Midnight Ride, Industrial Dawn

by Robert Martello

  71. Harris, Industrial Espionage and Technology Transfer, p. 264.

  72. Revere to Edward Edwards, January 20, 1800, “Letterbook 1783–1800,” reel 14, vol. 53.1, RFP.

  73. Revere to Jacob Sheaf, October 28, 1795, “Letterbook 1783–1800,” reel 14, vol. 53.1, RFP.

  74. February 7, 1796 letter to unknown recipient, “Letterbook 1783–1800,” reel 14, vol. 53.1, RFP.

  75. February 7, 1796 letter to unknown recipient, “Letterbook 1783–1800,” reel 14, vol. 53.1, RFP.

  76. Revere to Jacob Sheafe, January 7, 1799, “Letterbook 1783–1800,” reel 14, vol. 53.1, RFP.

  77. Paul Revere to Jacob Sheafe Esq., January 7, 1799, “Letterbook 1783–1800,” reel 14, vol. 53.1, RFP.

  78. Revere to Jacob Sheafe, February 13, 1799, “Letterbook 1783–1800,” reel 14, vol. 53.1, RFP.

  79. Revere to Harrison G. Otis, March 11, 1800, H. G. Otis Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

  80. U.S. Office of Naval Records and Library, Naval Documents Related to the Quasiwar Between the United States and France (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1935–1938), vol. 3, p. 223.

  81. Ledger beginning with “1795 Octo 14 United States,” in “Account Book Boston, 1783–1804,” reel 6, vol. 9b, RFP.

  82. Thomas Cochran and William Miller, The Age of Enterprise: A Social History of Industrial America (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1961), p. 8.

  83. Revere to Naval Committee building the ship at Mr. Hartt’s yard, August 31, 1798, and Revere to Jacob Sheafe, December 7, 1798, both in “Letterbook 1783–1800,” reel 14, vol. 53.1, RFP.

  84. Ledger entry beginning “The Committee for building the 32 Gun Frigate at Harts Yard,” in “Account Book Boston, 1783–1804,” reel 6, vol. 9b, RFP.

  85. Miscellaneous ledger entries in “Account Book Boston, 1783–1804,” reel 6, vol. 9b, RFP. This book is a collection of various records, not strictly arranged in chronological order. The beginning entry used in this analysis is a ledger page labeled “Furnace 1799,” and the transactions list extends for many pages, although it is interspersed with wastebook entries. The following several pages of discussion all draw upon this source material.

  CHAPTER SIX: Paul Revere’s Last Ride: The Road to Rolling Copper (1798–1801)

  1. Paul Revere to Benjamin Stoddard (sic) Esq., December 31, 1798, “Letterbook 1783–1800,” Revere Family Papers (hereafter RFP), microfilm edition, 15 reels (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1979), reel 14, vol. 53.1.

  2. Leonard D. White, The Federalists: A Study in Administrative History (New York: Macmillan, 1948), p. 159; Ian W. Toll, Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006), pp. 47–48. Humphreys is also remembered for designing the USS Constitution and five other frigates. Revere and Humphreys eventually became close friends.

  3. White, The Federalists, pp. 470–474.

  4. Some government departments had started establishing their own administrative systems under the Articles of Confederation but few of these officials continued in office under the new Constitution, with the key exception of War Secretary Henry Knox. Merrill Jensen, The New Nation (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1981), pp. 360–364, 373.

  5. White, The Federalists, p. 363; Russell F. Weigley, History of the United States Army (New York: Macmillan Company, 1967), pp. 82–84; Richard H. Kohn, Eagle and Sword (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1975), pp. 114–115, 123, 127, 187–188.

  6. Massive errors in the War Department’s procurement process in 1790 gave Alexander Hamilton an excuse to implement a more centralized purchasing system under the Treasury Department’s control. In 1798 a congressional committee returned purchasing authority to the War and Navy departments. White, The Federalists, pp. 33, 148, 343–344, 360–362; Kohn, Eagle and Sword, pp. 111, 123–125.

  7. Donald Hickey, The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989), p. 6. America’s prosperity also resulted from the war between France and Britain, which created huge markets for goods and reduced competition among merchants.

