by Alex Myers
“This is a right impressive complex you’ve built,” Samuel Clemens said, puffing on a huge cigar. “I’m not sure exactly what your financial situation is, but this looks like a money pit if I’ve ever seen one.”
“You’re right. It’s costing an arm and a leg and part of another arm, but we bring in quite a bit, too. Did you get moved into your place?”
“I moved in last Thursday. I thought they made a mistake when they assigned me to a private cabin versus the bunkhouse with the other workers. It’s as nice as any place I’ve ever put my hat.”
“Sam, just so you know, I’ve made enough from the bicycle and firearms to pay for this place twice. I’m glad you like your accommodations. I hope you find them conducive to writing.”
“That’s all I’ve been doing lately, Jack. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in two weeks. I have probably a hundred and fifty pages of Connecticut Yankee done, although I must admit, it seems to be writing itself. I’m thankful you didn’t tell me anything about it. It’s much more pleasant to look at my life through my own eyes and think about how I would feel in the sixth century. The story isn’t a satire particularly; it’s more a contrast. It merely exhibits, under the bright lights, the daily life of a man out of time—this time and that time—and brings them into this immediate juxtaposition, emphasizing the salient aspects of both. You are handling things better than my protagonist.”
“I wonder if the story will turn out the same as I remember it, or if I’ve already ‘infected’ you. They stepped around a copse of oaks and surveyed the half-finished expansive building. “This is going to be the medical building. I’d like to start work on a gym, ah, gymnasium—a building specifically for sports. It would have to have a basketball and racquetball court.”
“I’m sure one day you’ll explain what all that means. It sounds like it all has to do with exercise. I myself have never taken any exercise, except sleeping and resting, and I never intend to take any. Exercise is loathsome. And it cannot benefit you when you are tired; and I am always tired.”
“No exercise, huh? What do you call all that bike riding you do?”
“That is travel, not exercise.” They walked toward the housing units. “I must say, though, the style of architecture is different from any I’ve ever seen,” Sam said.
“There will be an architect around the turn of the 20th century—an artist really—named Frank Lloyd Wright. He’ll become famous for blending a building with the surrounding habitat.”
“Is that why you’ve kept so many trees? Anyone else would have cleared the land first thing.”
“Exactly. I think this style of architecture is timeless. Structures Wright built showed us new ways to build our homes and see the world around them. He created some of the most monumental, and some of the most intimate spaces in America. He designed everything: banks and resorts, office buildings, even an art museum.”
“You are definitely an innovator.”
“That’s just it, Sam. I’m not, I just happen to remember a few very commonplace things from an era where these things are everywhere. Wright was the genius, I’m just an imitator.” They walked through the construction site to the main work building.
“We are mere creatures of circumstance,” Clemens said. “Circumstance is the master—we are his slaves. We cannot do as we desire. We have to be humbly obedient and do as Circumstances command. Command—that is the word; Circumstance never requests, he always commands. Then we do the thing and think we have planned it. When our circumstances change, we have to change with them, we cannot help it. Jack, I think you have done this better, considering what Circumstance has provided, better than anyone in the history of man.”
Jack thought about it. He picked up a clod of dirt and tossed it at a tree. “But not one single thing I’ve done is original—all mine. I feel like a fraud sometimes.”
“It’s an astonishing thing that after all these ages the world goes on thinking the human brain-machinery can originate a thought. It can’t. It has never done it. In all cases, little and big, the thought is born of a suggestion; and in all cases the suggestion comes to the brain from the outside…. In all my life, I have never originated an idea, and neither has anybody else. The real genius behind a thought—in your case, an invention—is not in the conception, but the implementation. You have taken these suggestions from your time and turned them into this,” he said, sweeping his hand around the complex.
“You’re right, I guess. This complex is pretty impressive, isn’t it?” Jack asked.
“I would say. One would be hard-pressed to find a facility that’s gone up faster or better. What are your goals?”
“Money. I want to make money and lots of it. We work on and manufacture three kinds of things here. Things that make a lot of money quickly; stuff like kitchen and household gadgets—can openers, that kind of stuff; and guns and weaponry. I could do that full-time, there’s such a demand. I make about five bucks off every gun Colt and Winchester make and a penny a bullet that Remington and Smith and Wesson make and no one can produce the stuff fast enough.
“There was an industrialist inventor named Thomas Edison. His goal was one big invention every six months and some improvement or minor invention every six weeks. My goal is a major invention every two weeks and a minor invention or major improvement every five days.”
“And you say this guy Edison did something like this before?”
“Yes, but about twenty years from now.”
“Why don’t you get this Edison to help you?”
“I plan to, but he’s only twelve years old right now. I think my goal is pretty realistic, considering I’m just remembering things people have already done.”
“Yes, but you’re implementing them and making them real—and putting them into the hands of the people. Just who are you looking to hire?”
“There are a couple of people I’m interested in specifically. Edison is one, Alexander Bell is another. I want this guy Bessemer who’s working with steel in England, and I want Pasteur who’s doing medical research in France. I’ll pay a premium to get these folks, they all will be famous in my day.”
