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| ![](media/image2.                  | **Thomas Blanchard**            |
| jpeg){width="3.0590277777777777in" | (1788-1864), an American        |
| height="4.657638888888889in"}      | me­chanic and inventor, was born |
|                                    | in Sutton, Worcester County,    |
|                                    | Massachusetts, on June 24,      |
|                                    | 1788. From a strong inclination |
|                                    | for mechanical employment, he   |
|                                    | joined his brother, who was     |
|                                    | engaged in the manufacture of   |
|                                    | tacks by hand (a very slow and  |
|                                    | tedious process), and at the    |
|                                    | age of 18 invented a            |
|                                    | tack-making machine. It was six |
|                                    | years before he finished it. So |
|                                    | effective was this machine      |
|                                    | that, by placing in the hopper  |
|                                    | the iron to be worked and       |
|                                    | applying water power, 500 tacks |
|                                    | were made per minute with       |
|                                    | better finished heads and       |
|                                    | points than could be made by    |
|                                    | hand. For this machine          |
|                                    | Blanchard secured the patent    |
|                                    | and sold the rights to a        |
|                                    | company for \$5,000. The        |
|                                    | invention of this               |
|                                    |                                 |
|                                    | tack-making machine gave        |
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Thomas Blanchard a reputation. He was then sought out by Millbury,
Massachusetts, musket manufacturer Asa Waters, a major contractor to the
United States Armory in Springfield, to see if he could improve the
lathe for turning musket barrels. 

About this time various attempts were made in the United States armories
at Springfield and Harper\'s Ferry to manufacture uniform musket
barrels. Blanch­ard undertook the construction of a musket barrel cutting
lathe. His machine used a cam motion to turn the whole of the barrel,
from end to end, by the combination of a single self-directing operation
so that about 3 inches of the barrel at the breech was partly
cylindrical and partly flat sided (copying earlier hand-made examples).
These were all cut by the same machine, ingeniously changing to a
vibrating motion as it approached the breech.

Knowl­edge of this invention came to the superintend­ent of the
Springfield Armory, Roswell Lee, who contracted with Mr. Blanchard for
one of his machines. While it was in operation, one of the workmen
remarked that his

work of grinding the barrels was done away with. Another, em­ployed in

shaping the wooden stocks, which were then all made by hand, said that
Blanchard could not spoil his job because he could not make a machine to
turn a gunstock. Blanchard answered that he was not so sure, but he
would think about it. As he was driving home through the town of
Brimfield, the idea of his lathe for turning irregular forms suddenly
struck him. In his emotion he shouted, \"I have got it, I have got it!\"

The principle of this machine is that musket stock cutting is guided by
an iron pattern of the exact shape of the object to be produced. This
iron pattern, in the form of a musket stock, is successively brought in
contact with a freely-rotating tracing wheel. This wheel, rolling on the
slowly rotating pattern, precisely reg­ulates the motion of chisels
arranged on the edge of a rapidly-rotating cutting wheel acting upon the
slowly rotating rough gunstock blank. As the tracing wheel successively
traverses every portion of the rotating pattern, the cut­ting wheel pares
off the extra wood from end to end of the block, leaving a precise copy
of the iron model.

This remarkable machine, with modifications and improvements, was used
in the US national armories and, in various forms, was applied to many
operations in making musket stocks such as cutting in the cavity for the
lock, barrel, ramrod, butt plates, and mountings, comprising, together
with the turning of the stock and barrel, no less than 13 different
machines. Besides shaping gunstocks, it was later applied to a great
variety of commercial objects such as sculptural busts, shoe lasts,
handles, spokes, etc. Mr. Blanchard was also involved in the
construction of railroads and steam locomotives and of steam boats,
which he built in Springfield, that were able to ascend the rapids of
the Connecticut River as far as Bellows Fall, Vermont. In 1826, he built
the first American automobile, a 2,000 pound steam car. In his lifetime,
he had taken out no less than 24 patents for different inventions. From
few of them, however, did he realize any considerable profit. He died in
1864, leaving a widow, whom he had mar­ried only ten months before.

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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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**Sources: Ripley, George and Charles A. Dana, [The New American
Cyclopaedia]{.underline}, D. Appleton & Co., NY & London, 1867, vol.
III.**

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