Midnight Ride, Industrial Dawn

by Robert Martello

  Revere followed up this letter on March 11, 1800, by writing his version of a “Short History of that valuable & necessary Metal in this Country” for Congressman Otis, the representative from Revere’s district, quoted in the previous chapter. In this attempt to enlist the government, Revere discussed his long experience with bell and cannon manufacture and estimated that he had “made the greatest improvements in that metal of any man in this State, if not in the United States. I am confirmed in this opinion, from conversing with Col. Humphries of Philadelphia.” Revere had acquired a national mindset by this time and started imagining himself as the founder of a new American industry, a valuable servant to his country.49

  These letters soon bore fruit. Revere traveled to Philadelphia to meet with Stoddert and Humphreys in May 1800 and received a contract to produce bolts and spikes for two ships under construction in Boston and Portsmouth. The results of this meeting exceeded his expectations, because Stoddert finally trusted him with his own pet project and reminded Revere of his 1798 offer to learn to roll sheet copper. In addition to signing a contract for bolts and spikes, Stoddert asked Revere to smelt and refine some domestic ore and use it to roll sheet copper for testing and evaluation. On May 21, 1800, Stoddert told Stephen Higginson, his Boston naval agent, that it was more important to prove that Revere knew how to make sheeting than to have the sheeting meet any specific or immediate demand, testifying to Stoddert’s prioritization of long-term goals over short-term needs. Revere impressed Stoddert, who told Higginson to hire him on “such terms as may be considered liberal.”50 Perhaps after the uninformed claims made by the two earlier groups of gentleman-would-be-manufacturers, Revere’s straightforward hands-on attitude was exactly the right approach.

  Figure 6.1. Charles-Balthazar-Julien Fevret de Saint-Memin (1770–1852), drawing of Paul Revere, 1800 (photographic reproduction from Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62–7407). This drawing represents an older, heavier, and more genteel Paul Revere who stands apart from Copley’s portrayal of Revere the artisan. Now 65 years old, Revere wears fancy clothing, sports a visible double chin, and poses in profile, signifying his social and financial success. This painting roughly coincides with Revere’s entry into the copper-rolling field, an important line of work that added to his prestige.

  On June 28, 1800, Stoddert asked Higginson to judge whether Revere could manufacture sheet copper equal to that of the British. If so, he would soon be asked to manufacture a large amount. On October 31 of the same year, Stoddert reemphasized the importance of determining if Revere could manufacture sheeting, “for it is very uncertain whether we shall long be permitted to import this article from any foreign country—England will not now supply it.” Stoddert then laid out the terms of this contract. Higginson should offer Revere a $12,000 government loan, later reduced to $10,000, to help him establish his copper mill.51 After years of independent frustration, Revere and Stoddert had finally found each other. The success or failure of their partnership now lay entirely on Revere’s shoulders.

  Revere returned from Philadelphia in May 1800 with three objectives: smelt and refine a barrel of domestic copper ore provided by Stoddert, work some of the copper into spikes and bolts, and roll the rest into copper sheets. His first task, smelting the ore, offered the largest challenge because he had absolutely no exposure to mining or smelting outside theoretical texts he might have read. In addition, smelting had the most technical complexity of these tasks. Copper smelting is a physical and chemical process requiring great heat above 1084 degrees C and a chemically “reducing” atmosphere rich in carbon but lacking in oxygen. British smelters used a sixteenth-century German process in which they roasted the ore to drive out sulfur and then melted it to draw off slag. They repeated these steps dozens of times on each batch of ore over a period of weeks or months until the copper attained the desired consistency. Most miners switched to the simpler “Welsh process” after it was developed in 1750, because it used enormous quantities of coal to minimize the length of the operation.52