“And my name is bandied around then, also?”
“Sam, I swear you love to hear me talk about this, don’t you?”
“A little name glorification never hurt anyone!” They both chuckled. “So what big project is next on the drawing board?”
“If I can invent an airplane, I bet it’ll go a long way to keep this war from happening.”
“What a very interesting concept, this airplane. Men really flying through the air. You say they are everywhere in your day?”
“Samuel, we’ve been to the moon! Didn’t I tell you about that?”
“That, my friend, somehow slipped our conversation.”
“Trying to do everything at once is about driving me crazy. I see so many things everyday and think of better twenty-first century ways of doing them.”
“You are going to drive yourself loony.”
CHAPTER 39
November 1856
Inventor Interviews
Jack had spent most of the previous night preparing for the interviews that he planned to have at least once a month. He had pages of notes and diagrams from some of the applicants and barely a name from some of the others. Just because someone was brilliant didn’t necessarily mean they were well documented and vice-versa.
Jack’s first three interviews that morning were in and out of his office in the Sanger Building before nine o’clock.
At a few minutes after nine, a dignified, extremely obese man by the name of Bob Morrison entered Jack’s office. Sitting heavily in a chair opposite Jack, the man was breathing hard, winded from the three flights of stairs to Jack’s office. Bob Morrison had a huge, walrus-type mustache that was curled on the ends with wax.
Morrison said he had developed a ‘Mustache Guard,’ explaining that it held the mustache away from the lips to prevent food from lodging in it. It was
small enough to be carried in a man’s vest pocket. The user inserted a series of upwardly inclined teeth into the mustache, then fastened it with an elastic-like strip. Prongs on the guard supported the long flowing ends of the mustache to keep them from drooping.
It wasn’t until Morrison actually pulled the item out of his pocket and put it on that Jack started giggling. It was when the man tried talking while wearing the device that Jack fell into a full, uncontrollable, belly laugh. The dignified man looked hurt, removed his invention, and put it back in his pocket. He was rising to leave when Jack stopped him before the big man could get out of the chair.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Morrison. I don’t know what to say. I guess it’s because I don’t have a mustache….” And Jack started laughing again. “Please, Mr. Morrison,” Jack said, getting somewhat under control. “What do you do for a living?” Jack was hoping it wasn’t something like chicken plucking that would start him chuckling again.
“I’m an accountant for the Kelly Company.”
“Are you a good one?”
“I’m head of the department.” He drew himself up and looked dignified again. “Yes, I am a good one.”
“Mr. Morrison, I need a good accountant, one who understands the mind of an inventor.” This almost started Jack laughing again, but he pressed on. “I don’t know what you make at Kelly, but I’ll give you a twenty percent increase in salary to come work for me in Norfolk.”
The man stroked his long bushy mustache and said, “I’m not sure. I’d have to discuss this with my wife and family.”
“We’re putting in family housing units with a school and church, all to be completed before January.”
“Let me think about it. Would I be working on the first floor?”
By the time Jack said goodbye, Bob Morrison had thought about it long enough and accepted the job. Jack suggested he give his two-weeks notice at Kelly and start the first of January.
At 9:45, Jack met a young man named Charles M. Hall, who’d been referred to him by Joseph Henry. Henry had obviously done his homework, because when Hall told him about his project, Jack told the secretary to cancel the rest of the morning’s appointments.
Hall claimed that, with enough electrical current, he could produce cheap aluminum, a metal malleable enough and strong enough to be used in the production of Jack’s bicycles. He offered Jack extensive diagrams of the process and several pages of text.
After looking through the papers, Jack said, “Let me tell you, Mr. Hall, bicycles are just the beginning. There’s no end for the uses of this metal. As a matter of fact, I have a man working at my facility right now on an internal combustion engine. If your process works, I’d like to see the engine block made of your aluminum.” Jack knew that a stronger, lighter motor was what he needed for his airplane. “When can you start?”
Jack offered to show Hall the compound that Friday and said if he could perfect the process, the company would license the aluminum from Hall in every project that used it.
About 11:30, when Jack finally said goodbye to Charles Hall, he thought he had had quite a morning. He was just getting ready to go to lunch when his secretary said that a Mr. Eastman was there and he refused to leave without speaking to Jack personally.
Jack felt as if he had done enough work for one day. Perhaps he should take a bit of Samuel’s advice and learn to relax and enjoy life a little. His meeting that morning with Charles Hall had been like finding a diamond. He was going to send whoever this was away and spend the rest of the day at the drafting table. “Reschedule him for two weeks,” Jack said.
In a few minutes, Jack walked out into his waiting room and saw his secretary and a thin, ragged man of about twenty in heated debate.
“Is there a problem here?” Jack asked loudly.
“I need to talk to you,” the little man pleaded, stepping around the secretary. He was holding what looked like a small shoebox.
“Didn’t my secretary tell you I would see you in two weeks?”
