Midnight Ride, Industrial Dawn

by Robert Martello

  The first ship to receive an experimental layer of copper sheeting upon its hull was Britain’s HMS Alarm, coppered in 1758. By 1763, the British navy recognized the effectiveness of that technique and by the end of 1781 almost the entire British fleet had coppered hulls. One historian commented that copper sheathing represented “the most important technical innovation to be implemented by the naval protagonists during the American War of Independence.”31 Contemporaries echoed this praise, and copper-sheathing technology received many accolades from naval officers: British Admiral Thomas Graves reported that wooden ships could not act in concert with copper-sheathed vessels because the wood hulls could not keep up, while other captains attributed some of their combat successes to maneuverability granted by copper sheathing, such as Admiral Lord George Rodney’s capture of six Spanish ships of the line in 1780. After one engagement an angry French naval commander complained that British copper sheathing allowed the British captain “to manoeuvre as he thought proper, and take any advantage that wind or weather might give him to avoid action if he judged it advisable to do so.” Responding to the economic impacts of this new technology, British Navy Comptroller Charles Middleton estimated that copper sheathing might double the number of ships at sea at any time. As a result, he gave coppering precedence over all other ship repairs, including fitting ships with improved guns such as carronades.32

  Unfortunately, copper sheathing produced a serious problem: copper in the sheets reacted chemically with the iron spikes and bolts used as fasteners in the hull, rapidly rusting the iron. This reaction, called galvanic action, led to problems that outweighed the many benefits of the copper sheets. British naval engineers conducted many experiments in search of a method for protecting the iron fasteners, usually involving the use of paper, lead, or tar to separate the copper and iron. Some of these experiments attempted to substitute fasteners made of copper or copper alloys for the iron ones, but assessors deemed these unsatisfactory because the metalworkers had trouble making the copper hard and strong enough. In 1783 British metalworkers successfully mastered the art of producing tough bolts from a copper-zinc alloy via grooved rollers, and within several years these new bolts became standard issue throughout the navy, solving the rusting problem and allowing copper sheets to be used without risk.33

  Copper-sheathing technology slowly migrated to America and also to other nations such as France.34 Prior to 1795, few U.S. ships used copper sheeting.

  That changed as merchants and later the navy noticed the increasing presence of copper on the hulls of visiting ships, and certain ships in the New York harbor added copper sheathing as early as 1792. On April 12, 1794, Joshua Humphreys advised Secretary of War Henry Knox of the radical changes being incorporated into new ships, including copper sheathing. In a report on December 23 of the same year he highlighted the vital importance of copper-sheathed ships at greater length: “Their bottoms always clean and ready for any expedition; if they were not coppered, their guns and stores of every kind, must be discharged, and they hove down every six months, (having no docks to dock them). This will not only be an expensive job, but strain the ships exceedingly, and injure the hull and rigging more than can easily be calculated, which ought to be avoided by all means; not only so, but an expedition may be lost by the delay.”35 Identifying the need for this technology was a big step, but America had a long way to go before producing it on its own. In the short term Americans had to rely on Britain for these copper items, which perpetuated the producer-consumer relationship dating back to colonial times.36 Before America coppered its navy, its copperworking community consisted of itinerant smiths and small, poorly managed copper mines, all operating in the looming shadow of overwhelming British technology. As the early copper mines failed, foreign copper imports provided nearly all the items used in America, and local smiths increasingly focused on simple repair jobs. If not for a growing navy that demanded large amounts of reliable high-quality copper products, this mercantilist situation would have prevailed for much longer, with copper remaining a costly luxury item easily replaced by other metals. The navy saw copper in a completely different light, as an essential resource able to save money by prolonging ships’ operating lives. America’s lack of copper mines and expertise suddenly became an expensive and potentially disastrous liability.

