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39-620: Henry Burden was born in Dunblane, Perthshire, Scotland, April 22, 1791, the son of a farmer. He studied engineering at the University of Edinburgh, and emigrated to America in 1819. Burden started at the Townsend & Corning Foundry, manufacturers of cast iron plows and other agricultural implements, located in Albany . The next year, he invented an improved plow, and a cultivator, which

78-418: A keg. A network of railroad tracks moved trainloads of iron ore, and sand among the blast furnaces and steam mills. The company owned its own locomotive. The steam derricks, used for unloading coal, were designed by Burden's son William . A wire cable stretched between, on which an iron carriage traveled three hundred feet from the dock to the coal heap, carrying a self-dumping bucket with the capacity to hold

117-421: A lifetime in devising means for lightening toil". Margaret Elizabeth Burden Proudfit (1824–1911), Henry's and Helen's first daughter, wrote a long biographical account of her family. Margaret was an accomplished draughtswoman and writer. Two of Henry's grandsons, James A. Burden Jr. and William A. M. Burden Sr. , married granddaughters of William Henry Vanderbilt . Another grandson, Arthur Scott Burden ,

156-516: A number of wagons to move the ore, coal, sand, clay, and manufactured goods from the different mills. It also owned extensive iron mines with superior quality ore, and a number of limestone quarries to serve the furnaces. An exhibit on Greater Troy's industrial history is housed in the former office of the Burden Iron Works. Constructed 1881-2, the distinguished brick Romanesque Revival building contains examples of objects manufactured in

195-511: A patent for a machine to make spikes, which up until then were made by hand. The Burden Iron Works produced the first ship spikes and the first horseshoes made by machinery in the world. In 1835 he designed the "Horseshoe Machine" that could produce 60 shoes a minute. Burden became the chief horseshoe producer for the Union Army. Burden became involved in supplying the iron needed by the nation's rapidly expanding railroads. In 1840 he obtained

234-548: A patent for the "rotary squeezer", which came to be used in all the leading iron manufactories in both America and Europe. Burden held twelve patents in total. He was also among the first to suggest the use of plates for iron-clad seagoing vessels, and sent specimen plates of his own manufacture to Glasgow for testing. The company forged the hull plates for the USS ; Monitor , the Navy's first iron-clad battleship, which engaged

273-544: A patent for the first hook-headed spike. He made ten tons of these for the Long Island Railroad in 1836. His suit against Corning and Winslow for patent infringement lasted from 1842 to 1867, when the patent was upheld. The hook-headed spike he invented was used on nearly every railroad in the United States, contributing to the rapid progress of railroad building in the country. Also in 1840 he obtained

312-485: A supply store with a draughting room and laboratory. Coal dust and smoke from the furnaces spread over the Iron Works district of Troy. Together the two sites contained sixty puddling furnaces, twenty heating furnaces, fourteen trains of rolls, three rotary squeezers, nine horseshoe machines, twelve rivet machines which each produced eighty rivets a minute, ten large and fifteen small steam engines, seventy boilers, and

351-416: A supply store, and the general business office. The Lower Works contained two massive blast furnaces of brick and stone, each sixty-five feet high; two casting houses, two stock houses, an engine room, a puddling forge, a rolling mill, a swaging shop, a punching shop, a horseshoe warehouse, more offices, a machine shop, a blacksmith shop, a foundry, a pattern shop, a tin and plumbing shop, an iron warehouse, and

390-499: A ton at a time. He originated a system of reservoirs along the Wynantskill Creek to hold the water in reserve and increase the water-supply to power the mills. In order to find the necessary power to run his foundry, in 1851 Burden designed and constructed a 60-foot wheel that could generate 500 horsepower. The poet Louis Gaylor Clark, characterized the huge wheel as the "Niagara of Water-Wheels". The wheel's design caught

