Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made Part 19

He pa.s.sed many sleepless nights while engaged in seeking this remedy, for he plainly foresaw that unless the defect could be removed, the days of the wooden clock business were numbered.

In the midst of his depression, the idea occurred to him, one night while lying awake, that the works of a clock could be manufactured as cheaply of bra.s.s as of wood. The thought came to him with the force of a revelation. He sprang out of bed, lit his candle, and pa.s.sed the rest of the night in making calculations which proved to him that he could not only make bra.s.s works as cheaply as wooden ones, but, by the employment of certain labor-saving machinery, at a cost decidedly less. There was one important obstacle in his way, however. The machinery requisite for cutting bra.s.s works cheaply was not in existence. Before making known his plans, Mr. Jerome set to work to invent the clock-making machinery which has made him famous among American inventors. When he had completed it, he commenced to make bra.s.s clocks, which he sold at such a low price that wooden clocks were speedily driven out of the market.

Little by little, he brought his machinery to perfection, applying it to the manufacture of all parts of the clock; and to-day, thanks to his patience and genius, clock-making in the United States has become a very simple affair. By the aid of Jerome's machinery, one man and one boy can saw veneers enough for three hundred clock cases in a single day. By the aid of this same machinery, six men can manufacture the works of one thousand clocks in a day; and a factory employing twenty-five workmen can turn out two thousand clocks per week. By the aid of this same machinery, the total cost of producing a good clock of small size has been brought down to forty cents.

As the reader will suppose, Jerome made a large fortune--a princely fortune--for himself, and entirely revolutionized the clock-making trade of the Union. Thanks to him, scores of fortunes have been made by other manufacturers also, and American clocks have become famous all over the world for their excellence and cheapness. "Go where you will, in Europe, Asia, Africa, or America, you will be sure to come upon Yankee clocks. To England they go by the shipload. Germany, France, Russia, Spain, Italy, all take large quant.i.ties. Many have been sent to China and to the East Indies. At Jerusalem, Connecticut clocks tick on many a shelf, and travelers have found them far up the Nile, in Guinea, at the Cape of Good Hope, and in all the accessible places of South America."

After conducting his business for some years, Mr. Jerome organized the Jerome Clock-Making Company, of New Haven. It began its operations with a large capital, and conducted them upon an extensive scale. In a few years Mr. Jerome retired from the active management of its affairs, but continued nominally at its head as its president. He built for himself an elegant mansion in New Haven, where he gathered about him his family and the friends which his sterling qualities and upright character had drawn to him, and here he hoped to pa.s.s the remainder of his days.

He was doomed to a bitter disappointment. Although nominally at the head of the Clock Company, he left its control entirely to his partners, who, by injudicious management, brought it at length to the verge of bankruptcy. They made energetic efforts to ward off the final catastrophe, but without success, and in 1860, almost before Mr. Jerome was aware of the full extent of the trouble, the Company was ruined. Its liabilities were heavy, and every dollar's worth of Jerome's property was taken to meet them. Honest to the core, he gave up every thing. His elegant mansion was sold, and he was forced to remove to an humble cottage, a poorer man than when he had first set up for himself as a carpenter.

He was not the man to repine, however, and he at once began to look about him for employment. He was sixty-seven years old, and it was hard to go out into the world to earn his bread again, but he bore his misfortunes bravely, and soon succeeded in obtaining the employment he desired. The great Clock Company of Chicago engaged him at a liberal salary to superintend their manufactory in that city, which position he still holds. The Company manufacture his own clocks, and are fortunate in having the benefit of his genius and experience. Were he a younger man, there can be no doubt that he would win a second fortune equal to that which was swept from him so cruelly, through no fault of his own.

As it is, we can only venture to hope that his st.u.r.dy independence and indomitable energy will provide him with the means of pa.s.sing the closing years of his life in comfort. Few men have done the world better service, or been more worthy of its rewards.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ELIAS HOWE, JR.]

CHAPTER XVII.

ELIAS HOWE, JR.

One of the busiest parts of the busy thoroughfare of Broadway, in the city of New York, is the point of its intersection with Fourth Street.

Thousands and tens of thousands of people pa.s.s and repa.s.s there daily, but few ever pause to look at the curious machine which stands in the window of the shop at the north-west corner of these two streets. This machine, clumsy and odd-looking as it is, nevertheless has a history which makes it one of the most interesting of all the sights of the great city. It is the first sewing-machine that was ever made.

