The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1871-12-07
How an Inventor Won,

How an inventor Won.
10 the Scientific American we find a
story ot the struggles and triumphs Of an
inventor, which is worth preservation.
The substance Of it is as follows:
In 1873, Mr.. Thomas Sheehan, of Dan
Kirk, n Y. foreman IN the blacksmith
department OF the Erie Railway shops at
that place, patented a submarine grapple,
which, though an ingenious invention,
proved to be one for which there was lit
tie demand. This was his first invention;
ana the cost of its completion. together
with one years struggle TO manufacture
ar}d Introduce it, completely exhausted
Mr.. Shcehan'S means, and reduced him
to extreme poverty. lie was, in fact, i'll
pretty nearly the same condition as Pal
llSsy the Potter, at the moment Of his
greatest distress. A wife and eight chill
dren in Sheehan's family were reduced
to the verge of desttution, and Mrs Shee-
han became uncommonlv bitter.
Just at this crisis, Mr. 5. d. Caldwell,
general freight agent of the Erie railroad
at Dunkirk, CHANGED TO meet Mr. Shee-
han in the streets of that town, lnI ac-
costed him, with
swell, Thomas, bow are the grapples
hear they have used YOU up"
- eS, was the answer, site grapples
have done my business; | wish | had
never seen them"
Throw EN- away" advised Mr.. Cald-
we'll Have You any now finished ?"
81 have one almost donc,r said Thomas
'FinSh that will pay you $40 tor it.
and have it used for picking up coal at
the dock The money will help you in
Your present emergency and you can go
back to your old place in the shop and
earn a good living for your family
II will" said Thomas.
Back to his humble home went the in
ventor, with new hope in his breast, and
set himself to finish the grapple with all
due speed. But upon what slender threads
do the fortunes of men hang! A tap. the
only one the inventor had Of the size re-
quired, suddenly snapped asunder, and,
As it was essential to the progress of the
work, he must have a new one or he could
not 90 on.
In this strait he applied to his wife to
lend him twenty-five cents to buy the
necessary steel to forge the tap But she,
having no faith in the grapple, refused,
tor two very good reasOns-tirst, that she
believed the money would be thrown
away il She gave it to her husband; and
second, that she had not the money to
give him, even if 50 disposed The re
tusal was seasoned with some very hot
spice that made it unpalat able to Thomas
But he bethought him of merchant who,
in brighter days had seen the color of his
money. and who, perhaps, would not rive
him credit tor the small nodicum OF steel
he required for the tllp.
10 This merchant he made his request,
began beating about the bush and finally
,traNmg into politics, hot words passed
between them, and our friend feeling his
manlmess would suffer too keenly by ask
inc credit for the STEEL came away with
out it.
With no definite purpose he went home,
pondering upon how he should surmount
this, now no triiing obstacle of the
broken tap.
He found his wife making I've for soft
soap, but her acidity in no way nentraliz-
ed by the alkaline reaction. Despondent
and discouraged, he sat down. in no very
enyiable mood, when he CHANGED 10 spy Il
piece of iron lying near the tubs at which
his spouse W. working. Meditating up
on how he could make that piece of iron
hard enough tor a tap, he was led to ii
rather rude experiment, the results of
which have in the end made him a richer
man than he ever dreamed of being
1t so happened that from distant rea-
tive, a Roman Catholic priest in Ireland,
orr friend had inherited quite a library OF
works on chemistry some of them rare
and valuable. He had read some OF these
books to very good purpose. There is
surely carbon in that lye," thought he
''If ! only could get that into this iron in
the proper proportion, l should have steel
and from that my tar; and so finish my
grapple."
With lite hope or faith that he should
succeed, he took some of the lye, and add
ing, without any particular reason tor so
doing, some saltpetre and common salt
made paste with this solution and hard
grudged saucertul of the little remaining
flour there was in the house. He then
forged the tap, and enveloping it in the
paste, put the whole into luted iron box
and exposed it to heat for two hours in a
blacksmith. fire. To his JOY and surprise,
when he took it out, it was hard enough
to cut cast steel. The grapple was fin
ished, and forty dollars flowed into the
family treasury of Thomas Sheehan. He
went back to his old work, disguised
Will ptlCIl', anu ICooltC Gu never 10 nave
anything to do with one again. But the
remembrance of the tap, hardened in SO
unique a manner, still haunted him. Hav-
ing great deal of case hardening to do,
he thought one day he would repeat the
experiment upon a large scale, which he
did with perfect success
For twelve months he went on to ex-
pertinent, purchasing the materials with
his own money, and working in secret by
night and at odd hours. At the end of
twelve months he reconsidered his sent
ence OF condemnation on patents, and APP
piled for one on his process, which was
granted September 4, 1860. the claim be-
ing for combination of damaged flour,
potash lye, or lye from hard wood ashes.
nitre, common salt and sulphate of zinc.
for case hardening iron. In 1867 he
patented an improvement on the above
named process. In 1868 he took out an
other patent for entirely new process,
which consists in the use of raw lime
stone. charcoal, black oxide OF man.
ganese, sal soda, common salt and pull
verised rosin, combined for converting
iron into steel, which is now widely used