Library and Genealogical Manuscripts OF THE LATE PERLEY DERBY, OF SALEM,. THE WELL-KNOWN GENEALOGIST. Hayward's Gazetteer of the United States. Ill.; sheep; 8 vo.; pp. 861; Hartford, 1853, $1.25 Nicoll Family of Orange County, N. Y. Ill.; thin boards; Sm. folio; pp. 78; N. Y., 1886, $1.50 Dinsmoor-Dinsmore Family. By L. A. Morrison. Cloth; 12mo.; pp. 48; portrait; Lowell, 1891. $1.00 Manchester, Mass., Town Records of. 2 vols.; boards; 8vo.; pp, 211, 212; Salem; 1889, 1891. . Barton Genealogy. Manuscript; pp. 36; pa per; 4to. $15.00 This also contains the early generations of Allerton, Bullock, Maverick and Roberts families; with the Barton coat of arms. Potter Family. Descendants of Anthony Potter of Ipswich, born 1628. Manuscript; paper; $5.00 4to.; pp. 72; with 7 broadsides. . 400 persons arranged. Marston Family. Manuscript records. Paper; 4to.; pp. 78. $5.00 This contains descendants of William Marston and of John Marston, both of Salem; abstracts from Old Norfolk county records (probate, deeds and court records, and births, marriages and deaths); Salem town records; Essex county deeds, and births, marriages and deaths; and coat of arms. Sibley Family. Manuscript; 4to.; paper; $3.00 PP. 13. Estes Genealogies. Descendants of Matthew and Richard Estes. Manuscript; paper; 4to.; pp. 83. $2.00 $4.00 Carlton, Perley and Tyler Familes. Man $8.00 IlHyde Park, Mass., Memorial Sketch of. lustrated; cloth; 8vo.; pp. 96; Boston, 1888. $1.00 Estes Genealogies, 1097-1893. By Charles Estes. 6 plates; 8vo.; cloth; pp. 401; Salem, 1894. $3.00 Gray Genealogy. By M. D. Raymond. Cloth; 8vo. ; pp. 316; 31 portraits; coat of arms; Tarrytown, N. Y., 1887. New England. A True Relation concerning the Estate of New England as it was presented to his Matie. (From a manuscript in the British Museum, written about 1634, and transcribed by Henry F. Waters.) Sm. 4to.; $1.00 paper; pp. 21; Boston, 1886. American Ancestry. Munsell's. Vol. VI. 8vo.; $3.00 bds; Albany, 1891. Bradford, Vt., History of, with Genealogical Record, By S. McKeen. Portraits; 8vo.; cloth; pp. 463; Montpelier, 1875. $2.00 Symmes Memorial. By 7. A. Vinton. Ill.; 8vo.; cloth; pp. 184; Boston, 1873. $2.50 Morrison Genealogy. By L. A. Morrison. Ills. ; 8vo. ; cloth; pp. 468; Boston, 1880. $5. Swift. Memoirs of Gen. Joseph G. Swift and Genealogy of the Family. By Harrison Ellery. Portrait; 4to.; cloth; pp. 361; Worcester, 1890. $4.50 $2.50 Hutchinson Genealogy. By Perley Derby. 8vo. ; $2.00 cloth; pp. 107; Salem, 1870. Driver Genealogy. By H. Ruth Cooke. 8vo.; cloth; pp. 531; N. Y., 1889. Gloucester, Mass., History of. ditions. By J. J. Babson. 8vo.; cloth; pp. 94, 187. Salem, 1876, 1891. Notes and Ad 2 vols. in one. Gloucester and $4.00 Dudley Genealogy. By Dean Dudley. Ills. and tabular pedigrees. 4 parts. 8vo.; cloth; pp. $10.00 616; Wakefield, 1886, 1889, 1890. Perkins Genealogy. By Geo. A. Perkins. vols.; 8vo.; cloth; pp. 174, 152; Salem, 1884, 1889. $4.00 2 $2.00 uscript; paper; 4to.; pp. 24. Chebacco (Essex, Mass.) Church Records. Extracts from, concerning families of Perkins and Proctor. Manuscript; 4to.; pp. 17; paper. $5.00 This also contains Barker and Dow probate records, and Barker deeds, and early generations of the Barker and Towne families. Cook and Whittredge Families, Manuscript 61. $10.00 records of. 4to; paper; PP.. This book consists of records of births, marriages and deaths, probate records and deeds of the Cook family; arranged genealogical matter of the Whittredge family of Beverly; and some records of the Knapps. Mansfield Genealogy. Descendants of Robert Mansfield of Lynn. Manuscript; pp. 33; $15.00 4to; paper. 266 persons arranged. Waite Family. Manuscript; 4to; paper; PP. $2.00 25. This contains extracts from Worcester county probate records and deeds; Hampshire county probate records; and Brookfield, Hadley, Hatfield and Northampton town records. Also, some early generations of the Broughton family of Marblehead. Farnum Family Deeds. Manuscript; 4to.; $2.00 paper; pp. 18. Cummings Genealogy. Manuscript; pp. 73; paper; 4to. This manuscript also contains Mr. Derby's notes and abstracts of the Probate records and deeds of the Cummings' in Essex County. 221 persons are arranged. Buffum Genealogy. Manuscript; 4to.; paper; $25.00 PP. 79. This also contains notes from the Friends' Records: Historical collections: Salem town records: Essex county (Mass.) probate records and deeds Address, THE ESSEX ANTIQUARIAN, SALEM, MASS. THE ESSEX ANTIQUARIAN. VOL. II. SALEM, MASS., MAY, 1898. THE MANUFACTURE OF NAILS IN ESSEX COUNTY. For more than a century and a half after the settlement of Essex county all nails were made by hand. Large quantities were used, and a great deal of manual labor was expended in their manufacture. They were usually forged from strips of iron of good quality called nailrod, being bars rolled at the mills into a size suitable for the purpose. Nailrod was flat, about three-eighths of an inch wide and threesixteenths thick, and remains of that size at the present day. The making of nails has always been the first accomplishment of blacksmith's apprentices, who probably made the larger part of the hand-wrought nails used in this county. The appliances for hand manufacture were simple and few. A small forge, a small anvil, having a chisel set in it, a hammer, and a "bolster," comprised the outfit, with the exception of a pair of tongs with which to handle the nailrod when the bar became short. The "bolster was a piece of steel, ordinarily about ten inches in length, one and a quarter inches wide, and half an inch thick. If only one size of nails was to be made by it there was a hole of the size of the wire of the nail to be made in one end of it. If two sizes were to be wrought with it, there was a different sized hole in the other end. The operation