Midnight Ride, Industrial Dawn

by Robert Martello

  On the flip side of his balance sheet, Revere started listing furnace expenses and startup costs in a revealing ledger that began in March 1787 and covered approximately twenty-one months of activity.30 Revere’s expenses express his priorities in a way that correspondence could not. Unsurprisingly, this ledger tells the story of the four principal commodities that made eighteenth-and nineteenth-century manufacturing firms run: capital, environmental resources, labor, and technology. The entire ledger is a testament to the central importance of capital and technology: Revere’s business depended upon his ability to outlay all of this money prior to receiving any income, and every expense served the technological goal of foundry construction. Environmental resources appear in these early expenditures through numerous purchases of raw materials: he bought sand, wood, nails, clay, and up to twenty tons of stones at a time, and paid transportation charges for many of the larger shipments. He purchased most of his construction supplies from local merchants, shop owners, and landowners whom he often lists by name, in contrast to the wider array of distant merchants who provided raw materials once the furnace started operating.

  Revere’s primary startup expenses also include more than 29 pounds of wages for 10 part-time employees. The records do not always specify the tasks performed by each individual, and it is often unclear whether Revere’s workers spent their time constructing, repairing, modifying, or operating the furnace. A spurt of activity took place in April 1787 in which three of the men whom Revere classified as “labourers” performed all their work, and another in July when the majority of the brickwork took place under the supervision of Mr. Richmond, the highest-paid employee, listed as a “brick maker.” Revere paid for brick molds, labor, as well as four and a half weeks of Mr. Richmond’s board (the only instance in which he paid board) in July 1787. To aid the July construction spurt, Revere rented a windlass, a crank-operated machine used to lift heavy weights, as well as five different purchases of “Drink” costing almost 3 pounds—an artisan-like perk to offer one’s contractors. Revere’s class views affect the way he referred to his workers: some appear as “Labourer Simmons” or “Joseph Brown, Labourer,” while others receive a first and last name, such as Paul Reed. He uses “Mr.” to address most merchants and property owners, while he offers the “Esquire” title to a select few, such as his Hitchborn cousins.

  Revere billed a total of more than 148 pounds to his furnace account during this startup process, not including cash received from the Hitchborns, which might add more than 59 pounds. This significant investment offers the most tangible proof of Revere’s commitment to his new endeavor, such a striking departure from either the silverwork that grounded his career or the mercantile activities that fueled his dreams. Time and success soon proved the foresight of his investment. Research visits to forges and ironworks, readings and correspondence, Revolutionary War and silverworking expertise, and innate mechanical aptitude compensated for Revere’s lack of a formal metallurgical education, and he had his furnace running in a short time. These research efforts paid off in more ways than one: not only did ironworking yield great profits in the short term, but casting became a permanent component of Revere’s industrial processes. He used this furnace for many applications in the years to come, often in support of his boldest endeavors.

  When Revere began his silverworking career he had completed many years of apprentice training, inherited a fully stocked shop, benefited from his father’s reputation and professional contacts, and received assistance from family members serving as his apprentices. Entrance into the iron-casting trade featured none of these shortcuts, which makes his rapid journey from research to daily furnace operation all the more impressive. On a typical day Revere might purchase supplies of pig iron from merchants or blast furnaces; help workers load his forge with charcoal and iron; look over his orders and decide which goods to produce; supervise the creation of sand molds and the casting of molten iron into those molds; interact with customers; balance his account books; deal with correspondence; and think about new ways to expand his business and improve his methods. Revere could never have learned the new trade as quickly as he did, and might not have succeeded at all, if he did not have such a strong basis of technical and managerial skills upon which to draw.

