Huntsville gazette., 1881-07-02
Thomas Blanchard, the Inventor.

hend its laws and motions by intuition.
His faculties were largely concentrated
in constructiveness, and while by no
means deficient in others, in his
youth he seemed so to strangers
from perverse impediment of speech.
This he overcame in after-years.
When he arrived at the age of eight
cen, his elder brother Stephen started,
in bordering district in West Millbury,
Mass, q factory with horsepower, to
make tacks, and he appointed his unfor-
tunate brother to the position of head
ing them in wise, one by one. Once in
a mechanic shop, his dormant genius
began to wake up. Ere that youth had
spent many months in this dull task he
had designed, constructed and put in
operation a machine that made tacks at
one motion, faster than the ticking of
watch, and more finished than those
made by hand. So perfect in design
and construction, it was operated over
twenty years, and experts who have
seen it say TO essential improvement has
ever been made upon it. The neighbors
could not at first be made to believe that
that stammering youth ever invented it,
but when they found he had hardly been
out of the shool district, they were con-
strained to give him the credit.
In the same town of Millbury, few
miles below his shop, on the Blackstone
River, were extensive armory works,
engaged in manufacturing guns for the
United States. The proprietor was then
intent upon improving on the English
mode of making gun-barrels, which
was to weld them by hand, and grind
them down before revolving stone.
He had invented process of welding
them under trip-hammers, by which
the work was done better, quicker and
cheaper, and it was adopted at the Ma
tional and other armories in this country
and Europe. Finding that the grinding
process left the barrels of unequal thick
ness around the calibre, and made them
liable to explode, his next aim was to
turn them in lathe. In this he sue
ceeded, by lathe patented December
10, 1918, so far as the barrel was round,
but to turn the irregular shape of the
butt baffied all his efforts, and not his
alone, but of all the most ingenious me-
chanics in all the armories, of which
there were eight = two National, at
Springfield and Harper's Ferry, and six
private in United States service, for
supplying the different States. Most of
them succeeded in turning the barrel so
far as it was round, but all failed in their
attempt to turn the butt. 1t could only
be reduced to shape by hand-filing, and
that cost q dollar on each gun. The
prices paid to the contractors by the
fn hn
cost of making arms at the National ar
mories, and the reason given was that,
as necessity is the mother of invention,
they would be compelled to make labor
saving improvements to secure their
profits, while the mechanics in those ar
mories, being paid by the day, had no
such motive.
The wisdom of this policy was abun-
dainty verified, and the public of to-day
are little aware how much they are in
debted to the private armories for me-
chanic improvements. Guns were for
merly made entirely by hand, and most
iron-work was reduced to shape by hand
filing, which large class of mechanics
followed as profession. 1t has now be-
come nearly obsolete, the work being
uouc Wy MdCulHCAy. hO SoHoi e'SooAo
having labored year or more in fruit
less attempts to solve the problem of re-
ducing the butt by machine, at length
the proprietor of the armory works at
Millbury, in shear desperation, hearing
of budding genius in a border farming
district, sent for him to come to his ar
mory. When he came he seemed
stranger to all present, diffident, had
stammering tongue, and not much was
expected Of him. Being told what was
wanted, he glanced his eye over the
machine, began low, monotonous
whistle, as was his wont through life
when in deep study, and ere long sug-
gested an additional, very simple, but
wholly original cam motion. which upon
being applied relieved the difficulty at
once, and proved perfect success. The
proprietor was delighted, and turning
to him said: "Well, Thomas, I don't
know what you won't do next. would
not be surprised if you turned gun
stock!" naming that as the most inn
possible feat in mechanics he could con-
ceive, it being neither round nor straight
in any part. Thomas began his pecu-
liar whistle again, and then stammered,
"We-we-well, I'll t-try that" Where
upon the workmen who had gathered
round burst into loud laugh at the alb
surdity of the idea. The germ of the
stocking machine lay in that cam mo-
ton, and it was then and there, as he
afterward said, that the idea of his world
renowned machine for working out ir-
regular forms first flashed through his
mind, although itrequired many months
to elaborate it.
Blanchard was soon called to Spring
field armory to adjust similar cam mo-
tions, and on a return journey, when
riding solitary and alone in his carriage,
he suddenly exclaimed, like Archimedes
of old, with great glee, "I've got it!
I've got it! I've got it," Two men by
the wayside overheard him, and one
said to the other, 81 guess that man is
crazy!"
He sold his tack machine for five
thousand dollars-a mere trife for its
worth, but great fortune to him then.
He built shop, filled it with tools, and
kept himself locked in for about two
years. At last he emerged, and brought
to the armory at Millbury miniature