429-423: A ton of coal. A steam engine hoisted the filled bucket to the cable, along which it traveled to the point where the tilting apparatus overturned its contents upon the pile. Alongside the coal heaps were vast deposits of iron ore, mostly from the area of Lake Champlain. There were also piles of limestone, from the downstream city of Hudson , used as flux to help in the fusion of the ores. The firm owned 50 horses and

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468-700: Is described as a large man with deep-set eyes and a cheerful demeanor. An accomplished mechanic, he could make a better piece of work than any man in his shops; and could deal a heavier blow with a sledge than any of his strikers at the forge. Upright himself, he was apt to assume the uprightness of others. The Henry Burden family papers are located at the William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. They contain correspondence from 1816 to 1853 between Burden, his business acquaintances, and his sons pertaining to his numerous industrial inventions and to

507-581: The Burden Iron Works . Burden's horseshoe machine, invented in 1835, was capable of making 60 horseshoes a minute. His rotary concentric squeezer, a machine for working wrought iron, was adopted by iron industries worldwide. His hook-headed spike machine helped fuel the rapid expansion of railroads in the U.S. The Burden Iron Works is now an historical site and museum. Henry Burden was born on April 22, 1791 in Dunblane , Stirlingshire , Scotland ,

546-477: The Cunard Line . Woodside Presbyterian Church was built in 1869 by Henry Burden on land owned by Erastus Corning, of Corning's Albany Iron Works as a memorial to the wife of Henry Burden, who died in 1860. She had expressed concern for the iron workers and their families, who had to walk miles in inclement weather to churches in downtown Troy and wished for a church closer to the Iron Works. An inscription on

585-643: The "suspension" type, with iron rods in tension replacing the usual arms. It was made almost entirely of iron, save for the drum or soling of the wheel and its buckets. This great wheel was continuously in service night and day for nearly one half of a century. Following its abandonment in the 1890s, it lay idle for another twenty years before its final collapse. A local poet had called it 'the Niagara of Water-wheels' The American muralist Arthur Covey produced an etching of this water wheel titled The Great Wheel, South Troy . The immense establishment comprised two works -

624-578: The 'upper works,' or water mills, on the Wynantskill , a short distance east of the Hudson River, and the new works, called the 'lower works,' or steam mills, located on the 'farm company' property and the Hoyle farm. The Upper Works contained a rolling mill and puddling forge, a horseshoe factory, a warehouse which could store 7,000 tons of horseshoes, a rivet factory, a rivet warehouse, the stables,

663-523: The American Minister in London. Burden started at the Townsend & Corning Foundry, manufacturers of cast iron plows and other agricultural implements, located in Albany ’s south end - near today’s Port of Albany. In 1820, he invented an improved plow, which took first premium at three county fairs, and a cultivator, which was said to have been the first to be put into practical operation in

702-519: The Confederacy's Merrimac in 1862 in the first battle of its kind. As the manufacture of iron became the principal business of this company, Burden supervised the construction of blast furnaces, Bessemer-type furnaces and rolling mills. Burden replaced the small wooden mill with a large millworks. The river adjacent to the works was shallow and full of bars, and the land along the river was low and frequently flooded. At great expense, Burden had

741-471: The boats, he suggested, for the convenience and accommodation of passengers, the erection of sleeping-berth-rooms on the upper decks, being a decided change from the holds of vessels, where they had previously been placed. His views on navigation being known, some gentlemen of Glasgow issued, with his permission, a prospectus of "Burden's Atlantic Steam-Ferry Company." Although the company never materialized his ideas were subsequently imitated by Samuel Cunard of

780-401: The building of the steamer 'Hendrick Hudson.' In 1833, he created the steamboat "Helen," named in honor of his wife. Its deck rested upon two cigar-shaped hulls, three hundred feet in length, with a paddle-wheel amidships thirty feet in diameter. The boat was lost on its first trial due to pilot mismanagement, and Burden turned his attention to ocean navigation. Besides increasing the length of

