The Nashville globe. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1906-193?, 1909-12-31
ATTRAcTs ArTENloN

INVENTOR ATTRACTS ATTENTION.
Benjamin Franklin Jackson, a Negro,
Has One of the Main Exhibits at
Gas Show.
At the Gas Show at the Madison
Square Garden this week one Of the
inventors who is attracting no little at
tention is Benjamin Franklin Jackson,
a Negro who has a gas candy cooker
on exhibition that is said to do twice
as much in half the time as any other
gas candy cooker.
Thirty years ago, when Benjamin
Franklin Jackson was ten-year-old |
Negro boy running barefoot along the
docks of the Appomattox at Petersburg,
Va, he got an idea about boat build
ing 1t is just about the same idea
that they are making use of now in
the biggest ships.
The youngster set out to build
boat of his own on the usual lines He
laid a keel, matched up lot Of ribs
in the shape of semi-circle and nailed
them to the backbone. He didn't
know how to bend the ribs. He mere
ly sawed the semi-circle out Of pine
board, and when he tried to nail the
sides of the boat in place he split the
ribs. So he made his ribs solid all
the way across.
The boat when it was done had six
or seven compartments in 1t, and the
youngster found that when he punched
a hole in one Of them the boat didn't
sink. That was the find that matches
up with the way they build ships
now. Neither the youngster nor his
father knew enough to patent 1t.
This is what Jackson says about the
building of matrix dryer Of the sort
that is used in newspaper press
rooms.
"There used to be a man named
newspaper In the corner of his press
room there was a steam furnace for
drying a matriX. 1t was as big as a
printing press. / dropped in to see
Keller one day, and he said to me:
jackson, I want to get new press
and l can't because that damn steam
volcano-those were just his words,
excuse me, please-'is in the way.
What can you do about it?
"I told him I could make little
one that would do the work just as
we'll. How little?' said he. l meas
ured with my hands. That little
says l.
"He told me to go ahead, I went
home and worked it out on paper that
night. That was Friday. A machine
shop built the new furnace for me
and on Tuesday night started to set
it up.
Linus NJ. Child's butler, who was
friend Of mine, helped me. We slung
the old steam furnace out into the al
ley. AT midnight Keller came in and
looked around for the new dryer. I
pointed to where it was in the corner.
1t was about as big as six-inch
pipe.
"Where is it?' says he.
"There it is says 1. He looked
again and saw what I pointed at.
The old one is out in the alley 1
said.
"He couldn't stand 1t. He said I'd
ruined him and that he'd got to go out
and get some drinks.
"Pretty soon the butler and l got
the thing set up. turned on the
gas and couldn't raise a pound of
steam. The butler went away think
ing we'd busted Keller. But I knew
the principle was all right Early in
the morning got junkman to take
the drier back to the machine shop
and have the holes drilled again. BY
10 o'clock we had 300 pounds of steam.
at wasn't such very long time
after that" Jackson added, chat put
in some of those matrix driers for the
SUM- And they're using my gas metal
: melting furnaces, too"
All the rivets on the greensboro
Bridge were heated in oil forges that
Jackson designed and so were the
rivets for the battleship New Jersey
each one of these forges can get out
5000 rivets day." he said, "and the
oil costs q cents"
Just now Jackson is working on q
. new gas water heater. It will be good
enough, he said, so that you can light
the gas, turn on the tap and get boil
ing water without any delay at all.