  Revere already had extensive experience making malleable copper bolts and spikes, but sheet copper posed entirely different problems. He needed to construct and operate a rolling mill, using a waterwheel to transmit power via shafts and gears to two adjustable rolls that would flatten the copper to any desired thickness. As usual, he turned to established technical fields when approaching a new one, and in this case he relied on his own silver shop and observations of larger iron establishments. Revere had used his silver-rolling mill to produce major quantities of sheet silver since 1785. By 1800, he had become quite proficient in its use, but it was a simple device used to process extremely malleable silver without the benefit of waterpower. It taught him some of the principles of copper rolling, but not all. In contrast, iron-rolling mills had much in common with copper mills, but Revere had indirect exposure to them at best. Iron-rolling mills appeared in America with the first ironworks at Saugus, but were extremely uncommon. Colonial ironworkers passed red-hot bars through a set of water-powered rolls repeatedly, making the iron thinner each time. A cutting wheel or shears could eventually slice the sheet into strips for wagon wheel ties and barrel hoops, or into smaller strips for nail making. Low-quality remains from Saugus indicate the lack of skilled expertise on these tasks, and the existence of other iron-rolling equipment is uncertain.53 Revere had to master the most relevant details independently: low-quality work sufficed for nail making but not for Revere’s exacting clients, and copper differed from iron in nearly all respects.

  Many details of Revere’s copper-rolling preparations fell outside any of his written accounts at the time. He bought an ironworking mill in the town of Canton for $6,000 from “Messrs. Robbins, Leonard, and Kinsley” in either late 1800 or early 1801.54 This site previously housed the gunpowder mill that Revere helped to establish in 1776 on behalf of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress. Leonard and Kinsley had operated an ironworks on this property for many years, and Revere’s new purchase included the right to utilize the water in the Neponset River and a deed to several buildings. These buildings contained useful equipment, including a water-powered slitting mill that could cut iron or copper into workable bars or rods. By replacing the cutting wheel with parallel rollers (also called rolls), Revere could convert this machine into a rudimentary rolling mill, sparing him the problem of installing and adjusting the shafts and wheels associated with water power. Revere originally estimated that he could renovate the existing buildings and equipment by June of the same year. Undoubtedly, he saved time and money by renovating instead of buying or building new equipment. He derived the greatest benefits from the waterwheel equipment because he had never attempted to harness the power of running water before this point.55

  One cryptic record in Revere’s memoranda book indicates that he built a new furnace in September of 1800. The notation reads:

  Memorandom Septem 1800

  It took to build the new furnace 3000 Red &

  200 White Brick

  4 Cask lime

  Sano came to live at our house Tuesday Octo 14 1800 @ 2½ doll p week

  David Oliver came Octo 20 2½ p week56

  This notation does not mention whether the new furnace was located in Canton or in Revere’s Boston workshop, and does not include prices for the bricks, lime, or total labor. We can concoct a plausible explanation for either location: his efforts to smelt and refine copper may have induced him to build a new furnace in Boston while he shopped for property in Canton, or this might have been one of his first modifications to his Canton property, anticipating all the furnace work he would perform there in the years to come.

  Figure 6.2. Sketch of a rolling and slitting mill. From Edwin Tunis, Colonial Craftsmen and the Beginnings of American Industry (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1965), p. 154. This sketch portrays a rolling and slitting mill, similar in some ways to the one Revere used in his Canton manufactory in the early 1800s. The waterwheel on the right provides
immense power that turns the upper and lower iron rollers. A worker uses iron tongs to feed a bar of heated copper between the rollers, which compress and elongate the copper until it emerges from the other side. The worker would then decrease the separation between the rollers, reheat the sheet, and feed it through again until it attained the desired thickness.