819-659: The business affairs of the Troy Iron and Nail Factory in Troy, New York. The collection documents the iron industry in the mid-19th century, as well as the market for Burden's numerous industrial inventions. Burden had a great interest in navigation. As early as 1825 he laid before the Troy Steamboat Association certain original plans whereby the construction of steamboats for inland navigation could be greatly improved, and which some years later were adopted in

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858-709: The church wall reads, "Woodside Memorial Church, dedicated to the service of the Triune God, has been erected to the memory of Helen Burden by her husband, Henry Burden, in accordance with her long-cherished and earnest desire, 1869." Erected at a cost of $ 75,000, it was the third most expensive church edifice in Troy at the time. The site is adjacent to Wynantskill Creek. On January 23, 1821, at Saint Gabriel Presbyterian Church in Montreal , Québec , Henry Burden wed Helen McOuat (1802–1860), whom he had known in Scotland. She

897-567: The city throughout the 19th century. The museum is operated by the Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway. The museum is open by appointment only. 42°42′35″N 73°41′56″W  /  42.709859°N 73.698972°W  / 42.709859; -73.698972 Henry Burden Henry Burden (April 22, 1791 – January 19, 1871) was an engineer and businessman who built an industrial complex in Troy, New York called

936-512: The country. He also made mechanical improvements on threshing machines and grist mills. He moved to Troy, New York , in 1822, and worked as superintendent of the Troy Iron and Nail Factory. His position at the company included the supervision of its operations. The factory was located on north side of the Wynantskill Creek in South Troy, about a half-mile northeast of today’s Troy-Menands bridge. Burden's inventions, which automated work that

975-663: The eye of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute student George W.G. Ferris, who in 1893 unveiled his own invention, the Ferris Wheel, similar to Henry Burden's water wheel. Some idea of the magnitude of the ironworks at Troy is suggested by the fact that in 1864 the cost of iron, coal, and other materials was over $ 1,500,000. Burden Iron Works used 90,000 tons of coal annually. In 1880 the ironworks employed 1,400 men. The ironworks produced 600,000 kegs of horseshoes and 42,000 tons of iron, exclusive of pig, annually. Their yearly sales of horseshoes average about $ 2,000,000. Burden himself

1014-404: The great water-wheel. The puddling furnaces employed hundreds of men, stripped to the waist, wearing hob-nailed shoes, and covered in coal dust. Boys worked at the swaging furnaces, removing the heated horseshoes with tongs and placing them on the revolving dies of the swaging machine. Burden's works manufactured horseshoes in a variety of patterns and sizes. They were packed for shipping 100 lbs. to

1053-493: The grounds filled in, and the river dredged, so that the company's docks were accessible to large vessels. A network of railroad tracks wove through the property to move train loads of sand, iron ore from the Lake Champlain region, and limestone from the downriver city of Hudson . The firm had its own locomotive. Steam derricks were used to unload coal from the dock and move it to the coal heap, three hundred feet distant,

1092-654: The ironworks. On the day of the funeral the Burden Mills, the Albany Iron Works, the J.A. Griswold & Co. works, and the Cohoes rolling mill of Morrison and Colwell all closed so that the workers could attend. Also in attendance was the Thomas Cornet Band wearing "the usual badge of mourning". At one time Henry Burden employed almost one-eighth of the population of the city of Troy, and "spent

1131-465: The necessary power to run his foundry, in 1851 Burden designed and constructed a 60-foot wheel. This was not the largest water wheel of its type, but likely the most powerful. A larger water wheel is at Laxey on the Isle of Man and at Greenock, Scotland , the latter supplied by Shaw's Waterworks with water from an elevated reservoir . The Burden Wheel appears to have had more buckets. The Burden Water Wheel

1170-545: The pile. In 1856, he married Julia Ann Hart (1833–1887), daughter of Hon. Richard P. Hart from Troy. Together, they were the parents of five sons, only three of which survived to adulthood: Burden died in Troy on December 7, 1867, at the age of thirty-seven, and was interred in the family vault in the Albany Rural Cemetery . After his death, the iron works were inherited by his nephew, James A. Burden Jr. A memorial plaque dedicated to William Fletcher Burden

