-ore from Lake Superior would be sold in Philadelphia. One-half the Jackson mine could have been bought then for $25,000!
But if his friends and former employers could not trust him as a prophet, they ap- preciated him as a mechanical engineer ; and he was engaged in 1852 to superintend the rebuilding of the Kunzie-blast-furnace, on the Schuylkill, about twelve miles from Philadelphia. This involved the new method of manufacturing pig-iron with an- thracite, instead of charcoal or coke, as fuel -a scheme which had just been proved practicable by David Thomas and William Firmstone in the Lehigh Valley. Mr. Fritz, though not the designer of the new furnace, was called upon to remedy defects in the original design, and managed to the satis- faction of the proprietors, and without losing the friendship of the engineer whose opinion he had contradicted. After the furnace had been put in blast, his desire to learn all about operation as well as con- struction, led him to pursue his old habit of prowling about at odd times, day and night ; and in this way he discovered one of the most important principles of modern blast-furnace practice, namely, that of the
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"closed front," replacing the old fore-hearth and those frequent interruptions of the blast for cleaning out the crucible, known as "working" the furnace-a revolutionary change of practice. The principle was afterwards embodied and made more effec- tive by the water-cooled cinder-notch patented by Lürmann. But, while Mr. Fritz cannot be said to have anticipated that in- vention, he was apparently the first, in this country at least, to recognize the importance of that purpose, and to carry it out in another way. When Lürmann's agent was trying to introduce his improvement in this country, the favorable opinion of John Fritz was one of the strongest arguments at his command.
In 1853, having got the Kunzie furnace machinery into good running order, Mr. Fritz joined with his brother George and others in building at Catasauqua a foundry and machine-shop to supply blast-furnaces and rolling-mills. In the following year he was invited, through David Reeves, to go to the Cambria Iron Works, Johnstown, Penn- sylvania, as general superintendent. This was the turning-point of his career. His preparation for it had occupied sixteen years, during which he had mastered every part of the manufacture of iron into com- mercial forms, while he had also learned the higher art of commanding the enthusiastic loyalty of workmen, and the highest art of all, perhaps-that of securing the confidence of employers. All these patiently acquired qualifications were de- manded and tested in his new position, and the lack of any one of them would liave been probably fatal to his success. The Cambria Iron Company was in a bad . progress in iron-manufacture preceding the way administratively, financially, mechani- cally, and metallurgically, although, to his But this triumph was followed by further trials. The day after the success of the three-high rolls had been demonstrated in the Cambria mill, the mill itself was de- stroyed by fire. Fortunately, the demon- stration had been conclusive, so that, if the fire was the work of an enemy, it came too hopeful vision, "Cambria was destined to be the greatest rail-plant in the world." He met successively the problems of technical authority and responsibility, temporary re- pair and reform of an old plant, improve- ment in quality of product, and the procure-
ment of means for new and needed con- struction. When these problems had been so far solved that the mill was running well, and making some money, the property was attached under judgments upon former claims. Fritz persuaded all parties to allow the work to go on, and he was the only man upon whom all parties could agree as an agent to protect the rights of all. Under his management operations went on under the shadow of impending bankruptcy, until a reorganization with adequate capital was de- cided upon. This was not easily effected, under the circumstances, and confidence in the technical ability, good judgment, integ- rity, and loyalty of John Fritz, on the part of capitalists who knew him and his record, was the influence which turned the scale in favor of the enterprise. The capital was subscribed, and operations were resumed. He determined to put into the works a three-high roll-train, in accordance with his prophetic vision of earlier years; and this plan was opposed by many of the stock- holders, who were supported in their posi- tion by the opinions of leading iron-masters in all parts of the country, and the declara- tions of the laboring "heaters" and "rollers," and it was by sheer force of personal character that he secured authority for the execution of his plan. Against the denun- ciation of critics and the warning of friends, he introduced the three-high rolls into the Cambria Company's mill, laying thereby the foundation not only of unexampled pros- perity for that establishment, but also of an improvement which was rapidly adopted throughout this country and the world, and has been justly called the last great step of Bessemer process.
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late to defeat the new invention. Fritz was equal to the emergency. Inside of thirty days he had the mill running again, though without a roof to cover it ; and it was one of the proudest recollections of his after-life that he subsequently erected a building I,- 000 feet long by 100 feet wide, with trussed and slated roof-the finest rolling-mill building, at that time, in the United States -without interrupting the running of the mill which it covered, and without injury to a single person. In the progressive recon- struction of the Cambria works, Fritz in- troduced many improvements which he had conceived in previous years-improvements in puddling-furnaces, gearing, boilers, etc. One of his most characteristic and radical measures was the abandonment, in connec- tion with the roll-trains, of light coupling- boxes and spindles, and a special "breaking- box," holding the rolls in place-all of which were intended to break under special strain, so as to save the rolls from fracture. The structures and machines designed by him have been occasionally criticized, as unnecessarily costly at the outset ; but none of them ever failed in service. His trusses are still standing ; his engines are still run- ning ; and perhaps his abundant "margins of safety" have proved to be worth more than they cost.