  The failure of the most prosperous British copper mine in 1798 added further urgency to the copper situation in America. Britain first restricted copper exports in 1798 by declaring copper a vital naval store, thereby depriving the United States of its primary supply. While the U.S. Navy purchased refined copper from many places—copper plates from Sweden and Turkey, pigs from South America, and bars from Russia—Britain remained the most trusted source of quality copper. Demand for copper bolts, spikes, and sheeting reached unprecedented levels during the merchant boom and naval armament period of the late 1790s, and British exports became highly unreliable due to the war. Britain’s demand for copper ship sheathing caused the price of copper to rise from 25 cents per pound in 1791 to 50 cents per pound in 1798.37 Copper procurement plagued the navy throughout the late 1790s: Stoddert and his naval agents sent many letters in search of supplies of copper and had to ship available resources from port to port to meet the demand wherever it was most urgent. At one point they contacted the superintendent of the mint to request clippings of cents or any other copper on hand.38 By the end of the eighteenth century, America faced rising copper costs, questionable supplies of copper, inadequate technical know-how, and prospects of naval conflicts with various European powers—a litany of related concerns in need of an imaginative problem solver. Benjamin Stoddert had arrived in the right place at the right time.

  Stoddert’s interest in naval self-sufficiency had permanent ramifications for the future of copperworking in America. Instead of continuing the status quo, he hoped to use government resources to facilitate the birth of a domestic copper industry, because he realized that this technology lay far in advance of Americans’ current capabilities. Copper sheet rolling was an even greater challenge than other forms of copperworking, primarily because the manufacture of copper sheeting remained a guarded technological secret in Britain and Europe. Coppersmiths made most copper objects from copper sheets, and used the “battering” process to make these sheets before the advent of water-driven rolling mills. This slow procedure involved the repeated hammering and measuring of copper bars until they became sufficiently thin, long, and uniform. The battering process sufficed during periods of low colonial demand, but any form of mass-produced sheet copper had to be rolled in a water-powered rolling mill. Such a machine probably did not exist in America before 1800.39

  Under Stoddert’s direction the navy made several attempts to foster American copper refining, manufacturing, and rolling, by dispensing loans—a controversial measure not covered in the Constitution—to defray research and startup costs to private firms, followed by promises of large contracts. Stoddert first attempted to create an American copper industry on May 16, 1799, when he granted a $10,000 naval loan to John Ross and Benjamin Henfrey, referred to as “Esquires” in the contract. Stoddert insisted they use the copper output of American mines to produce bolts, spikes, nails, and copper sheets “of quality equal to the rolled English, patent copper.” He gave them seven months to produce bolts and spikes, and an additional year to learn to roll sheet copper.40 Succeeding correspondence only indicates that Stoddert had abandoned this attempt within three months, long before the first deadline, although he quickly tried again.

  On August 22, 1799, Stoddert wrote to South Carolina’s Robert Goodloe Harper, the chairman of the House Committee of Ways and Means. “On the subject of coppering our ships in London,” he began, “don’t you think it high time we should be out of leading strings—I hope the whole Copper for the 74’s will be the produce and manufacture of our own Country and have made arrangements to that end which I believe will be attended with success.”41 Although it might appear that the “arrangemen
ts” mentioned in this letter referred to the Ross and Henfrey endeavor, his next piece of correspondence indicated that Stoddert had already given up on it and shifted to a second plan. The very next day (August 23, 1799), Stoddert signed Articles of Agreement with Jacob Mark and Nicholas J. Roosevelt of New York City, whose professions are listed as “merchants.”42 This contract stated that, in exchange for a $30,000 government loan, Mark and Roosevelt would erect machinery for the production of copper bolts and sheeting equal to the best British goods, and exclusively use domestic ore supplies from the Soho mine near Newark, New Jersey, which Roosevelt owned. This contract was significantly more legalistic and defensive than the Ross and Henfrey contract, as it invoked several provisions to protect the government against default, probably a sign of the government having learned its lesson from the prior failure. The navy’s principal stated object was “establishment of domestic manufactures of copper on a scale proportional to the probable demands of the United States for the Navy Department.” The Roosevelt enterprise, Stoddert’s most ambitious and costly effort to secure an American source of copper, intended to incorporate all aspects of the copper production process, from mining the ore to smelting, refining, and forging usable naval products. If this proposal succeeded, the United States would achieve self-sufficient copper production in one stroke. Stoddert gave Mark and Roosevelt one year to produce copper bolts and spikes, and an additional six to nine months for the copper sheeting.43