1209-416: The small wooden mill with a large millworks. The river adjacent to the works was shallow and full of bars, and the land along the river was low and frequently flooded. At great expense, Burden had the grounds filled in, and the river dredged, so that the company's docks were accessible to large vessels. The property had nearly a mile of river frontage. The Hudson River Railroad ran east of it. In order to find

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1248-524: The son of Peter Burden (1752–1829) and Elizabeth Abercrombie (1756–1837). His father was a sheep farmer. An account cited that he constructed a threshing machine for his father before he went to college. He studied mathematics, engineering, and drawing at the University of Edinburgh . He returned to the farm making implements and a water wheel to power them. He emigrated in 1819 with a letter of introduction to Stephen Van Rensselaer III , courtesy of

1287-411: The steam derricks, used for unloading coal, at the Burden Iron Works . A wire cable stretched between, on which an iron carriage traveled three hundred feet from the dock to the coal heap, carrying a self-dumping bucket with the capacity to hold a ton of coal. A steam engine hoisted the filled bucket to the cable, along which it traveled to the point where the tilting apparatus overturned its contents upon

1326-404: Was previously done by hand, made the factory extremely profitable. Burden soon became the sole owner of the factory and renamed it H. Burden and Sons. The Burden Iron Works, as it came to be known, produced a variety of iron-based products. He experimented not only in the manufacture of items like horseshoes and spikes, but also in the production of machines to make them. In May 1825, he secured

1365-442: Was previously done by hand, made the factory extremely profitable. Burden soon became the sole owner of the factory and renamed it H. Burden and Sons. The Burden Iron Works, as it came to be known, produced a variety of iron-based products. Henry Burden realized that Troy's strategic location as a hub of rail and water transportation networks made it possible to produce and ship an enormous quantity of finished goods. Burden replaced

1404-438: Was said to have been the first to be put into practical operation in this country. He also made mechanical improvements on threshing machines and grist mills. He moved to Troy in 1822, and worked as superintendent of the Troy Iron and Nail Factory. The factory was located on north side of the Wynantskill Creek in South Troy, about a half-mile northeast of today's Troy–Menands Bridge . Burden's inventions, which automated work that

1443-417: Was sixty-two feet in diameter and twenty-two feet in breadth, was supplied by a small stream, the Wynantskill Creek. Burden originated a system of reservoirs along the Wynantskill Creek to hold the water in reserve and increase the water-supply to power the mills. Burden's wheel weighed 250 tons and could produce 500 horsepower when spinning 2.5 times a minute. The water wheel itself was of what came to be termed

1482-586: Was the daughter of James McOuat (1762–1837) and Margaret Bilsland (1770–1840). Her family immigrated to Canada and were based in Lachute , Québec , Canada at the time of her marriage to Henry. Together, Helen and Henry had eight children: His wife died on March 10, 1860, in Troy. Henry Burden died of heart disease on Thursday morning, January 19, 1871. Burden's funeral was held at the Woodside Presbyterian Church, which he had built near

1521-806: Was the first husband of Cynthia Roche . William Fletcher Burden William Fletcher Burden (March 14, 1830 – December 7, 1867) was an industrialist born in Troy, New York . William F. Burden was born March 14, 1830, in Troy, New York, the third son of Henry Burden (1791–1871) and Helen ( née McOuat) Burden (1802–1860). His siblings included James Abercrombie Burden Sr. (the father of James A. Burden Jr. and Arthur Scott Burden ), Margaret Elizabeth Burden, Helen Burden (who married Gen. Irvin McDowell ), Henry James Burden, Peter Abercrombie Burden, Isaiah Townsend Burden , and Jessie Burden. Burden attended Troy Polytechnic Institute (later known as Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute ). William designed

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