ELIAS HOWE, its maker, was born in the town of Spencer, Ma.s.sachusetts, in 1819. He was one of eight children, and it was no small undertaking on the part of his father to provide a maintenance for such a household.

Mr. Howe, Sen., was a farmer and miller, and, as was the custom at that time in the country towns of New England, carried on in his family some of those minor branches of industry suited to the capacity of children, with which New England abounds. When Elias was six years old, he was set, with his brothers and sisters, to sticking wire teeth through the leather straps used for making cotton cards. When he became old enough he a.s.sisted his father in his saw-mill and grist-mill, and during the winter months picked up a meager education at the district school. He has said that it was the rude and imperfect mills of his father that first turned his attention to machinery. He was not fitted for hard work, however, as he was frail in const.i.tution and incapable of bearing much fatigue. Moreover, he inherited a species of lameness which proved a great obstacle to any undertaking on his part, and gave him no little trouble all through life. At the age of eleven he went to live out on the farm of a neighbor, but the labor proving too severe for him, he returned home and resumed his place in his father's mills, where he remained until he was sixteen years old.

When at this age, he conceived an ardent desire to go to Lowell to seek his fortune. One of his friends had just returned from that place, and had given him such a wonderful description of the city and its huge mills, that he was eager to go there and see the marvel for himself.

Obtaining his father's consent, he went to Lowell, and found employment as a learner in one of the large cotton-mills of the city. He remained there two years, when the great financial disaster of 1837 threw him out of employment and compelled him to look for work elsewhere. He obtained a place at Cambridge, in a machine-shop, and was put to work upon the new hemp-carding machinery of Professor Treadwell. His cousin, Nathaniel P. Banks, afterward governor of Ma.s.sachusetts, member of Congress, and major-general, worked in the same shop with him, and boarded at the same house. Howe remained in Cambridge only a few months, however, and was then given a place in the machine-shop of Ari Davis, of Boston.

At the age of twenty-one he married. This was a rash step for him, as his health was very delicate, and his earnings were but nine dollars per week. Three children were born to him in quick succession, and he found it no easy task to provide food, shelter, and clothing for his little family. The light-heartedness for which he had formerly been noted entirely deserted him, and he became sad and melancholy. His health did not improve, and it was with difficulty that he could perform his daily task. His strength was so slight that he would frequently return home from his day's work too much exhausted to eat. He could only go to bed, and in his agony he wished "to lie in bed forever and ever." Still he worked faithfully and conscientiously, for his wife and children were very dear to him; but he did so with a hopelessness which only those who have tasted the depths of poverty can understand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOWE'S FIRST IDEA OF THE SEWING-MACHINE.]

About this time he heard it said that the great necessity of the age was a machine for doing sewing. The immense amount of fatigue incurred and the delay in hand-sewing were obvious, and it was conceded by all who thought of the matter at all that the man who could invent a machine which would remove these difficulties would make a fortune. Howe's poverty inclined him to listen to these remarks with great interest. No man needed money more than he, and he was confident that his mechanical skill was of an order which made him as competent as any one else to achieve the task proposed. He set to work to accomplish it, and, as he knew well the dangers which surround an inventor, kept his own counsel.

At his daily labor, in all his waking hours, and even in his dreams, he brooded over this invention. He spent many a wakeful night in these meditations, and his health was far from being benefited by this severe mental application. Success is not easily won in any great undertaking, and Elias Howe found that he had entered upon a task which required the greatest patience, perseverance, energy, and hopefulness. He watched his wife as she sewed, and his first effort was to devise a machine which should do what she was doing. He made a needle pointed at both ends, with the eye in the middle, that should work up and down through the cloth, and carry the thread through at each thrust; but his elaboration of this conception would not work satisfactorily. It was not until 1844, fully a year after he began the attempt to invent the machine, that he came to the conclusion that the movement of a machine need not of necessity be an imitation of the performance of the hand. It was plain to him that there must be another st.i.tch, and that if he could discover it his difficulties would all be ended. A little later he conceived the idea of using two threads, and forming a st.i.tch by the aid of a shuttle and a curved needle with the eye near the point. This was the triumph of his skill. He had now invented a perfect sewing-machine, and had discovered the essential principles of every subsequent modification of his conception. Satisfied that he had at length solved the problem, he constructed a rough model of his machine of wood and wire, in October, 1844, and operated it to his perfect satisfaction. His invention is thus described:

"He used a needle and a shuttle of novel construction, and combined them with holding surfaces, feed mechanism and other devices, as they had never before been brought together, in one machine One of the princ.i.p.al features of Mr. Howe's invention is the combination of a grooved needle, having an eye near its point, and vibrating in the direction of its length, with a side-pointed shuttle for effecting a locked st.i.tch, and forming, with the threads, one on each side of the cloth, a firm and lasting seam not easily ripped. The main action of the machine consists in the interlocking of the loop, made by the thread carried in the point of the needle through the cloth, with another thread pa.s.sed through this loop by means of a shuttle entering and leaving it at every st.i.tch. The thread attached to this shuttle remains in the loop and secures the st.i.tch as the needle is withdrawn to be ready to make the next one. At the same time the cloth, held by little projecting pins to the baster plate, is carried along with this by what is called the 'feed motion'

just the length of a st.i.tch, the distance being readily adjusted for finer or coa.r.s.er work. .... The cloth is held in a vertical position in the machine, and the part to be sewed is pressed against the side of the shuttle-race by a presser plate hinged on its upper edge, and capable of exerting any required pressure on the cloth, according as the adjusting screw that regulates it is turned. A slot, or perforation through the plate, also extended through the side of the shuttle-race near the bottom, admits the pa.s.sage of the needle; and when this is pushed in the shuttle can still pa.s.s freely over it. The shuttle is pushed one way and then the other through its race or trough by picker staves. The thread for the needle is supplied by a bobbin, the movement of which is checked by a friction band, this securing the proper tension, and the slack of the thread is duly taken up by a suitable contrivance for the purpose. Thus, all the essential features of the most approved sewing-machine were first found in that of Mr. Howe; and the machines of later date are, in fact, but modifications of it."

At this time, he had abandoned his work as a journeyman mechanic, and had removed to his father's house. Mr. Howe, Sen., had established in Cambridge a machine-shop for the cutting of strips of palm-leaf used in the manufacture of hats. Elias and his family lived under his father's roof, and in the garret of the house the half-sick inventor put up a lathe, where he did a little work on his own account, and labored on his sewing-machine. He was miserably poor, and could scarcely earn enough to provide food for his family; and, to make matters worse, his father, who was disposed to help him, lost his shop and its contents by fire. Poor Elias was in a most deplorable condition. He had his model in his head, and was fully satisfied of its excellence, but he had not the money to buy the materials needed in making a perfect machine, which would have to be constructed of steel and iron, and without which he could not hope to convince others of its value. His great invention was useless to him without the five hundred dollars which he needed in the construction of a working model.

In this dilemma, he applied to a friend, Mr. George Fisher, a coal and wood merchant of Cambridge, who was a man of some means. He explained his invention to him, and succeeded in forming a partnership with him.

Fisher agreed to take Howe and his family to board with him while the latter was making the machine, to allow his garret to be used as a workshop, and to advance the five hundred dollars necessary for the purchase of tools and the construction of a model. In return for this he was to receive one-half of the patent, if Howe succeeded in patenting his machine. About the first of December, 1844, Howe and his family accordingly moved into Fisher's house, and the little workshop was set up in the garret. All that winter he worked on his model. There was little to delay him in its construction, as the conception was perfectly clear in his mind. He worked all day, and sometimes nearly all night, and in April, 1845, had his machine so far advanced that he sewed a seam with it. By the middle of May the machine was completed, and in July he sewed with it the seams of two woolen suits, one for himself and the other for Mr. Fisher. The sewing was so well done that it outlasted the cloth.

It has been stated by Professor Renwick and other scientific men that Elias Howe "carried the invention of the sewing-machine further on toward its complete and final utility than any other inventor has ever brought a first-rate invention at the first trial." Those who doubt this a.s.sertion should examine the curious machine at the corner of Broadway and Fourth Street, and their doubts will be dispelled; for they will find in it all the essentials of the best sewing-machine of to-day.

Having patented his machine, Howe endeavored to bring it into use. He was full of hope, and had no doubt that it would be adopted at once by those who were so much interested in the saving of labor. He first offered it to the tailors of Boston; but they, while admitting its usefulness, told him it would never be adopted by their trade, as it would ruin them. Considering the number of machines now used by the tailoring interest throughout the world, this a.s.sertion seems ridiculous. Other efforts were equally unsuccessful. Every one admitted and praised the ingenuity of the machine but no one would invest a dollar in it. Fisher became disgusted, and withdrew from his partnership, and Howe and his family moved back to his father's house.

Thoroughly disheartened, he abandoned his machine. He then obtained a place as engineer on a railroad, and drove a locomotive until his health entirely broke down.