“I can’t wait that long,” the young man said, casting down his eyes. “I don’t have any money—I don’t have a place to sleep—I haven’t had a thing to eat in two days. Please, Mr. Riggs!”
He was looking down at the box in his hands when Jack walked over to him. “What did you say your name was, son?”
“Eastman. George Eastman.”
“George Eastman. George Eastman!”
“Yes, sir?” the boy said shyly.
“And that thing there in your hands, it wouldn’t be a . . . “
“A camera, sir.”
“George Eastman, camera, KODAK! I am done for the day, I’m taking Mr. Eastman to go get some food.
CHAPTER 40
November 1856
George Bissell
Jack’s house—actually the renovation of Frances’s old house—was finished ahead of schedule; it’s amazing what enough money and enough workers can do. As soon as they brought the water turbine online full-time, it would not only provide electrical lighting and power to the working part of the complex, but Jack’s house and the other housing units as well. His house, Murphy’s and Kaz’s houses, the family cabins and the bunkhouses and the work buildings all had indoor plumbing, with water being pumped by giant windmills that dotted the property and the hot water was provided by water circulating through solar collectors. The lighting in the buildings was done with light-emitting diodes. The LEDs were roughly fashioned, but they were easy and inexpensive to make and required so little energy to run that all the lighting needs of the complex were met by small wind turbines attached to the chimneys and twelve-inch batteries. ,
Jack's patent lawyer, John Wegman knew another New York attorney named George Bissell, who had already conceived a plan to try and produce oil commercially. Jack hired him as well as Yale University’s Benjamin Silliman Jr., one of America's leading chemists. Silliman had originally been hired by Bissell to analyze the properties of "Seneca Oil" as an illuminant. He determined that the oil could be distilled into several fractions. With this positive information in hand, Jack first met Bissell as he was trying to get together some financial backers. Together with Jack's help they formed the "Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company.”
What made Bissell something of a visionary and such a great find and partner for Jack was that he was already trying to extract the rock oil from the ground by drilling, using the same techniques as had been used in salt wells. Bissell already had an excellent man in the field by the name of Edwin Drake.
Jack and Bissell chose their areas to drill by searching for spots with active oil seeps in the region. Bissell wanted to confine his search to Pennsylvania, but Jack knew that this was just the Titusville tip of the oil iceberg. At first Jack was merely trying to lease the oil and mineral rights, but the United States was feeling the first economic bites of an upcoming depression, and people were more than willing to part with their underproducing land in exchange for hard cash.
George Bissell was a shrewd negotiator and extremely energetic. With Jack's help, Bissell was on his way to becoming a household name and turning into an oil baron that would make J.D. Rockefeller blush, but Jack and Bissell had grander plans than that.
In many regions, wells had already been drilled and oil already struck. The problem was they hadn’t been drilling for oil but for salt water or just plain drinking water. When they struck oil, they considered it a nuisance and abandoned the well, so in some cases all Jack and Bissell had to do was walk up to a predrilled well and start pumping.
For half the petroleum discoveries that Jack's team made—like the ones for lubricants, fuel, medicines and plastic—patents were filed but released freely to the public. Immediately the price of oil quadrupled from four dollars a barrel to over sixteen. Up till then the main demand for oil had been for kerosene and lubrication, but now industry was screaming for petroleum and Jack was about to drop a big, practical, diesel engine into the marketplace.
Several industries were virtually exploding with
all the new technology, and Jack was hoping that progress alone would help curb the trend toward the heavily agriculturally-based war. Hopefully people would be more interested in making money than in fighting.
CHAPTER 41
December 1856
Just in Time for the Holidays
“Altogether I have twelve subcontractors working here, one from as far away as Washington and two from Richmond. The same people who built this also built the weapons bunker.” Bob Cooper lit an oil lamp in the room.
“Isn’t there electricity here?” Jack asked.
“The men you’ve trained as electricians, Fitz and Fleming, will be here within the hour. They’re finishing the lights in the medical building.”
The windowless business office was twenty feet long and ten feet wide split into two ten-by-ten sections. Steel bars separated them from the section in back.
Bob indicated the front half of the building with two desks and two filing cabinets. “Here’s where the paymaster—what did you say his name was?”
“Bob Morrison. He’s just getting settled and will be here in a week.”
“Morrison and his assistant will sit here in the front.”
“There are three levels of security in this building. The first is the building itself. The steel-reinforced concrete walls and floor, along with the steel bars and tin roof, can withstand a cannon shot. There are no windows to worry about and the only way in or out of here is through a triple-locked reinforced steel door. There will be eight keys for that: Elisha Root, William Stuttgart, Morrison and his assistant, Murphy, Kaz and you. Then there’s this,” Bob Cooper said as he patted the steel-barred door to the back section of the building.
“This section, the second layer of protection, I call the security bin. It’s for the blueprints, the patent applications, files pertaining to the inventions, general accounting paperwork, and employee files. Anything you don’t want the whole world to have access to.”