  Iron casting led Revere a large step closer to the ideals of industrial capitalism. He, as well as many other former artisans or diversifying merchants, sought their own ways to adapt to America’s growing population and changing markets, often involving the expansion of their businesses and the adoption of new production practices. Although Revere dealt with intertwined financial and technical challenges each day, we can make more sense of his new operations by dividing them into the four categories that defined America’s new industrial paradigm: technology, labor, environmental impacts, and capital.31

  Technology: Equipment, Production Methods, and Products

  Revere never explicitly described his actual ironworking procedures, but we can infer his techniques from common contemporary practices alluded to in his correspondence. Revere’s foundry depended most upon the large oven, which he often called a furnace, that he used to melt the pig iron.32 This oven included a large, brick-lined hearth that contained a charcoal fire fanned with a hand- or foot-powered bellows if workers needed to increase the temperature. Most hearths included a chimney, a fuel and ash pit, and a movable crucible that could be used to hold smaller quantities of metal in or out of the hottest part of the fire.33 Revere eventually used his oven to melt thousands of pounds of metal at a time—large cannon or bells exceeding a ton—but his first oven could have been a bit smaller before undergoing modifications.

  The interior of the furnace had to reach the melting point of pig iron, around 1150 degrees C. After inserting large slabs of pig iron into the hearth, the founder stoked the fire until the metal liquefied. A small tap at the bottom of the furnace allowed him to safely draw out small amounts of molten pig iron, and a spigot or canal enabled him to direct the iron flow into different molds or receptacles prepared in advance. For meticulous work he used a ladle to pour small amounts of iron into the mold as gently as possible. After the item cooled the founder broke off the sand fused to the metal and touched it up with a file. Skilled founders could prepare incredibly detailed and elegant items directly from the casting.

  One of the trickiest aspects of a founder’s job was the preparation of patterns and molds. Patterns are wooden or metal replicas of the item to be produced. Founders kept and reused patterns for long periods of time, and the pattern’s details and proportions had to exactly match the final object: any error on the pattern would mar countless cast items. The mold began as a mixture of sand or clay, carefully mixed from specific ingredients to achieve the optimal moisture and density. Founders packed the sand and clay composition into a flask, a hinged wooden frame that produced an indentation in the shape of the desired object. The founder carefully opened the flask without dislodging any sand, removed the pattern, resealed the mold, and poured iron into the hollow indentation.34

  When casting larger objects that did not require as much detail, the founder prepared a pit of sand on the ground and pressed a pattern into the sand, creating an indentation to hold the molten iron. The finished item had a level top but the face in contact with the molded sand might contain intricate details from the pattern. Revere used this process, for example, for the casting of stove backs, iron plates placed in the back of fireplaces or hearths to reflect heat into the room and protect the brickwork of the chimney. The stove back usually had a design on the surface facing the room and a rough and flat surface facing the bricks.35 Years later, when Revere cast even larger objects in this furnace, he probably used an output channel to direct the molten metal into a huge outdoor sand pit.

  Even a skilled founder could botch the process at many critical points. The sand’s consistency and density had to allow the sand to hold its shape when molten metal flowed into it while remaining loose enough to allow disso
lved gases to escape. If dissolved gases could not escape as the iron cooled, the bubbles remained in the iron and made the metal porous. The founder also had to pour iron in a steady manner to minimize dislocation of the sand and ensure that the indentation filled completely. Iron shrank as it cooled, so the mold had to be slightly larger than the final object, but a cavity could form in the center of the object if the metal cooled unevenly. Slag, graphite flakes, or dirt contained in the iron or gathering in cracks in the mold might also enter the iron and weaken it. These errors had a large impact upon ironworkers’ reputations, and the highly practical nature of American society guaranteed that all Americans could critically assess the value of all items they purchased, including the quality of the metal composing them.36 Revere’s research and conversations could only go so far in the mastery of such a complex and easily spoiled process, and the only guarantee of proficiency came from on-the-job experience. In this way the foundry learning process paralleled an artisan’s apprenticeship, designed to give a practitioner years of experience under an expert’s watchful eye before allowing him to work on his own. As a 53-year-old man attempting to juggle this new foundry alongside his silver shop and occasional merchant endeavors, Revere did not have seven years to spend practicing the trade. As a result, we might understand why he bought so much iron and charged it as a startup expense: errors would be frequent, at least for a while.

