continued from February 20, 1848: A True Son of Manifest Destiny
How did the railroad baron become
so powerful and wealthy
when he had come from
such a humble background?
He started with the most menial jobs
One summer
when North and South were poised
on the brink of their cataclysmic war
he went away across the Hudson
the still simmering wilderness
of upstate New York
the lush green Catskill Mountains
He worked in a blast furnace
owned by a family friend
He kept time on a pocket watch
as men shoveled charcoal through doors into flames
and piled iron ore dug from nearby mines in the mountains
into bins that smelted from the heat
into luminiferous liquid that ran in grooves
to cool into lattices of jagged pig iron
that were hacked by hammer and axe into crude ingots
and piled into wagons and train cars
to be hauled to the banks of the Hudson
then piled in boats to ferry them across the river
where they were unloaded, and melted again
and worked by master artisans
into magnificent ,rifled cannon barrels
smooth and tapered, black as night
the finest weapons on earth
the destroying tools most coveted
by both sides in the war.
But the boy loved the mountains around him more
the cliffs and gorges along the shoulders of the Hudson
the Ramapos, the Catskills,
unspoiled nature that seized the delight of the soul
lakes, creeks, forests, cliffs
from that moment on
he would seek out that peace
the immersion in that release
for the rest of his life
Who could have known at the time
that one day the boy
gazing on those mountains around the furnace
would someday be the titled owner
of not only everything he saw
but more rolling mountains beyond
and would turn practically an entire county
into his private domain and preserve?
(ref)
1860 First manufacture of Parrot guns at West Point Foundry under Robert Parker Parrot
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| A 200-pound Parrott rifle on Morris Island, South Carolina, 1865 |
"[The Parrot Rifle was] an innovative rifled cannon (muzzle-loading rifled artillery weapon) which was manufactured in several sizes. The largest weighed 26,000 lb, and its projectile weighed 300 lb. Parrott guns were extensively employed during the American Civil War by both the Union and Confederate armies."
"The foundry's operations peaked during the Civil War due to military orders: it had a workforce of 1,400 people and produced 2,000 cannon and three million shells. Parrott also invented an incendiary shell which was used in an 8-inch Parrott rifle (the "Swamp Angel") to bombard Charleston. The importance of the foundry to the war effort can be measured by the fact that President Abraham Lincoln visited and inspected it in June 1862."
"The fame of the foundry was such that Jules Verne, in his novel From the Earth to the Moon, chose it as the contractor for the Columbiad spaceship-launching cannon."
"One of the most famous Parrott rifles [used during the war was] the Swamp Angel, an 8-inch (200 mm) gun used by federal Brigadier General Quincy Adams Gillmore to bombard Charleston, South Carolina. It was manned by the 11th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment.
On August 21, 1863 Gillmore sent Confederate general P. G. T. Beauregard an ultimatum to abandon heavily fortified positions at Morris Island or the city of Charleston would be shelled. When the positions were not evacuated within a few hours, Gillmore ordered the Parrott rifle to fire on the city. Between August 22 and August 23, the Swamp Angel fired on the city 36 times (the gun burst on the 36th round), using many incendiary shells which caused little damage and few casualties. The battle was made more famous by Herman Melville's poem "The Swamp Angel" (from Battle-Pieces and Aspects of War,)
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There is a coal-black Angel
With a thick Afric lip,And he dwells (like the hunted and harried)In a swamp where the green frogs dip.But his face is against a CityWhich is over a bay of the sea,And he breathes with a breath that is blastment,And dooms by a far decree.
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| Battle-Pieces and Aspects of War (1866) |
1854 Robert Parker Parrot opens Clove Iron Furnace
The Clove Furnace used anthracite instead of charcoal. It was collectively operated with the nearby Greenwood Furnace as the Greenwood Iron Works, supplying pig iron to the West Point Foundry1854 The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
1848 U.S. and Mexico sign peace treaty
1846 U.S. Army invades Mexico
1846 Typee, Herman Melville
1843 Ulysses S. Grant graduates from West Point, 21st in a class of 39
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| Second lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant in full dress uniform in 1843 (source) |
1836 Robert Parker Parrot resigns from the U.S. Army to become superintendent of the West Point Foundry.
1830 Pine Swamp Mine first worked near present-day Arden. N.Y.
"The Pine Swamp Mine was probably first worked around 1830. Iron ore from the mine went to the Greenwood furnaces in nearby Arden, NY. Greenwood pig iron was made into artillery barrels at the West Point foundry and used extensively in the Civil War. The mine was abandoned in the early 1880s." (source)1829 Robert E. Lee graduates from West Point, 2nd in a class of 45
1827 Cora Kneeling at the Feet of Tamenund, Thomas Cole (1801-1848)
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| depicts scene from Cooper's Last of the Mohicans |
metmuseum.org: "The Hudson River School was America’s first true artistic fraternity. Its name was coined to identify a group of New York City-based landscape painters that emerged about 1850 under the influence of the English émigré Thomas Cole (1801–1848) and flourished until about the time of the Centennial."