  8. Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 647; Michael A. Palmer, Stoddert’s War (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1987), pp. 4–6; Toll, Six Frigates, pp. 78–81. French hostility against American shipping originated in the West Indies as much as the French Directory: the Directory instructed French vessels and courts to treat neutral shipping the same way Britain treated it, but since local courts had no way of knowing what this meant, they did as they pleased. In the West Indies, this led to numerous captures and mock trials that always resulted in condemnation of American ships.

  9. Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, pp. 629–630; Palmer, Stoddert’s War, pp. 7–8; White, The Federalists, p. 156.

  10. Quoted in Palmer, Stoddert’s War, pp. 125 and 10. Also see Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, pp. 634–635; Palmer, Stoddert’s War, pp. 12–13; Toll, Six Frigates, pp. 105–107.

  11. The North African Barbary pirates attacked merchant ships sailing in Mediterranean waters, enslaving their crews and selling their cargo. Even the powerful European nations agreed to pay tribute to these attackers, in addition to ransoms for well-to-do captives.

  12. Humphreys achieved these incredible properties through a combination of design choices: extra sails and a longer hull led to greater speed; numerous heavy cannons (forty-four guns total) produced greater firepower; and an extra thick hull made of live oak (only available in North America and Cuba) gave his ships additional durability. These modifications would normally lead to “hogging,” or a sagging in the center of the wooden hull resulting from the additional stresses from the ship’s increased weight and length. Hogging would greatly slow and eventually sink a ship. Humphreys mitigated this hogging via huge internal braces that used the weight of the cannons to push down against the center of the hull and prevent it from buckling inward. White, The Federalists, p. 157; Palmer, Stoddert’s War, pp. 125–126; Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, p. 644; Hickey, The War of 1812, p. 91; Toll, Six Frigates, pp. 48–50.

  13. Palmer, Stoddert’s War, pp. 125–126.

  14. U.S. Office of Naval Records and Library, Naval Documents related to the Quasi-war between the United States and France, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1935), pp. v–vi, 185; Leonard D. White, The Jeffersonians: A Study in Administrative History (New York: Macmillan, 1951), p. 291.

  15. Hickey, The War of 1812, p. 7; Palmer, Stoddert’s War, pp. 98–103, 130–131, 235; Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, pp. 653–654, 890–891; Toll, Six Frigates, pp. 117–120, 128.

  16. Palmer, Stoddert’s War, pp. 125–127, 141.

  17. According to Tench Coxe’s Statement of the Arts and Manufactures of the United States of America for the year 1810 (Philadelphia, 1814), hemp was produced in every state in 1810, with Kentucky providing the largest quantity. Also see U.S. Office of Naval Records and Library, Naval Documents related to the Quasi-war between the United States and France, vol. 2 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1935), pp. 129–134.

  18. Palmer, Stoddert’s War, pp. 33–35.

  19. Nathan Rosenberg, “Why in America?” in Yankee Enterprise: The Rise of the American System of Manufactures, ed. Otto Mayr and Robert C. Post (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981), pp. 53–54; John F. Kasson, Civilizing the Machine (New York: Hill and Wang, 1979), p. 22.

  20. Cicero quoted in Kasson, Civilizing the Machine, p. 7. Also see Walter Licht, Industrializing America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), pp. 2, 16; Kasson, Civilizing the Machine, pp. 4–8; John R. Nelson, Liberty and Property (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), pp. 41–45; Schultz, The Republic of Labor, p. 114; Drew R. McCoy, The Elusive Republic (New York: Norton, 1982), pp. 107–111.

  21. Licht, Industrializing America, pp. 15–16; Kasson, Civilizing the Machine, pp. 16–17. American gov
ernment officials, including Jefferson, encouraged the emigration of British artisans. Artisan knowledge was seen as a method of securing economic independence from England, while large-scale manufacturing inspired concern. Doron S. Ben-Atar, Trade Secrets: Intellectual Piracy and the Origins of American Industrial Power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), pp. 118–133.

  22. Quoted from Ralph Ketcham, ed., The Political Thought of Benjamin Franklin (New York: Hackett Publishing Company, 2003), p. 364.

  23. Kasson, Civilizing the Machine, pp. 16–17, 20, 38, 40; Licht, Industrializing America, pp. 13–14.

  24. Rush became the first president of the United Company of Philadelphia for Promoting American Manufactures in 1775. This company employed almost five hundred people to produce cotton, linen, and woolen products. Rush warned that dependence upon British goods would soon become subjection to British domination and even slavery, while domestic manufactures would increase independent self-reliance and efficiently employ the nonagricultural labor force. Kasson, Civilizing the Machine, pp. 9–10.