was simple, and quickly done by a dexterous hand. The rod was first heated, which in a hot forge fire was done in a moment or two, but generally two rods were heating at a time, that no time might be lost by waiting for a heat. No. 5. When heated, the end of the rod was rounded to the size desired by being pounded with the hammer on the anvil, then pointed or flattened. A little uneven mass, slightly rounded, was left for the head, and on the chisel, by a stroke of the hammer, the section was nearly severed just above the part left for the head. It was then re-heated, for being so small the rod cools quickly, and when of the right heat the end was thrust into one of the holes of the "bolster," and severed from the rod by a twist of the hand. The " bolster" was held on the anvil in the left hand by the end that was not in use, and with the hammer in the right hand the nail maker drove it to its head, which was quickly formed by a few skillful blows. The heads were generally oval, round and from one-half to three-fourths of an inch in diameter. Sometimes, for special uses, the head was made long and narrow, and then it was called a "T" head. Brads and other kinds of small nails as well as spikes were made in the same way. Horse-shoe nails required the best Swedish iron and the most skillful workmanship, as tough and hard hoofs were liable to break or split them, and thus injure the foot. In the early days, large quantities of nails were imported from England, Birmingham and its vicinity being the place of their manufacture. They were made there much cheaper than they could be here. But after the trouble with the mother country began, in 1767, "sheathing and deck nails were included in the non-importation agreement of the Ameri can merchants; and in January, 1774, the Provincial congress recommended, among other things, the manufacture of nails. The Revolution caused a great scarcity of nails, and when the war was over their manufacture received a great impulse. Many of the farmers set up little forges in their kitchens, and in the long winter evenings and cold stormy days made nails, the children rendering assistance. So many of the people did this that large quantities of nails were thus produced. The nailrod was furnished to them by merchants, to whom the nails were duly returned, compensation being made for the work and cost of manufacture. The demand was so great and the hand method of manufacture so expensive and slow that American inventors turned their attention to devising some mechanical contrivance that would perform the work. The old world kept on in its old fashioned methods, and allowed America to produce the first nails made by machinery. Jeremiah Wilkinson of Cumberland, R. I., a manufacturer of hand cards for carding cotton and wool, about 1775 adopted the plan of cutting the tacks he used from a sheet of iron with a pair of shears, and afterward heading them in a vice. He subsequently cut nails in a similar way, and is said to have been the first to make nails and tacks in that manner. It is claimed that Ezekiel Reed, a native of Bridgewater, about 1786 invented a machine for cutting cold tacks and nails, which was adopted at Abington. The first machines to make complete nails was invented by an Essex county young man in 1790. This was Jacob Perkins, son of Matthew and Jane (Noyes) Perkins, of Newburyport, where he was born July 9, 1766. He was sent to the district school at the usual age, and continued to receive instruction there until he was twelve. His father being poor, he was then apprenticed to a goldsmith in Newburyport named Davis, having indicated a fondness for the mechanic arts, which probably germinated by hearing a watch tick, and in the execution of a pur pose to know why and how it ticked. The business of the goldsmith was the making of gold beads, which were then commonly worn by girls and women. Mr. Davis died three years later, and Mr. Perkins, then only fifteen, continued the business, adding the manufacture of the then popular shoe-buckles. He was industrious and honest, and soon secured an excellent reputation. He also made the Portugese joes which were then in circulation. He discovered a new method of plating shoebuckles, and was by the new process enabled to undersell all competitors. Before he was of age he turned his attention to machinery. When twenty-one, he was employed by the master of the Massachusetts mint to make a suitable die for striking copper coins, and the result of his genius was the die which formed the old cent bearing the engraving of the eagle and the Indian. * At the age of twenty-four, in 1790,† he invented machines for cutting and heading nails-machines which, with subsequent improvements, increased the daily product of one man's labor from one thousand nails to one thousand pounds. It is said that he produced this machine at Byfield, where he made the first cut nails in America, in the barn of Leonard Adams. At Amesbury, there were iron works, and Mr. Perkins went there and perfected his nail machine, a patent being granted to him therefor Jan. 16, 1795. The heading machine would head six thousand brads an hour, and the slitting machine would cut several times as many, very little personal supervision being needed. The carpenters approved of the nails, and they came into immediate use. *The building occupied by Jacob Perkins as a laboratory and workshop in Newburyport is still standing in the rear of a dwelling house on the three-storied, narrow in proportion to its height, upper side of Fruit street. It is of brick, and and sadly out of repair. I think the lower part is used for storage.-Emily A. Getchell. +Samuel Rogers of Bridgewater claimed that he made a machine for making nails at the same date. See Essex Registry of Deeds, Executions, book 3, leaf 150. |