Captains of Industry | Page 3

he was, forty years ago, in a small village of the State of New
York; no railroad yet, and even the Erie Canal many miles distant. He
was the village blacksmith, his establishment consisting of himself and
a boy to blow the bellows.
He was a good deal troubled with his hammers. Sometimes the heads
would fly off. If the metal was too soft, the hammer would spread out
and wear away; if it was too hard, it would split.
At that time blacksmiths made their own hammers, and he knew very
little about mixing ores so as to produce the toughest iron. But he was
particularly troubled with the hammer getting off the handle, a mishap
which could be dangerous as well as inconvenient.
At this point of his narrative the old gentleman showed a number of old
hammers, such as were in use before he began to improve the
instrument; and it was plain that men had tried very hard before him to
overcome this difficulty.
One hammer had an iron rod running down through the handle with a
nut screwed on at the end. Another was wholly composed of iron, the
head and handle being all of one piece. There were various other
devices, some of which were exceedingly clumsy and awkward.
At last, he hit upon an improvement which led to his being able to put a
hammer upon a handle in such a way that it would stay there. He made
what is called an adze-handled hammer, the head being attached to the
handle after the manner of an adze.
The improvement consists in merely making a longer hole for the
handle to go into, by which device it has a much firmer hold of the
head, and can easily be made extremely tight.

With this improvement, if the handle is well seasoned and well wedged,
there is no danger of the head flying off. He made some other changes,
all of them merely for his own convenience, without a thought of going
into the manufacture of hammers.
The neighborhood in which he lived would have scarcely required half
a dozen new hammers per annum. But one day there came to the
village six carpenters to work upon a new church, and one of these men,
having left his hammer at home, came to David Maydole's blacksmith's
shop to get one made.
"Make me as good a hammer," said the carpenter, "as you know how."
That was touching David upon a tender place.
"As good a one as I know how?" said he. "But perhaps you don't want
to pay for as good a one as I know how to make."
"Yes, I do," replied the man; "I want a good hammer."
The blacksmith made him one of his best. It was probably the best
hammer that had ever been made in the world, since it contained two or
three important improvements never before combined in the
instrument.
The carpenter was delighted with it, and showed it, with a good deal of
exultation, to his five companions; every man of whom came the next
day to the shop and wanted one just like it. They did not understand all
the blacksmith's notions about tempering and mixing the metals, but
they saw at a glance that the head and the handle were so united that
there never was likely to be any divorce between them.
To a carpenter building a wooden house, the mere removal of that one
defect was a boon beyond price; he could hammer away with
confidence, and without fear of seeing the head of his hammer leap into
the next field, unless stopped by a comrade's head.
When all the six carpenters had been supplied with these improved

hammers, the contractor came and ordered two more. He seemed to
think, and, in fact, said as much, that the blacksmith ought to make his
hammers a little better than those he had made for the men.
"I can't make any better ones," said honest David. "When I make a
thing, I make it as well as I can, no matter who it's for."
Soon after, the store-keeper of the village, seeing what excellent
hammers these were, gave the blacksmith a magnificent order for two
dozen, which, in due time, were placed upon his counter for sale.
At this time something happened to David Maydole which may fairly
be called good luck; and you will generally notice events of the kind in
the lives of meritorious men. "Fortune favors the brave," is an old
saying, and good luck in business is very apt to befall the man who
could do very well without it.
It so happened that a New York dealer in tools, named Wood, whose
store is still kept in Chatham Street, New York,