  25. Coxe, Statement of the Arts and Manufactures of the United States of America for the year 1810, p. xxv.

  26. Licht, Industrializing America, p. 2; Jacob E. Cooke, Tench Coxe and the Early Republic (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978), pp. 156–157; Kasson, Civilizing the Machine, pp. 29–30; McCoy, The Elusive Republic, pp. 113–117; Lawrence A. Peskin, Manufacturing Revolution: The Intellectual Origins of Early American Industry (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), pp. 94–97.

  27. Michael B. Folsom and Steven D. Lubar, The Philosophy of Manufactures (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), pp. xxiii, xxvi; Nelson, Liberty and Property, pp. 43–45; Merritt Roe Smith, “Technological Determinism in American Culture” in Does Technology Drive History, ed. Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994), pp. 2–5; Coxe, Statement of the Arts and Manufactures of the United States of America for the year 1810, p. xx.

  28. Licht, Industrializing America, pp. 13–14; Brooke Hindle, Emulation and Invention (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1981), p. 21; John R. Nelson, “Manufactures Reconsidered,” in Major Problems in the History of American Technology, ed. Merritt Roe Smith and Gregory Clancey (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998), pp. 132–133.

  29. The most spectacular failure of the early manufacturing societies was the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures, formed by some of Alexander Hamilton’s colleagues with his support in 1791. Aided by political support and tax exemption from different state legislatures, a highly influential group of investors, a favorable charter from New Jersey, and more than $625,000 in capital from sales of its shares, it intended to create a cotton factory of unprecedented size that would eventually produce iron, glass, paper, and other products. However, it lacked technical and managerial manufacturing expertise and failed after some of its directors became bankrupt in a financial crisis of 1792. Worse yet, the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures’ high-profile connection between a for-profit institution and public officials who stood to benefit from it raised opposition to government sponsorship of industry, which suppressed the pro-manufacturing supporters for many years after its public failure. Curtis P. Nettels, The Emergence of a National Economy, 1775–1815 (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1962), pp. 124–125; Brooke Hindle and Steven Lubar, Engines of Change: The American Industrial Revolution, 1790–1860 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1986), p. 89; Hindle, Emulation and Invention, pp. 16–17; Jensen, The New Nation, pp. 224–226, 286–287, 293, 297; Neil York, Mechanical Metamorphosis: Technological Change in Revolutionary America (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1985), pp. 41–42, 164–167; Licht, Industrializing America, pp. 17–18.

  30. Maurer Maurer, “Coppered Bottoms for the Royal Navy: A Factor in the Maritime War of 1778–1783,” Military Affairs 14, no. 2 (Summer 1950): 57, 60.

  31. Quote from R. J. B. Knight, “The Introduction of Copper Sheathing into the Royal Navy 1779–1786,” The Mariner’s Mirror 59 (August 1973): 299. Also see J. R. Harris, Industrial Espionage and Technology Transfer (Brookfield: Ashgate Publishing, 1998), pp. 262–264; Edgard Moreno, “Patriotism and Profit: The Copper Mills at Canton” in Paul Revere—Artisan, Businessman, and Patriot (Boston: Paul Revere Memorial Association, 1988), p. 98.

  32. Quotes and other information taken from Maurer, “Coppered Bottoms for the Royal Navy,” pp. 58–60.

  33. Knight, “Introduction of Copper Sheathing,” pp. 299–302, 306–307; Charles K. Hyde, Copper for America (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1998), p. 10; Harris, Industrial Espionage and Technology Transfer, pp. 262–264.

  34. The French navy went to great lengths to understand and emulate the developments taking place in the Royal Navy. Faced with their own massive and debilitating costs for replacing wooden hulls, French manufacturers attempted to duplicate the copper sheet rolling process but had great difficulty mastering it. Prior to 1783, France relied upon hammered copper plates, which were rough, often fell off because the fasteners rusted, and were not fully effective at deterring barnacles. But successful industrial espionage and the hiring of English workers allowed France to catch up. The French also depended on English-made rollers, which were increasingly hard to come by. Harris, Industrial Espionage and Technology Transfer, pp. 267–277.