  Stoddert revealed his doubts about the success of the Roosevelt venture in a letter to General John Swan, his Baltimore purchasing agent, on January 17, 1800. Despite the contract that should have supplied all of the navy’s copper needs, Stoddert asked Swan to look into importing bolts and spikes. For the domestic-minded secretary, this request was an admission of defeat. Regardless of the funds Stoddert allocated, Americans seemed incapable of refining and rolling copper. On the following day he informed Roosevelt that Joshua Humphreys had inspected the first batch of sample spikes and declared them unusable. Apparently, Roosevelt had hammered some of the spikes while still hot (rendering them too soft) and cast other spikes directly (rendering them too brittle). Stoddert’s letter betrayed a sense of exasperation, and provided Roosevelt with a brief lesson in metallurgy:

  The process is to take a piece of copper, heat it, and draw it near the size of a spike then cool it in water, hammer point & head it cold. If hammered hot, the spike will be too soft, will not drive, but bend in driving & often so far in the ship as not to be got out without great difficulty. As to cast spikes, there never can be certainty that they are solid . . . You can judge whether you can make such spikes, & if you cannot, the best way will be to give up the thing at once.44

  In the midst of Roosevelt’s failure, Stoddert renewed his devotion to a self-sufficient American navy in a new letter to Josiah Parker. In particular, he focused on the vital importance of an American copper industry: “as for copper the manufacture of this article requires the expenditures of so much money, that without effectual Public assistence it will not soon be established in the United States.”45 This seemingly obvious statement marked Stoddert as something of a visionary. He continued to defy proponents of agriculture, strict constructionists, and champions of federal armories, even in the face of repeated failure, by taking the novel step of loaning money to a private manufactory in the hope of increasing national industry. Learning to sheathe a ship in copper required vast outlays of money and effort, but Stoddert knew that the process would more than repay this investment . . . assuming someone succeeded. The nation that mastered copper-rolling technology took a major step toward forming a powerful navy and merchant fleet, and the person who provided this sheeting was assured of profit and service to his country.

  Stoddert concluded his letter to Parker with the observation that Britain no longer exported any copper items because its largest mines had failed. America was on the verge of being completely cut off from copper supplies, and even a controversial $30,000 loan did not enable Roosevelt to master the technical challenges of copperworking, to say nothing of the more complicated smelting and rolling processes. But hope was not lost. Revere had produced many tons of malleable copper bolts and spikes by this time. After a lifetime of anticipation, the stage was finally set for his entrance.

  The Road to Rolling Copper

  Paul Revere’s copper-rolling ambitions arose haphazardly, in contrast to Stoddert’s methodical strategies. Revere always sought to expand the scope of his operations and spent most of the 1790s adding new functionality to his operations while gradually increasing their scope and profits. However, he also desired something different, as illustrated by his local government offices, attempts to serve in a federally appointed position, ferocious defense of his Revolutionary War record in a long, drawn-out court-martial, and leadership roles in fraternal and labor organizations. In addition to financial prosperity Revere craved societal authority, respect, and the satisfaction of serving the public good. He first contacted Stoddert in an attempt to win a new copperworking contract and increase his income, but as time passed he came to realize that he might also satisfy his societal goals through higher-profile naval contracting.

  By the end of 1798, Revere had more bolt and spike orders from merchants, shipbuilders, and naval contractors than he could handle, primarily because copper shortages constrained his output. Malleable copperworking brought him great profits, but he already had his eye on copper sheeting, the highest step of the copper ladder. In a January 27, 1800 letter to Robert Goodloe Harper, chairman of the House Committee of Ways and Means, Stoddert estimated a $170,000 copper cost for 6 proposed 74-gun ships, compared to $300,000 for the frames and $180,000 for other timber. In general, copper constituted around 15 percent of a ship’s total construction cost, and sheeting made up 60 percent of the copper expense.46 If Revere could master this new product he would have at least a short-term monopoly on a product desperately needed by his country. First he had to persuade Stoddert to give him a chance.

