The voice of freedom. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1839-1848, 1847-02-18
Cut Nails.

Few of the carpenters now in active life,
know anything Of The toll their predecessors
had with ptcl-pine timber and boards, and
wrought-naiis and the old pod augcr, The
nail machine and planning machine and other
improvements have taken off a great amount
ofthcir hard laborand perhaps some of them
! think that steam is taking more than its share
Of the work. But working pitch-pine with
Il jack-plane was no sinSecure, and when the
wrought nail was the only one used it was
necessary to bore hole for every one with
Il bit or gimIet. The building which we &C.
| cupy for an office was erected in the last CEN
fury by Shipboy, a famous builder i'll his day,
and the tmbera are such as ale 10 more to
be had. You might as well undertake 10
drive nail into a rock
The business of manufacturing wrought
nails WAS of considerable importance in its
day. There were se> eral establishments in
this city, and the descendants of their pro-
prirtorS are now of the haut ton, to whom the
interior Of nail-shop in which part Of their
fortunes was made,would be great curiosity.
Those nails began 10 20 out of use nearly
half a century ago, when the cut nail was in-
trodu"cd, greatly economizing labor and ex-
penSe We learn flom the Niagara Democrat
that the Inventor Of the cut nail, or rather
the brad, the addition Of the head being as
cribed to another, died at Batavia on the 31st
of Dee last, aged SO. His name was BENJA-
MIN COCHRAN, and the DemOcrdt gives the
following account of him. His invention
was previous TO the patent law, and he conse-
quently derived no pecuniary benefit from
that which has been Of so much advantage
20 the world. 1t is worthy Of remark, that,
Ell Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin,
which, in point of utility to the world, is ran
ked next to the steam engine, and Cochran,
the inventor Of the cut.nail, were DIT time
jonrnPymen together in the same shop in
New Haven. Mr. Cochran settled at Batavia
in 1902. Away there in the wilderness, he
had lost sight of his invention, and learned
in after years, that it had been perfected and
Il nail factory set up at Rochester. We have
heard him relate an anecdote Of his visit
to it. His curiosity to see the operation Of his
own invention, led him to a close eXamifia-
ton Of it, and he was arrested by one of the
workmen who remarked to him that he was
/" stealing the trade" " No TO" said the old
gentleman. "bW you hare stolen NINE"
He claimed to have coined the first cent
ever made in America. He introduced the
fist church or pnblic bell into Western New
York, in 1904, the same that now hangs in
the court house at Batavia. He was not only
an excellent bel-fuuhder, but excellent in 9TH
er branches of mechanism After he had
passed his 7Sd year, we had the pleasure of
doing the worthy old man a favor, by carry
ing the model of new invention to the patent
Office for him.
We agree with the editor of the Democrat,
that the memory of the inventor of cut nails
deserves place beside that of Fulton, Whit
ney, and his other American contempora-
ries
The manufacture of cut nails has become
vast business, giving employmentto immense
an cunt of capital, labor and machinery. A
visit to the two establishments on the Poesten-
kill, below the city of Troy known as the
Troy and Albany Nail Works, will give some
idea of it, where the machinery
''thumps away bothnigrt and day,
And makes a noise like thunder O.
The cranks and cams, and batterrng rams,
Do keep such peting pounding 0,
That all the ground is shook around,
By reason of the jouncing, o."
Mech. Journal.