  35. Maurer, “Coppered Bottoms for the United States Navy,” p. 694.

  36. Knight, “Introduction of Copper Sheathing,” pp. 299–300; Margaret H. Hazen and Robert M. Hazen, Wealth Inexhaustible (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1985), p. 92; Maxwell Whiteman, Copper for America: The Hendricks Family and a National Industry, 1755–1939 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1971), p. 47; Moreno, “Patriotism and Profit: The Copper Mills at Canton,” p. 101.

  37. Whiteman, Copper for America, p. 47; Moreno, “Patriotism and Profit: The Copper Mills at Canton,” p. 99; James A. Mulholland, History of Metals in Colonial America (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1981), p. 161.

  38. Maurer, “Coppered Bottoms for the United States Navy,” p. 696.

  39. The dates of early iron-rolling mills in America are unknown, but they certainly started to appear around 1810 or so. Thomas C. Cochran, Frontiers of Change: Early Industrialism in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), p. 72; Mulholland, A History of Metals in Colonial America, pp. 92–93; Henry Kauffman, American Copper and Brass (Camden, N.J.: T. Nelson, 1968), pp. 20–23.

  40. U.S. Office of Naval Records and Library, Naval Documents related to the Quasi-war between the United States and France, vol. 3 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1936), p. 194.

  41. “The 74’s” refer to the new 74-gun ships under construction. U.S. Office of Naval Records and Library, Naval Documents related to the Quasi-war between the United States and France, vol. 4 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1937), p. 112.

  42. Nicholas Roosevelt was a member of the famous Roosevelt family and great-granduncle to President Theodore Roosevelt. Following these early manufacturing attempts, he worked on steamboat technology with Robert Fulton and eventually built and sailed the New Orleans, the first steamboat to operate on western rivers.

  43. U.S. Office of Naval Records and Library, Quasi-war between the United States and France, vol. 4, pp. 118–119.

  44. U.S. Office of Naval Records and Library, Naval Documents related to the Quasi-war between the United States and France, vol. 5 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1937), pp. 58–62.

  45. U.S. Office of Naval Records and Library, Quasi-war between the United States and France, vol. 5, pp. 58–62.

  46. Paul Revere to Jacob Sheafe, Esq., December 7, 1798, “Letterbook 1783–1800,” reel 14, vol. 53.1, RFP; U.S. Office of Naval Records and Library, Quasi-war Between the United States and France, vol. 5, p. 139; Moreno, “Patriotism and Profit: The Copper Mills at Canton,” p. 101.

  47. Paul Revere to Benjamin Stoddard (sic) Esq., Decemb
er 31, 1798, “Letterbook 1783–1800,” reel 14, vol. 53.1, RFP.

  48. Paul Revere to Benjamin Stoddard (sic) Esq., February 26, 1800, “Letterbook 1783–1800,” reel 14, vol. 53.1, RFP.

  49. Paul Revere to Harrison G. Otis, March 11, 1800, H. G. Otis Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

  50. U.S. Office of Naval Records and Library, Quasi-war between the United States and France, vol. 5, p. 542.

  51. U.S. Office of Naval Records and Library, Naval Documents related to the Quasi-war between the United States and France, vol. 6 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1938), pp. 95, 517.

  52. Hyde, Copper for America, p. 9.

  53. Robert B. Gordon and Patrick M. Malone, The Texture of Industry (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 247.

  54. The uncertainty surrounding the exact date of Revere’s land purchase, which could have happened at any time between January 1800 and March 1801, is described in Jayne E. Triber, A True Republican (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998), p. 268, note 4.

  55. Elbridge Henry Goss, The Life of Colonel Paul Revere (Boston: Plimpton Press, 1902), p. 556; Moreno, “Patriotism and Profit: The Copper Mills at Canton,” p. 102. Waterpower issues are discussed in more detail in Chapter Eight.

  56. September 1800 memorandum in “Memoranda Book 1797–1801,” reel 14, vol. 51.14, RFP.

  57. Revere to Eben [Lux], January 13, 1801, and Paul Revere to William Bennoch, May 12, 1802, both in “Letterbook 1783–1800,” reel 14, vol. 53.1, RFP.

  58. Paul Revere to Benjamin Stoddert, January 17, 1801, “Letterbook 1783–1800,” reel 14, vol. 53.1, RFP.