  On January 13, 1801, Revere asked a friend traveling in England to purchase a set of iron rolls, the large cylinders that would use waterpower to flatten the copper. “I can procure them here,” he explained, “but not in such perfection as the English ones, neither are they so good.” In addition to specifying dimensions for the rolls (twenty inches long by nine inches diameter), he asked his friend to try to observe some British copperworks and determine how they heated their copper. This is an understandable question, since copper sheets had to be heated before each pass through the rollers. If this could be made more efficient, the rolling mill’s productivity would increase dramatically and the sheets might be less brittle. Heating practices also related to fuel usage, and improved efficiency could substantially reduce his expenses. Whether Revere received any benefits from his friend’s espionage is unknown, but other references in this letter to Joseph Pope, “a good mechanic and an ingenious man,” show that Revere had other sources of information upon which he could draw, even extending to Britain. A letter written in May 1802 reveals that by then Revere used rolls of his own making, but he still desired British rolls, this time from Bristol.57 Poor-quality rolls probably accounted for many of his early production errors such as irregularly sized sheets or “pitting,” the small indentations in copper sheets resulting from bumps or holes in the rolls. But thanks to his ingenuity in iron casting and turning, at least he had rolls.

  The new year of 1801 brought good news for Revere, Stoddert, and America. By January 17, 1801, Revere sent Stoddert a piece of sheet produced from the barrel of domestic ore, proof of his mastery of the smelting and rolling processes. The creation of this one sheet was grueling: by the time he finished, Revere had converted approximately four hundred pounds of ore into thirty pounds of copper sheathing. Along with the sample sheet, Revere submitted a letter describing the many difficulties he faced: “My apparatus is not calculated for smellting, but for refineing only, by which means it gave me more trouble, & a greater expense . . . I had to refine that small quantity on a hearth, where I refine 1800 lb at one time, & I had to roll it by hand in a silver smiths plating mill.”58 Because of his lack of equipment, Revere had to pound the ore by hand, smelt and refine the copper in an inefficient, oversized furnace used for cannon casting, and manually roll it into sheets on his small silver-plating mill. He claimed he could double his yield with the proper equipment, and he probably did not exaggerate. However, he was one of the few Americans, if not the only one, to own and understand this strange combination of silver-working and founding equipment, and his success was no small matter. In a later letter to Joshua Humphreys, Revere apologized for the small width of his sample sheets, but pointed out that “the mill I rolled it in is the best there is in this Town.”59

  In the same letter that accompanied his sample sheet, Revere reported that he also had finished a large shipment of bolts and spikes (sixty thousand pounds) and was working on his copper-rolling mill. He estimated producing rolled copper sheets as early as June 1801. This letter also contained the first reference to his government loan. According to the final terms of the loan, after proving he could refine and roll copper he would receive a $10,000 interest-free advance that he could pay off in finished copper. This advance was intended to allow him to research and construct a copper-rolling mill, since these high startup costs blocked most entrepreneurs from entering the field. However, Revere had not waited for the advance. By the time he submitted his sample sheet he was already in debt from his purchases of the Canton property, equipment, and copper. To expedite the repayment of his debt he asked to receive payment for his bolts and spikes whenever he delivered each order, a reasonable request that would not be heeded.

  Ironically, the tests Revere passed in order to secure his loan and contract from Stoddert were far more grueling than any of the copperwork he later performed. Compared to smelting, all other copper fabrication processes seemed simple, and the five hundred-pound sample from Maryland was probably the last unworked ore Revere ever handled. The equipment he used for the sample sheet also added layers of complexity to the process, since none of it was intended for the task at hand. When Revere finished rebuilding his Canton rolling mill, his technology greatly surpassed his original equipment. Revere’s workers regularly refined copper by pounding it with water-driven triphammers and heating it in air furnaces, and they then drained the pure end product into flat bar-shaped molds. They heated these bars and passed them repeatedly through parallel rollers, decreasing the distance between the rollers each time until attaining the proper sheet thickness.60

  After sending his first sample sheet to Stoddert, Revere recapped his success in triumphant letters to Harrison G. Otis and Joshua Humphreys. Revere informed Humphreys, by now a good friend, that he was modifying his recently purchased iron-slitting mill to roll sheet copper according to “the English method.” He proudly told Otis to see for himself the sample sheet in Stoddert’s possession, adding, “It is one Evidence that Copper can be got in our own Country & manufactured into Materials for Ship Building.” Revere concluded his letter to Otis by remarking, “What a dreadful change in Politicks,” perhaps the most prophetic statement of his life.61 Election results had arrived, Thomas Jefferson would soon take office as America’s third president, and Revere’s rising star was about to fall.