With the loss of his health his hopes revived, and he determined to seek in England the victory which he had failed to win here. Unable to go himself, he sent his machine by his brother Amasa, in October, 1846.

Upon reaching London, Amasa sought out Mr. William Thomas, of Cheapside, and explained to him his brother's invention. He found Mr. Thomas willing to use the machine in his business, but upon terms more favorable to himself than to the inventor. He offered the sum of twelve hundred and fifty dollars for the machine which Amasa Howe had brought with him, and agreed to pay Elias fifteen dollars per week if he would enter his service, and adapt the machine to his business of umbrella and corset making. As this was his only hope of earning a livelihood, Elias accepted the offer, and, upon his brother's return to the United States, sailed for England. He remained in Mr. Thomas's employ for about eight months, and at the end of that time left him, having found him hard, exacting, and unreasonable.

Meanwhile his sick wife and three children had joined him in London, and he had found it hard to provide for them on the wages given him by Mr.

Thomas; but after being thrown out of employment his condition was desperate indeed. He was in a strange country, without friends or money, and often he and his little family went whole days without food. Their sufferings were very great, but at length Howe was able (probably by a.s.sistance from home) to send his family back to his father's house. He himself remained in London, still hoping to bring his machine into use.

It was in vain, however, and so, collecting what few household goods he had acquired in England, he shipped them to America, and followed them thither himself in another vessel, p.a.w.ning his model and patent papers to pay his pa.s.sage. When he landed in New York he had half a crown in his pocket, and there came to him on the same day a letter telling him that his wife was dying with consumption in Cambridge. He could not go to her at once, as he had no money, and was too feeble to undertake the distance on foot. He was compelled to wait several days until he could obtain the money for his fare to Cambridge, but at length succeeded in reaching that place just in time to see his wife die. In the midst of his grief he received the announcement that the vessel containing the few household goods which he had shipped from England had been lost at sea. It seemed to him that Fate was bent upon destroying him, so rapid and stunning were the blows she dealt him.

But a great success was now in store for him, and he was to rise out of his troubles to the realization of his brightest hopes. Soon after his return home he obtained profitable employment, and, better still, discovered that his machine had become famous during his absence.

Facsimiles of it had been constructed by unscrupulous mechanics, who paid no attention to the patents of the^inventor, and these copies had been exhibited in many places as "wonders," and had even been adopted in many important branches of manufacture. Howe at once set to work to defend his rights. He found friends to aid him, and in August, 1850, began those famous suits which continued for four years, and were at length decided in his favor. His adversaries made a bold resistance, but the decision of Judge Sprague, in 1854, settled the matter, and triumphantly established the rights of the inventor.

In 1850, Howe removed to New York, and began in a small way to manufacture machines to order. He was in partnership with a Mr. Bliss, but for several years the business was so unimportant that upon the death of his partner, in 1855, he was enabled to buy out that gentleman's interest, and thus become the sole proprietor of his patent.

Soon after this his business began to increase, and continued until his own proper profits and the royalty which the courts compelled other manufacturers to pay him for the use of his invention grew from $300 to $200,000 per annum. In 1867, when the extension of his patent expired, it is stated that he had earned a total of two millions of dollars by it. It cost him large sums to defend his rights, however, and he was very far from being as wealthy as was commonly supposed, although a very rich man.

In the Paris Exposition of 1867, he exhibited his machines, and received the gold medal of the Exposition, and the Cross of the Legion of Honor, in addition, as a compliment to him as a manufacturer and inventor.

He contributed money liberally to the aid of the Union in the late war, and enlisted as a private soldier in the Seventeenth Regiment of Connecticut Volunteers, with which command he went to the field, performing all the duties of his position until failing health compelled him to leave the service. Upon one occasion the Government was so much embarra.s.sed that it could not pay the regiment of which he was a member.

Mr. Howe promptly advanced the money, and his comrades were saved from the annoyances which would have attended the delay in paying them. He died at Brooklyn, Long Island, on the 3d of October, 1867.

Mr. Howe will always rank among the most distinguished of American inventors; not only because of the unusual degree of completeness shown in his first conception of the sewing-machine, but because of the great benefits which have sprung from it. It has revolutionized the industry of the world, opened new sources of wealth to enterprise, and lightened the labor of hundreds of thousands of working people. Many a pale-faced, hollow-eyed woman, who formerly sat sewing her life away for a mere pittance, blesses the name of Elias Howe, and there is scarcely a community in the civilized world but contains the evidence of his genius, and honors him as the benefactor of the human race.

