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height="1.207638888888889in"}

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| ![](media/image2.                  | **Thomas Blanchard**            |
| jpeg){width="3.0590277777777777in" | (1788-1864) was born on June    |
| height="4.657638888888889in"}      | 24^th^, 1788, in Sutton,        |
|                                    | Massachusetts, near Worcester.  |
|                                    | His first invention was a       |
|                                    | tack-making machine which he    |
|                                    | invented at age eighteen and    |
|                                    | perfected over the next six     |
|                                    | years. This made production of  |
|                                    | tacks, which Thomas and his     |
|                                    | brother had been previously     |
|                                    | engaged in making, easier and   |
|                                    | more efficient at a rate of     |
|                                    | five-hundred per minute. Soon   |
|                                    | he was working for Asa Waters,  |
|                                    | a major contractor in nearby    |
|                                    | Millbury, producing flintlock   |
|                                    | muskets supplementing those     |
|                                    | made at Springfield Armory.     |
|                                    |                                 |
|                                    | At Asa Water's armory,          |
|                                    | Blanchard created his first     |
|                                    | replicating machine, a lathe    |
|                                    | for uniformly cutting the       |
|                                    | exterior surface of musket      |
|                                    | barrels. Using a cam to control |
|                                    | the cutter, the final three     |
|                                    | inches of the breech was        |
|                                    | automatically formed partly     |
|                                    | flat-sided as in hand-made      |
|                                    | barrels. By 1818, Springfield   |
|                                    | Armory had this                 |
|                                    |                                 |
|                                    | machine in operation. Legend    |
|                                    | has it that                     |
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during one of Blanchard's visits to Springfield Armory at this time, a
musket stock maker, who carver the wooden gun stock, was heard to
express that a machine could not be invented to replicate his skill at
shaping wood. In a short time, Blanchard realized that he could produce
just such a machine. In 1819, he patented his wood-turning lathe for
cutting irregular forms.

The so-called Blanchard lathe \[actually, it's a shaper since the cutter
is a rotating wheel\] works much a modern key-cutting machine with a
stock blank \[a rough gunstock form\] in place of the key blank. An iron
master form, in the shape of the musket stock, slowly rotates allowing a
guide wheel to roll over it and to direct, in turn, the cutting wheel as
it makes identical movements on the rotating wooden stock blank. In the
early 1820's, it was adopted at both national armories and, with a dozen
more specialized Blanchard shaping and inletting machines, mechanized
much of the traditional handwork of gunstock production. Applied to
commercial production by private industry, the machine produced shoe
lasts, axe handles, wagon wheel spokes, etc. The "Blanchard lathe" is
one of the great inventions on the road to America's industrialization.
Springfield Armory NHS has the only surviving example, dated 1822.

In 1826, Thomas Blanchard built the first American automobile, a 2,000
pound steam-powered machine that he drove in Springfield. Shortly
afterward, he built several steam boats and created transportation
service between Hartford, Connecticut, and Bellows Falls, Vermont. Steam
railroads also interested him. In his life, he had at least two dozen
patents. He died in 1864.

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| ![](medi              | **Springfield Armory NHS**                   |
| a/image3.jpeg){width= |                                              |
| "1.867361111111111in" | **One Armory Square, Suite Two**             |
| height="2             |                                              |
| .4895833333333335in"} | **Springfield, MA 01105-1299**               |
|                       |                                              |
|                       | \(413\) 734-8551                             |
|                       |                                              |
|                       | Website:                                     |
|                       | [www.nps.gov/spar](http://www.nps.gov/spar)  |
|                       |                                              |
|                       | Email: <SPAR_Interpretation@nps.gov>         |
|                       |                                              |
|                       | (to the left) the only surviving Blanchard   |
|                       | stock-making replicating "lathe", built      |
|                       | 1822, seen in the Museum at Springfield      |
|                       | Armory National Historic Site                |
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**\*Source included: Ripley, George and Charles A. Dana, [The New
American Cyclopaedia]{.underline}, D. Appleton & Co., NY & London, 1867,
vol. III.**

**Image from: Goddard, Dwight, [A Short Story of Thomas
Blanchard]{.underline}, Wyman & Gordon, Worcester, Mass., circa 1904.**

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