The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1888-06-23
SHE HAS A BARREL "
AND BESIDES THAT IS THE INVENTOR OF
A BARREL MAKING MACHINE.
Mrs. Maria +. BeasIey First Made Barrels
by Machinery.

Mrs. Maria f. BeasIey First Made Barrels
by Machinery.
The last and most crushing argument
of the male debater when the question
of feminine equality is to the fore deals
with woman's lack of inventive power
That-he declares in sonorous periods
is the conclusive proof of her hope
less inferiority, the inventive genius be-
ing the highest in the scale of intellect,
since it approaches nearest to the crea-
tive, and she, being totally lackins
therein-therefore, hence, ergo, &c.
But the gentle and indefatigable sex is
patiently removing her reproaches one
by one, and the latest effort in that line
has Eeen crowned with eminent success.
Few persons commercially or curiously
contemplating great rows of barrels
ever dream that they are all the product
of woman's brain, yet there is no fact
more clearly proved than that Mrs.
Maria E. Beasley, of Philadelphia, was
the first person tc make barrel by
machinery. There is something de-
lightful IN the story of her method of
setting about it, and the fact that the
Beasley Barrel Company sold out the
other day to the American Barrel and
Stave Company for SI,4oo,ooo of the
new company's stock is reviving the
story in mems minds. Mrs. Beasley
was born in North Carolina, of wealthy
and distinguished parents, and she
showed her taste for work of this kind
very early in life by building, when she
was thirteen. saiiboat made entirely
with her own hands, and good stanch
craft, it was, that could beat any other
boat on tine river. All up and down
the river bank tor two miles she had
built water wheels at intervals and
amused herself by putting them to all
sorts of uses. She inherited the taste
for the work from her grandfather, who
had large barrel factories and deeply
rooted theory that some day they would
be made by machinery.
After Mrs. Beasley's marriage she
moved to Kentucky, and there the war
and the liberation of the slaves reduced
her to poverty, and in 1876 she came
to make her home in Philadelphia in
order that her sons might be educated.
Here, true to her tastes, she spent the
greater part of the Centennial summer
in Machinery Hall. In 1880 she hap
pened to notice one of great humber
of advertisements in the paper for lab
orerS in coopershops, and asked her
son Oscar if none had yet invented a
machine for making barrels. "No,"
said her son every one of them is still
made by hand" "Then | will do it, +"
she said decisively and Immediately set
about the job. She first packed her
trunk and visited all the principal towns
where they manufacture barrels, and
found the greatest difficulty was in the
hopping. She promptly invented a
machine to do the work, and the Stan
dard Gil Company still pays Sis a
month royalty OF that patent. She
continued to experiment, and now has
completed a machine to which the rect
angular pieces of wood known as
"staves in the rough,' are fed, and
every thirty seconds complete barrel
comes out at the other end. She is a
woman of some fifty years of age, is
pleasant looking and active as a girl OF
sixteen. Every day as regularly as
clockwork she goes to the machine shop
and carefully superintends the building
of her machines, and from there to the
barrel factory upon the wharves in
Camden. She owns nearly all the
stock in the new company, and before
many years will undoubtedly be very
rich woman. She supports her invalid
husband and a son who is at Harvard,
the eldest son being at the Philadel
nhia Bar