  Thomas Jefferson’s election and the impending change in administration were worse than dreadful for Revere and his business. The Adams administration expired on March 3, 1801, and Jefferson’s officers quickly replaced most of Adams’s appointees, including the irreplaceable Benjamin Stoddert. Jefferson was the first truly unwelcome president in the eyes of New England Federalists such as Revere, who virtually treated the new administration as a hostile coup, looming with uncertainty and menace. The resulting political chaos that soon dominated the end of Revere’s career was merely the latest skirmish in a rapidly escalating struggle between America’s first two political parties.

  Alexander Hamilton, George Washington’s secretary of the treasury, was the prime mover of the Federalist Party practically from the start of Washington’s first administration. A brilliant thinker, tireless worker, and persuasive writer, he envisioned a powerful centralized national government led by an almost kinglike chief executive in command of a powerful army and navy capable of dealing with both internal and external threats. Because America had not yet become a world power, Hamilton favored close ties with Britain to ensure continued trade revenues and support against other European powers. In order to realize this vision America needed a solid financial footing that promoted economic stability and commercial growth, explaining why Hamilton implemented fiscal strategies such as forming a new national bank, consolidating all state and federal debts, and issuing loan notes to serve as currency. Hamilton’s proposal to offer government support of large-scale industry, alone amid his entire economic program, went unfulfilled due to powerful opposing interests. A dynamic and headstrong figure who always stirred controversy as he fearlessly imparted his ambitions and goals to the infant government, Hamilton inspired heated opposition from supporters of states’ rights and agrarian interests who erroneously feared he might make America dependent upon Britain, turn the president into a monarch, encourage a military overthrow of the republic, or create an aristocratic class that wielded power without accountability. His most resolute enemies, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, created the Democratic-Republican Party as a way of marshalling opposition to some of his policies, and his ongoing feud with John Adams, Washington’s vice president and successor, split and weakened the Federalist Party.

  John Adams and the Federalist administration lost the ele
ction of 1800 for many reasons, including the bitter internal rift between Adams and Hamilton, unpopular taxes to pay for national infrastructure and the Quasi-War with France, the repressive Alien and Sedition Acts, and the association of Adams’s party with elitist pro-British policies. The Democratic-Republicans attempted to reverse these trends when Thomas Jefferson assumed office. As one of the most philosophical intellectuals of the founding fathers, Jefferson occupies an exalted place in America’s history, although his complex and seemingly contradictory views have earned him the label of the “American Sphinx.” Jefferson believed in democracy to a greater extent than many of his contemporaries, and viewed many of the Federalist policies as subversive attempts to entrench power in the hands of a small number of moneyed men. During his tenure as secretary of state and as John Adams’s vice president, Jefferson promoted agrarian interests, strict interpretation of the Constitution in favor of states’ sovereignty, reconciliation with the new French Republic, and proud popularization of democratic ideals. The Jeffersonians constituted a vocal minority under the Washington and Adams administrations but gained control of the legislative and executive branches in what Jefferson referred to as “The Revolution of 1800,” with dire consequences for manufacturers such as Revere.

  Jefferson’s succession to the presidency immediately shattered Stoddert’s long-term naval plans. Stoddert’s term lasted until April 1, 1801, and his successor, Robert Smith, did not take office as Jefferson’s secretary of the navy until July 27, although interim naval secretaries such as Secretary of War Henry Dearborn and General Samuel Smith filled the office for brief periods. The Democratic-Republicans’ vocal opposition to a strong American navy deterred most potential candidates for the secretary of the navy position, most of whom were Federalists anyway, and different prospective candidates rejected Jefferson’s offer until Robert Smith finally accepted.62 This slow and clumsy changing of the guard contributed to administrative delay on all outstanding contracts, and Revere’s correspondence includes inconsistent messages from each interim secretary, much to his confusion. During this bewildering period the Quasi-War drew to a close as word of a peace treaty from Paris gradually reached administrators and naval commanders.