After six years with the Cambria Iron Company, Mr. Fritz accepted in July, 1860, the position of general superintendent and chief engineer of the Bethlehem Iron Com- pany. The works of this company, de- signed and erected by Mr. Fritz, were so far completed by September, 1863, as to begin the rolling of rails made from the product of its own blast and puddling furnaces. The first of his improvements was the in- troduction of high-pressure blast in the iron blast-furnace. The iron-masters of the Le- high Valley region were startled, when they learned that Fritz was blowing air at 12 1b. per sq. in. into his furnaces, and was pre- pared even to blow at 16 lb. in an emer- gency. This method of overcoming the in-
ternal difficulties which had previously been treated with so much old-fashioned skill, was the beginning of the new blast-furnace practice, in which rapid running, immense product and high blast, while creating fresh problems of blast-furnace management, have superseded many of the old ones. Fritz's horizontal blowing-engines were much criticized at the time, but they have run continuously, day and night, for more than thirty years, blowing at from 10 to 12 lb. pressure, and frequently more. He was so well satisfied with the result of his in- novations in blast-furnace practice that he designed a larger furnace, with an engine that would supply a 20 to 30 lb. blast. But, to his great regret, the directors of the com- pany were too conservative to authorize this experiment.
During the Civil War, the government needed a rolling-mill somewhere in the South, in which twisted rails could be re- rolled. It was probably the advice of Abram S. Hewitt, which led to the selection of Mr. Fritz as one who could procure the neces- sary machinery and secure the erection of the mill with the least possible delay. He was surprised in March, 1864, by his ap- pointment to this place with almost un- limited powers. His commission under the War Department declared that "any ar- rangements" he might make would be "fully carried out" by the Government. Mr. Fritz immediately prepared the plans and secured the necessary machinery for the mill, which was built at Chattanooga, Tennessee, and of which his brother Wil- liam was made superintendent. William Fritz had been employed at Cambria and at Bethlehem until 1861, when he enlisted in the Union army, and in 1864, he was on fur- lough, recovering from a serious wound. He ran the Chattanooga mill successfully until the end of the war.
The part taken by John Fritz at the Bethlehem works in the application and im- provement of the Bessemer process in this country was no small one. He was one of
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a notable group, comprising his brother George Fritz, then superintendent of the Cambria Works, Robert W. Hunt, William R. Jones, Owen F. Leibert and Alexander L. Holley, which used to meet frequently for the discussion of serious practical diffi- culties not communicated to the general public, or even to the technical societies and journals. It is worthy of notice that these young engineers were all railmakers; and it was in the manufacture of rails, more than in any other department, that the Bessemer process produced its widest and deepest effect throughout the civilized world, by its revolutionary improvement of the condi- tions, distances, speed, and economy of transportation. The troubles encountered in making good steel rails would never have been solved by chemists, physicists, and metallurgists without the aid of the prac- tical rail-makers, of whom John Fritz was a leader and type.
During nearly thirty years of work with the Bethlehem Iron Company, Mr. Fritz, supported by the faith and courage which he inspired in other men, made that enter- prise one of the most famous in the world -the Mecca of engineer-pilgrims from abroad and the pride and pattern of Amer- ican practice. The introduction of open- hearth furnaces and of the Thomas basic process ; the progressive improvements of strength, simplicity, and automatic handling in the rolling-mills; the adoption of the Whitworth forging-press; the manufacture of armor-plate; the erection of a 125-ton steam-hammer ; and innumerable other im- provements in the manufacture of iron and steel, owe their present perfection in large degree to his inventive genius, practical re- sourcefulness, and patient study. The stamp of his mind may be found on almost every detail of construction and operation throughout a wide range of processes and products.
In 1892, at the age of seventy, he retired from the responsible and arduous work at Bethlehem, which had occupied more than
the latter half of the fifty-four years since his apprenticeship began. For nearly twenty years longer he lived to enjoy, as few men have been permitted to do, the fame and the friendships which he had amply earned. Indeed, he had received world-wide recognition before his retire- ment, and that event elicited numerous pub- lic expressions of the pre-existing fact. This Institute, of which he had been a loyal member since 1872, elected him its presi- dent in 1894, and he made the following contributions to the Transactions: "Re- marks on the Fracture of Steel Rails," 1875; Remarks on the Bessemer Pro- cess, 1890; Early Days of the Iron Manu- facture (Presidential Address), 1894; Re- marks on Rail-Sections, 1899. The Amer- ican Society of Mechanical Engineers, which he had joined in 1882, made him an honorary member in 1892, and president in 1895; the American Society of Civil En- gineers, of which he became a member in 1893, conferred honorary membership upon him in 1899; the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain made him an honorary member in 1893, and a perpetual honorary vice-president in 1909; and the recently or- ganized American Iron and Steel Institute elected him an honorary member in 1910. Meanwhile, he had received the Bronze Medal of the U. S. Centennial Exposition in 1876; in 1893 the Bessemer Gold Medal of the Iron and Steel Institute; in 1902 the John Fritz Medal (the fund for which was established by subscription, to honor his eightieth birthday, by awarding a gold medal annually "for notable scientific or industrial achievement"-the first medal being bestowed with enthusiastic unanimity upon John Fritz himself); in 1904 the Bronze Medal of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, in connection with which he served as honorary expert on iron and steel ; and in 1910, the Elliott Cresson Gold Medal of the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, "for distinguished leading and directive work in the advancement of the iron and steel in-
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dustries." And he received honoris causa the following academic degrees: Master of Arts, from Columbia University, in 1895; Doctor of Science, from the University of Pennsylvania, in 1906; Doctor of Engineer- ing, from the Stevens Institute of Tech- nology, in 1907; and Doctor of Science, from Temple University, in 1910.
