Captains of Industry | Page 6

forging pot-hooks. Every cent of his spending money
was earned in similar ways. Once he made six toasting-irons, and
carried them to Worcester, where he sold them for a dollar and a
quarter each, taking a book in part payment. When his sister was
married he made her a wedding present of a toasting-iron. Nor was it an
easy matter for an apprentice then to do work in over-time, for he was

expected to labor in his master's service from sunrise to sunset in the
summer, and from sunrise to nine o'clock in the winter.
On a bright day in August, 1818, his twentieth birthday, he was out of
his time, and, according to the custom of the period, he celebrated the
joyful event by a game of ball! In a few months, having saved a little
money, he went into business as a manufacturer of ploughs, in which
he had some little success. But still yearning to know more of
machinery he entered upon what we may call his third apprenticeship,
in an armory near Worcester, where he soon acquired skill enough to
do the finer parts of the work. Then he engaged in the manufacture of
lead pipe, in which he attained a moderate success.
At length, in 1831, being then thirty-three years old, he began the
business of making wire, in which he continued during the remainder
of his active life. The making of wire, especially the finer and better
kinds, is a nice operation. Until Ichabod Washburn entered into the
business, wire of good quality was not made in the United States; and
there was only one house in Great Britain that had the secret of making
the steel wire for pianos, and they had had a monopoly of the
manufacture for about eighty years.
Wire is made by drawing a rod of soft, hot iron through a hole which is
too small for it. If a still smaller sized wire is desired, it is drawn
through a smaller hole, and this process is repeated until the required
size is attained. Considerable power is needed to draw the wire through,
and the hole through which it is drawn is soon worn larger. The first
wire machine that Washburn ever saw was arranged with a pair of
self-acting pincers which drew a foot of wire and then had to let go and
take a fresh hold. By this machine a man could make fifty pounds of
coarse wire in a day. He soon improved this machine so that the pincers
drew fifteen feet without letting go; and by this improvement alone the
product of one man's labor was increased about eleven times. A good
workman could make five or six hundred pounds a day by it. By
another improvement which Washburn adopted the product was
increased to twenty-five hundred pounds a day.
He was now in his element. He always had a partner to manage the

counting-room part of the business, which he disliked.
"I never," said he, "had taste or inclination for it, always preferring to
be among the machinery, doing the work and handling the tools I was
used to, though oftentimes at the expense of a smutty face and greasy
hands."
His masterpiece in the way of invention was his machinery for making
steel wire for pianos,--a branch of the business which was urged upon
him by the late Jonas Chickering, piano manufacturer, of Boston. The
most careless glance at the strings of a piano shows us that the wire
must be exquisitely tempered and most thoroughly wrought, in order to
remain in tune, subjected as they are to a steady pull of many tons.
Washburn experimented for years in perfecting his process, and he was
never satisfied until he was able to produce a wire which he could
honestly claim to be the best in the world. He had amazing success in
his business. At one time he was making two hundred and fifty
thousand yards of crinoline wire every day. His whole daily product
was seven tons of iron wire, and five tons of steel wire.
This excellent man, in the midst of a success which would have dazzled
and corrupted some men, retained all the simplicity, the modesty, and
the generosity of his character. He felt, as he said, nowhere so much at
home as among his own machinery, surrounded by thoughtful
mechanics, dressed like them for work, and possibly with a black
smudge upon his face. In his person, however, he was scrupulously
clean and nice, a hater of tobacco and all other polluting things and
lowering influences.
Rev. H. T. Cheever, the editor of his "Memorials," mentions also that
he remained to the end of his life in the warmest sympathy with the
natural desires of the workingman. He was a