OF

American Manufactures

FROM

1608 TO 1860:

EXHIBITING

THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PRINCIPAL MECHANIC ARTS AND
MANUFACTURES, FROM THE EARLIEST COLONIAL PERIOD

TO THE ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION;

AND COMPRISING

ANNALS OF THE INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES IN MACHINERY,
MANUFACTURES AND USEFUL ARTS,

WITH A NOTICE OF

The Important Inventions, Tariffs, and the Results of each Decennial Census.

BY J. LEANDER BISHOP, A.M., M.D.

WITH AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING

STATISTICS OF THE PRINCIPAL MANUFACTURING CENTRES, AND DESCRIPTIONS
OF REMARKABLE MANUFACTORIES AT THE PRESENT TIME.

IN THREE VOLUMES:

VOL. I.

PHILADELPHIA:

EDWARD YOUNG & CO.,

NO. 441 CHESTNUT STREET.

LONDON:

SAMPSON LOW, SON & CO., 47 LUDGATE HILL.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by

EDWARD YOUNG & CO.,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

S. A. GEORGE,

STEREOTYPER, ELECTROTYPER, AND PRINTER,

124 N. SEVENTH ST., PHILADELPHIA.

BY WHOSE JUDICIOUS COUNSEL AND KIND ENCOURAGEMENT IT HAS BEEN CARRIED ON,

THESE PAGES ARE INSCRIBED,

AS A GRATEFUL EXPRESSION OF THE RESPECT

AND

LONG CHERISHED FRIENDSHIP

OF

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

In presenting the public with the first portion of a work on the Manufactures of the United States, I do not deem an apology necessary for the design.

The short period of our national history, has furnished an unexampled progress in productive industry, and in the creation and development of all the elemerts of a great and increasing material prosperity. The annual product of Manufactures, according to the last published returns in 1850, had reached an aggregate value of more than ten hundred and nineteen millions of dollars: and the capital employed in them, exceeded five hundred and fifty millions of dollars. To attain this result from a state of great feebleness in little more than threefourths of a century, while the other branches, Agriculture and Commerce, which constitute the tripedal support of a nation's prosperity, have been commensurately increased, is a subject of national gratulation. The record of such a progress might be expected to show remarkable illustrations of national character and appetencies, of the influence of social and political institutions, of public economy and of individual genius and enterprise. The operative industry of the country, has exercised no little influence in shaping the public and social organization of the country and the legislative policy of the general and local Governments, and has in turn been modified by each and all of these. Its history furnishes lessons of instruction bearing upon nearly all the great questions of the day, interesting alike to the legislator, the political economist, the merchant, the manufacturer, and the philanthropist. Its importance therefore seemed to justify an attempt to trace the successive steps by which our present position has been attained, and the principal causes which have retarded or promoted that progress. This attempt has, however, in the present instance, been confined chiefly to a record of the facts, which have marked the growth of our Manufactures and their more important and ascertained relations to causes, leaving the discussion of abstract principles and questions in legisla tion, in moral, political, social, legal, physical, or mechanical science, which may connect themselves therewith, to abler hands. The more humble design of