  Many of Revere’s expenses related to his ongoing efforts to improve his furnace’s functionality, an understandable activity considering his ever-expanding production and product line. For example, significant purchases of lumber, nails, and carpentry work in September 1792 probably involved structural changes to his building. He also bought a new bellows in 1793 and invested in new patterns that allowed him to expand his range of products. Revere recorded one expense for “Altering patterns,” several fees for the transport of patterns, one for “pewter for patterns,” one mention of “iron plate & hooks for mould,” and five purchases of “patterns for stoves and bells” between 1792 and 1794. Revere’s eleven purchases of sand helped him make more molds, but might have met other needs as well. Similarly, two purchases of clay could have been used for construction or repairs to the furnace, molds, or for making clay models to be used in casting. He continued making research trips, now to the towns of Hanover, Norton, Providence, and Watertown. The purpose of these trips is not listed, but the Providence trip certainly involved a visit to his friend and advisor at the Hope furnace. As with many new manufacturing endeavors or technological systems, Revere’s operations had the most flexibility in their earliest stages, and his detailed accounting of purchases and activities speaks to the number of important decisions he had to make, any of which might move his young establishment down a new path.37

  Even in these early years when he had so much to learn and so many technological hurdles to overcome, Revere confronted the exciting ideal of standardization. An experienced founder could produce virtually identical sand molds from a high-quality model, and meticulous attention to the heating and pouring of the metal minimized or eliminated most casting errors. In theory, all products resulting from the same pattern should be close to interchangeable. In practice, however, furnace operators found it nearly impossible to control one key ingredient of standardized output—consistent raw material inputs—in light of the state of blast furnace technology. Ironworks produced different types of pig iron depending on the alloy of iron ore added to the furnace and the cooling rate. The major strains included “white” pig iron that was too hard to cut with chisels, softer “gray” iron, and intermediate “mottled” iron. Many ironworkers who lacked any scientific understanding of how carbon and other elements changed the properties of iron blamed all their problems on the quality of their iron ore, hoping to get rich quickly by exploiting pure ores requiring little or no work. While the quality of the ore certainly played a role, the stability of the manufacturing process also impacted the results, and failures to produce consistent high-quality iron frequently resulted from organizational and technical errors.38

  Revere’s records up to 1788 reveal that he sold cast iron window weights, grates, fire backs, and stove components during the early period of his furnace operation, all large and uncomplicated items befitting a novice practitioner. By 1792, he produced a wider range of products that now included smaller and more complex products. He recorded the highest sales of iron boxes, chimney backs, stoves, window and sash weights, and “coggs,” a catch-all category that might describe iron connecting pieces or grooved fasteners. The records also contain various descriptions of stoves and related stove products, including Franklin stoves, large and small stoves, ovens, frames for ovens, stove backs, and “dogs,” which referred to andirons used to hold up firewood logs in a hearth.39 Not surprisingly, these functional items were highly standardized, created with simple molds that any worker could quickly press into casting sand.

  Revere’s other furnace sales represented less popular items often intended for highly specific uses. Some pieces, such as pig iron bars, blocks, and plates, appear to be resold raw materials. Revere may have melted pigs into smaller and more usable shapes for resale, or may have once again acted as a merchant, buying from the blast furnaces and reselling for a profit. Other sales, such as forge hammers, anvils, iron or friction wheels, swages, press plates, iron molds, gudgeons, and furnace covers, illustrate that Revere still supplied the rest of the Boston metalworking community. In preparing these items, Revere continued learning about the tools of the trade and kept his ear to the ground in the growing network of manufacturing professionals. It comes as no surprise that he continued branching into new fields when one considers his love of technical learning and his connection with so many skilled practitioners.

