The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-11-18
INVENTIONS OF
SMART MAINE MEN
Red Chalk Recipe Given By
Angel Made Fortune
USED BY GRANITE CUTTERS
Story About the Patched Wing of the
New York Postoffice's EaeIe--The.
Wealth That Was Derived
From Broken Leg.
USED BY GRANITE CUTTERS

Bangor, Me.-The records at the patent
office in Washington show that nine
tenths of the patents secured by residents
of Maine are granted on applications filed
in March and April, indicating that the
men who make the inventions do their
heavy thinking and contriving during the
long winter evenings when the homes are
walled by snowdrifts and when no com
pany comes in to divert the attention Of
the inventors into frivolous channels. In
addition to novel and useful ideas and de-
signs secured to the inventors of Maine
by patents, there are scores of Maine
men who have found out secret processes
and curious combinations.
Nearly fifty years ago, when the Fox
sisters and spirit rappings were being
discussed, old Hiram Simpson, a stone
cutter and dreamer, moved from his home
near the quarries of Blue Hill into Han
cock county and took up a farm on the
side of Mount Heagan, in Prospect, Wall
do county, making the journey by OK
team and carrying his family and house
hold goods in a hayrack.
As the weather was warm he Travelled
by night. While he was walking along
the highway near Orland one midnight
swinging his goad stick and managing
his oxen, IAN angel of the Lord came
down to him from the top of hill be-
yond Tody Pond, he declared, and i'm
parted to him a recipe for making just
the kind of red chalk granite cutters
needed for marking granite. For years
inventors had been trying to produce this
chalk.
Remembered the Recipe.
ha
had told him, and when he had collected
slabs and driftwood enough from the
river to build a shelter for his family
he constructed a kiln from stones from
the field, and digging blue clay from the
brooks and mixing 1t with ochre and
other ingredients, he shaped the raw mud
into squares, and baked it until 1t was
, of talowy consistency.
As soon as he had cooked enough to
make a backload, he put his chalk into a
pack and walked away on peddling tour
| among the stone quarries At first the
| workmen laughed at him. they had been
! deceived in red chalk too many times to
| buy without questioning.
| Simpson sold as much as he could. and
| when he found men who would not buy
| from him he left bars of chalk with them
| on trial. When he returned to the sheds
! a month later with a fresh supply every
! man wanted to buy the chalk, and since
| then the red chalk made by the Simpson
secret has been the favorite among all
| granite cutters.
Between 1870 and 1880. when the govern
ment was using maine granite for the
construction of public buildings, much
money was made from the sale of this
chalk. When Simpson died he left his
secret to James Holbrook, who has a
| monopoly of the business.
Still a Secret.
| A wholesale house in Boston takes the
| entire output of the Prospect chalk-factory
| and Is sending the article to all parts of
| the world. Meanwhile the secret which
| Simpson obtained from the angel in Or
land is as much of a secret as 1t was
| half a century ago.
| Another valuable secret connected with
| the cutting and shaping OF granite-a
secret which has afforded ample support
! to a family for more than quarter of
| century-is the method of preparing
| bummica invented by John A. Clark, a
lame stonecutter of Rockland. Bummica
is combination of pitch and stone dust
so heated and put together that when 1t
is applied in a heated and plastic condi-
ton it will harden and endure for a longer
or shorter time. and give the impression
that it is genuine granite.
In the treasury building at Washington
| are a score of marred corners which were
filled with bummica when the work was