CHAPTER XVIII.

RICHARD M. HOE.

To write the complete history of the printing press would require years of patient labor and research, and a much larger s.p.a.ce than the limits of the present work will permit. There are few subjects more attractive or more worthy of consideration than the history of this wonderful invention, which seems more like a romance than a narration of facts.

The historian who should essay the task would be required to carry his reader back to the darkest ages of the world, and, beginning with the stamps used for affixing hieroglyphical characters to the now crumbling ruins of Egypt and Nineveh, trace the gradual development of the beneficent conception from the signets of the Israelites, and the stamps used by the Romans for marking certain kinds of merchandise, through the rude process of the Chinese, j.a.panese, and Tartars, to the invention of Johannes Guttenberg, and, finally, to the wonderful lightning steam-presses of to-day.

In these pages it is not proposed to offer to the reader any such narrative. On the contrary, the story of the printing press will be taken up just as it was on the point of reaching its greatest perfection, since our subject concerns only the man who brought it to that state.

This man, RICHARD MARCH HOE by name, was born in the city of New York, on the 12th of September, 1812. His father, Robert Hoe, was a native of the village of Hose, Leicester, England, and the son of a wealthy farmer. Disliking his father's pursuit, he apprenticed himself to a carpenter. When only sixteen years old, the elder Hoe purchased his indentures from his master and sailed for the United States. He was almost penniless when he reached New York, and in this condition entered the store of Mr. Grant Thorburn one day in search of employment. Mr.

Thorburn manifested a sudden and strong liking to the youth, took him to his own house, and when he was prostrated with the yellow fever, during the epidemic of 1804, nursed him tenderly throughout. Setting to work immediately upon his arrival in New York, he made friends rapidly, and prospered in his trade so well that when but twenty years old he was able to marry. His bride was a daughter of Matthew Smith, of Westchester, and a sister of Peter Smith, the inventor of the hand printing press, which bears his name. With this gentleman and Matthew Smith, jr., his brother, Robert Hoe entered into partnership. Their business was that of carpentering and printers' joinery; but after Peter Smith had completed the invention of his hand press, it gradually grew into the manufacture of presses and printers' materials. Both of the brothers died in 1823, and Robert Hoe succeeded to the entire business.

The manufactory of "Robert Hoe & Co." was originally located in the centre of the old block between Pearl and William Streets, and Pine Street and Maiden Lane. Soon after their establishment there, the city authorities ran Cedar Street right through their building, and they removed to Gold Street, near John. They have been twice burned out here, but still occupy these premises with their counting-room and lower shop.

Printing by steam had long attracted the attention of persons engaged in the art, and many essays had been made in this direction by different inventors, both in this country and in Europe. The most successful results were the Adams press, the invention of Mr. Isaac Adams, of Boston, Ma.s.s., and the Napier press, that of a British artisan. It was the latter which was the means of identifying Mr. Hoe with the steam press.

The Napier press was introduced into this country in 1830, by the proprietors of the _National Intelligencer_, but when it arrived, these gentlemen were not able to release it from the Custom-house. Major Noah, himself the proprietor of a newspaper, was at that time Collector of the port of New York, and he, being anxious to see the press in operation, requested Mr. Hoe to put it together. Mr. Hoe performed this task successfully, although the press was a novelty to him, and was permitted to take models of its various parts before it was reshipped to England.

It was found to be a better press than any that had ever been seen in this country, and the _Commercial Advertiser,_ of New York, and the _Chronicle_, of Philadelphia, at once ordered duplicates of it from England.

Mr. Hoe was very much pleased with this press, but believed that he could construct a much better one. "To this end he despatched his new partner, Mr. Sereno Newton, to England to examine all the improvements in machinery there, and bring home samples of such as he thought might be advantageously adopted in this country. Mr. Newton, besides being an ingenious mechanic, was well-read in books, and was considered one of the first mathematicians in New York. Returning from his mission, he constructed a new two-cylinder press, which soon superseded all others then in use." Mr. Hoe's health failed, compelling him, in 1832, to retire from the business.

Young Richard M. Hoe had been brought up in his father's business, after receiving a fair education. He inherited his father's inventive genius, combined with a rare business capacity, and from the first was regarded as the future hope of the establishment. Upon the withdrawal of his father, a partnership was established between himself, his brother Robert, Mr. Newton, and his cousin Matthew Smith, but the style of the firm remained unchanged.