  Labor in the Post-Artisan Mode

  Revere increased his departure from the artisanal apprentice tradition by employing between six and ten full-time wage laborers in his foundry. He paid a wage according to the number of days they worked, although he occasionally continued his earlier practice of paying board in addition to wages. In addition to furnace operators, he hired people to build and repair equipment in the facility, carry materials, or perform related activities such as blacksmith work. Everyone served different roles as needed in the still-informal communal shop.

  As part of the transition from artisanal to industrial managerial practices, Revere developed three different methods of tracking his employees’ wages and hours. The expense ledger includes numerous cash payments to employees along with occasional memoranda about their rates of pay or days worked. He supplemented the ledger with assorted receipts that he now organized into a receipt book instead of throwing them into a box with other loose papers as he had done in his early silver shop. These receipts contained more detail than the ledger, including pay rates, number of days worked, occasional descriptions about the type of work, and tallies of the total pay owed to the employee before and after each salary payment. The third employee record is a one-page narrative describing each laborer’s comings and goings.

  The ledger is the most complete record containing entries for eight employees: Solomon Oliver, John Freelove, “Henry a black man,” Stanley Carter, Nelson Miller, Whitney, William Story, and Capt White. The records illuminate the flexible nature of work in general and manufacturing in particular. Solomon Oliver was by far Revere’s most frequently paid employee, with twenty-nine entries in Revere’s ledger. Revere paid him nearly every week between May and October 1793, implying that he might have worked as a caster or in some other fundamental capacity throughout the entire working season. Oliver’s salary started at 3 shillings a day, and increased to 4 shillings a day on September 1, 1793, not as high as the 5 or 6 shillings a day earned by several others. Zebulon White’s receipts show that Revere also made fairly complicated arrangements with some of his workers to suit their skill sets and work patterns. On November 14, 1793, Revere paid him for 2 types of work: “77 days work at the furnace for my self”
at a rate of 6 shillings and 8 pence per day; and “95 days work at [furnace] for John Freelove” at 5 shillings per day.40 The former charge is the highest rate paid to any of Revere’s employees, probably indicating that White was the most skilled laborer. The second memorandum implies a relationship between White and Freelove, in which White received or managed Freelove’s wages. Revere’s customized treatment of each of his employees makes perfect sense at this time: as a small manufacturer dealing with a specialized workforce he had no need for or conception of a standard contract, preferring to negotiate terms that pleased each individual while keeping the iron flowing.

  The mysterious listing of “Henry a black man” represents one of the few mentions of race throughout the entire collection of Revere’s papers. Henry appears twice in the ledger: once listing a fee of 1 pound, 11 shillings, 6 pence for 3 weeks of work, and also an expense of 2 pounds, 5 shillings, 1 pence for 3 weeks of his board. Henry received a smaller weekly wage than other employees, but this discrepancy might reflect his race, a different rate for less skilled tasks, or a compensation for the payment of board: the wage disparity vanishes if we combine Henry’s wage and board into one charge. Other than one other listing for a payment of a worker’s board (to a man named Elizer Homer, about whom nothing else is known), Henry is the only recipient of board in these records, marking a nearly complete break with the apprentice tradition in a short time. Paul Revere’s old friend Thomas Wadsworth also alluded to Revere’s racial views in a 1785 letter. Wadsworth moved from Boston to South Carolina and was happy in his new setting, though a bit guilty when he imagined Revere’s response: “I have land enough for a very fine Plantation and can Slave it so as to put me in Independence. Suppose you will ask where it will put my Slaves I answer I have nothing to say on that subject now only they are black and therefore ought of right to be Slaves but don’t ask me any more of those questions.”41 Wadsworth’s tone seems to imply a familiarity with Revere’s antislavery views, but in the absence of Revere’s response we can only speculate. A vocal fan of merit-based social status such as Revere might very well oppose slavery, the ultimate form of hierarchical subjugation.