But these official distinctions could not tell fully the story of love and praise which pressed for the utterance which it found on two memorable occasions-celebrations of his seventieth and eightieth birthday anni- versaries, in which hundreds of his friends and professional colleagues participated. The first took place at Bethlehem in 1892, and the second at New York in 1902. On the latter occasion, as has been said above, he received the first "John Fritz medal." The conferment of honorary degrees by in- stitutions of learning upon this self-edu- cated workingman was a recognition not merely of his professional achievements, but also of his wise and generous aid to the cause of technical education, some account of which may fitly close this story of his life.
Lehigh University was founded in 1866 by a Pennsylvanian-Asa Packer, who knew and appreciated the great qualities of John Fritz, and who named him as one of the original board of trustees. This institu- tion had in its board of control, from the beginning, the strong common sense and the superlative engineering ability of John Fritz. For a wholly self-educated, self- cultured man, he was remarkably broad in his conceptions of education. While not wealthy in the modern sense of the term, Mr. Fritz, who though generous was thrifty, had laid aside and enjoyed a com- fortable competence in his old age ; and one day in the spring of 1909 he astonished President Drinker of Lehigh by saying :
In my will I have left Lehigh University a certain sum of money to be expended in your discretion. I now intend to revoke that bequest. and instead of leaving money for you to spend
after I am gone, I'm going to have the fun of spending it with you and Charley Taylor (Mr. Taylor being a co-Trustee of Lehigh with Mr. Fritz, and an old and valued friend-a former partner of Andrew Carnegie). I have long watched the career of a number of Lehigh gradu- ates, and I have been impressed by the value of the training they have received at Lehigh. But you need an up-to-date engineering labora- tory, and I intend to build one for you.
Mr. Fritz acted as his own architect; de- signed the building (substantially on the lines of the large shop he had built at the Bethlehem Steel Works) ; selected, pur- chased and installed the superb testing- equipment ; and renewed his youth in the task, which was a great pleasure to him. At his death it was found that (after mak- ing generous provision for his near rel- atives, and for bequests to the Free Library of the Bethlehems, to St. Luke's Hospital at South Bethlehem, to Temple College at Philadelphia, to the Methodist Hospital at Philadelphia, to the American University at Washington and to other charitable pur- poses) he had bequeathed his residuary estate, estimated to amount to about $150,- 000, to Lehigh University, as an endow- ment-fund for the maintenance and opera- tion of this Laboratory.
Mr. Fritz retained much of his vigor and activity up to the autumn of 1911. He took frequent trips alone to Philadelphia and New York, and attended many gatherings of his old engineering friends and associ- ates. In the spring of 1911, he decided, at the urgent solicitation of friends, to put into shape the notes of incidents in his life which he had been making for years. This was done largely on the insistence of friends, during the summer of 1911, in Bethlehem. The penciled notes in his own handwriting, on yellow slips, was arranged chronologi- cally by his nephew, George A. Chandler, who as an engineer, had had a close life- long association with Mr. Fritz; then Dr. Drinker, who was admitted to participation in the task, procured a competent stenog- rapher ; and they, with Mr. N. M. Emery,
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another friend, spent day after day, during the summer vacation-season, on the task. First, the crabbed desultory penciled notes were read aloud, and commented on by Mr. Fritz-every now and then with the injec- tion of some delightful reminiscence or story-all being taken down by the stenog- rapher, of whose presence Mr. Fritz soon became unconscious, as she was an unob- trusive, most competent little woman. As soon as this mass of matter had been type- written, it was all read over again to Mr. Fritz, who again corrected, commented, and amplified. It was then turned over to the publishers (William H. Wiley claimed this privilege as a labor of love), and again the galley-proofs were similarly read, and the matter improved in Mr. Fritz's painstaking way. Finally the paged proofs were all read to him. The Autobiography was ab- solutely his own individual work. All that the devoted friends who were admitted to participate in its preparation did, was (as Dr. Drinker expressed it), to do the "cooly work," to perform the manual operations of authorship; the literary work, the direct forcible expression, the loving reminis- cences, the jocund incidents of home- and mill-life are all the work of Mr. Fritz.
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