  On the last day of December in 1798, Revere wrote the first of many letters to Stoddert, whose name he misspelled as “Stoddard.” This letter is quoted at the beginning of this chapter. Although he eventually worked with Stoddert on copper-sheeting innovations, at this early time he primarily wanted to produce as many items as possible for the Navy Department. Revere listed the many copper products he could manufacture, casually offered to learn to produce sheet copper if Stoddert could find a reliable copper source, and concluded by asking for information about any potential domestic copper sources.47 In spite of the fact that this letter said all the right things and arrived at the perfect time, Stoddert ignored it and instead made contracts with the two other would-be copper manufacturers before turning to Revere. Stoddert was a careful planner, unlikely to invest money in a man who was hardly known outside Boston. Revere’s artisan and working-class roots shone through his letter, and as a moderate-scale manufacturer he employed a small team of workers and owned limited equipment and capital. In contrast, Stoddert addressed Ross and Henfrey as “Esquire,” and related to Roosevelt and Marks as fellow merchants who happened to own a copper mine. Revere lacked a sufficiently persuasive advocate or the social standing needed to help him receive a contract. And in Stoddert’s defense, many of Revere’s claims would have struck most observers as exaggerated: his advertised skills, particularly the ability to anneal copper until it achieved both strength and hardness, lay beyond the reach of nearly every American practitioner at the time. As mentioned above, the knowledgeable Joshua Humphreys dismissed Revere’s claim out of hand because it exceeded the skill set exhibited in every American shop he had ever visited. Humphreys and Stoddert found Revere’s claims so farfetched that they did not even bother to reply to the letter.

  Revere had a much stronger case by 1800. He wrote Stoddert a second letter on February 26, 1800, presented in Appendix 7. The letter begins by reminding Stoddert that Revere had already produced large quantities of malleable copper pr
oducts and that his capability surpassed that of Philadelphia and New York metalworkers. He then offered to build a special furnace and learn to smelt domestic copper ore into malleable copper if the government provided him with copper ore and paid his expenses. Revere admitted, “I have never tried, but from the experiments I have made I have no doubt I can do it.” To sweeten the deal he promised to teach his two sons his business, and referred Stoddert to Congressman Harrison G. Otis and President John Adams as character references. The mention of his sons served a critical role, because it demonstrated to Stoddert how this contract might produce a skilled shop that could outlive its current owner and offer vital products to America’s navy for years to come. Best of all, Revere now enlisted Joshua Humphreys as an ally. Humphreys may have urged Stoddert to reject Revere’s 1798 letter, but after visiting Revere’s works, Humphreys asked Revere to contact Stoddert again and make use of his name. Clearly impressed, Humphreys wanted to fast-track Revere’s application in order to get Revere’s production process started as soon as possible.48

  Revere’s letter to Stoddert reveals a combination of experience and audacity. He dropped his earlier offer to roll copper into sheets and instead focused on procuring contracts to produce bolts and spikes and to smelt copper ore into usable metal. Although his self-confidence ran unchecked, he supported his claims with a convincing record of accomplishments. At a time when other Americans could not make copper malleable enough to form strong bolts, he had finished many tons of products for various clients. Still, his boldness is evident: without ever having handled a substantial quantity of raw copper ore, he knew he could smelt it. Some of this confidence possibly originated from his experience with refining iron (and possibly copper) in his furnace, although he surely realized the major differences between refining and smelting. However, a new awareness of his own mortality partially offset this confidence, moving him into a slightly defensive position. He was 65 years old, but offered his sons as a guarantee of future production. His old views of family continuity in apprenticeships and artisan shops still affected his thinking.