The Fremont weekly journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County, Ohio) 1867-1877, 1873-11-07
Nail nFaking 81 nfaohinaru-

1t was about 1890 that machines
for making nails began to be de-
vised on both sides of the
Atlantic England had begun Just
| fifty years before this to smelt iron
from pit coal, and had developed in
the half century the iron business
in general, and the nail business in
particular, to such proportions as
stimulated the desire for improved
processes; while in the United States
the universal practice Of building
wooden houses, to say nothing Of
ships and other structures, made it
a matter Of great consequence to OBJ
tain nails, if possible by a cheaper
process than the traditional one Of
forge and anvil. An Englishman
by the name of Clifford, a Bristol
man, obtained q patent in 1740 for
an ingenious continuance of two
steel rollers in which were sunk i'm
presslons or forms ofthe nails, half
of the form being in each roller, so
arranged that bar Of iron passed
between the rollers would come ont
string of nails, the head Of each
being slightly attached to the point
Of the next. to be then separated by
nippers. This process, whether sim
pie or with several rows of indenta-
tiOns in the rollers, was found to be
too expensive to become q real i'm
provement.
just about the same time several
persons in the United States began
to work out the idea of euttiny nails
from strips or rolled hoops Of iron.
1t is sometimes said that BENJAMIN
Cochran, who was a shopmate ofEli
Whitney (more fortunate as the in
ventor of the eotton-gin), }, made the
first machine Of the kind, in 1880. At
any rate between 1894, when the
first patent fora nail-cutting machine
was issued to one Pearsons Of New
York, and 1917, more than 100 pat
ents were issued in this country for
nall-cutting machines and improve
ments. In the first machine the nails
were cut off from a slip or hoop, and
headed afterWard by a hammer. but
as early as 1886, two patents were
issued for cutting and heading ma
chimes cOmbined-one to Garretson
of Pennsylvania, and one to Chand-
Ter of Maryland. The machine after
ward patented by Jesse Reed Of
Massachusetts,, with some later i'm
proYements, is essentially the ma
chine most generally used at present.
Many Of these early inventors spent
large sums Of money upon their sew
eral machines, and it was estimated
In 1910, when patents were taken
out in England on the machines in
vented in Massachusetts,, that 81. .OOO.-
600 had been spent by inventors up
to that time, when good machine
made about 100 nails a minute.
The English have not been slow
to avail themselves of the results Of
Yankee invention. Nails arc now
made by machinery in many towns
and villages throughout Great Brit
ain; but the. principal seats Of the
trade are in Birmingham, Wolver-
hampton, Bilston, Dudley, and a
small district in Derbyshire. The
British consumption of these prod
ucts is immense, and in 1867, there
were exported from Great Britain Of
nails, screws and rivets, 1911 tons,
of the value of 81, I,64S,555.
We have not yet the returns Of the
late census in regard to this industry
but there are probably not far from
5000 nail machines in actual working
in the United States, and the annual
product cannot be less, but is proba-
bly, more, than 100000 tons. This
is peculiarly an American industry,
born on the soil, and has every op-
portunity of development. The bust
ness is extensively carried on in the
Schuylkill iron region Of Pennsylva-
MIA, where the pigs go direct from
the furnace to the bloomery, thence
to the rolling mill, and thence thro'
the Sitting and nail cutting machines
so that all the operations from ore to
nails, arc carried on in a single 10
eality.