WP: "In New York, Cole sold five paintings to George W. Bruen, who financed a summer trip to the Hudson Valley where the artist produced two Views of Coldspring, the Catskill Mountain House and painted famous Kaaterskill Falls and the ruins of Fort Putnam. Returning to New York, he displayed five landscapes in the window of William Colman's bookstore; according to the New York Evening Post Two Views of Coldspring were purchased by Mr. A. Seton, who lent them to the American Academy of the Fine Arts annual exhibition in 1826. This garnered Cole the attention of John Trumbull, Asher B. Durand, and William Dunlap. Among the paintings was a landscape called "View of Fort Ticonderoga from Gelyna". Trumbull was especially impressed with the work of the young artist and sought him out, bought one of his paintings, and put him into contact with a number of his wealthy friends including Robert Gilmor of Baltimore and Daniel Wadsworth of Hartford, who became important patrons of the artist.1826 Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper (second of the Leatherstocking Tales)
1825 Erie Canal opens
1824 Robert Parker Parrot (b. 1804) graduates third in his class at West Point
"He remained at West Point as an instructor until 1829, then had garrison duty and served as a staff officer in operations against the Creek Indians early in 1836 before moving to Washington, D.C. in July as Captain of Ordnance."1821 The Pioneers, James Fenimore Cooper (first of the Leatherstocking Tales)
1817 John Trumbull becomes president of the American Academy of the Fine Arts
In 1818, Trumbull, representing the American Academy, commissioned a portrait of his former teacher and mentor, the painter Benjamin West, from Sir Thomas Lawrence, widely considered to be the most accomplished English portraitist of the age.
1817 Col. Sylvanus Thayer becomes the Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy
"Thayer established the curriculum, elements of which are still in use as of 2015. Thayer instilled strict disciplinary standards, set a standard course of academic study, and emphasized honorable conduct. Known as the 'Father of the Military Academy,' he is honored with a monument on campus for the profound impact he had upon the academy"
1817 West Point Foundry begins operation making armaments in Cold Spring, New York
using pig iron supplied by nearby Greenwood Iron Furnace at Arden
(archaeological site)
"Set up to remedy deficiencies in national armaments production after the War of 1812, it became most famous for its production of Parrott rifles and other munitions during the Civil War, although it also manufactured a variety of iron products for civilian use."The impetus for its creation came from James Madison, who, after the War of 1812, wanted to establish domestic foundries to produce artillery.[3] Cold Spring was an ideal site: timber for charcoal was abundant, there were many local iron mines, and the nearby Margaret's Brook provided water power to drive machinery. The site was guarded by West Point, across the Hudson River, and the river provided shipping for finished products.(Wikipedia)
1812 Greenwood Iron Furnace begins supplies cannonballs to the U.S.military (source)
1811 Greenwood Iron Furnace established near present-day Arden, N.Y.
"[In 1810[ James Cunningham of Warwick, NY has the highest bid, thereby acquiring the 3,400 acre tract (the northwest half of Great Mountain Lot No. 3) in Orange County.
[the following year] Cunningham erects a charcoal blast furnace, naming it Greenwood for the color of the surrounding forests. It is located in a picturesque glen at the outlet of Echo Lake, formerly Furnace Pond (just over half a mile east of the railroad station at Arden)" (source)
From the medieval period... a blast furnace was used to make pig iron, which then had to undergo a further process to make forgeable bar iron.
Pig iron is the intermediate product of smelting iron ore. It is the molten iron from the blast furnace, which is a large and cylinder-shaped furnace charged with iron ore, coke, and limestone. Charcoal and anthracite have also been used as fuel. Pig iron has a very high carbon content, typically 3.5–4.5%,[1] along with silica and other constituents of dross, which makes it very brittle and not useful directly as a material except for limited applications.
The traditional shape of the molds used for pig iron ingots was a branching structure formed in sand, with many individual ingots at right angles[2] to a central channel or runner, resembling a litter of piglets being suckled by a sow. When the metal had cooled and hardened, the smaller ingots (the pigs) were simply broken from the runner (the sow), hence the name pig iron.[3] As pig iron is intended for remelting, the uneven size of the ingots and the inclusion of small amounts of sand caused only insignificant problems considering the ease of casting and handling them.
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| location of the Greenwood Furnace, in the mountains west of the Hudson River |
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| The Ramapough Mountains near Arden, N.Y. |
1802 New York Academy of the Fine Arts is founded
Later called the American Academy of the Fine Arts. WP: "to encourage appreciation and teaching of the classical style. It exhibited copies of classical works and encouraged artists to emulate the classical in their work] The mayor of New York city at the time, Richard Varick, and Gulian Verplanck, a New York politician, were some of the Academy's original organizers. Younger artists grew increasingly restive under its constraint, and in 1825 left to found the National Academy of Design.1802 U.S. Military Academy established at West Point, N.Y. at strategic point overlooking the Hudson River
"Founded as a school of engineering, for the first half of the 19th century, USMA produced graduates who gained recognition for engineering the bulk of the nation's initial railway lines, bridges, harbors and roads."
1793 French Republican forces break the Siege at Toulon, due in part to innovative tactical use of artillery by young captain Napoleon Bonaparte.
1778 The Continental Army occupies West Point on the Hudson
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