The Steely Resolve of Henry Disston

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DESIGN & INSPIRATION The great tool makers – Henry Disston

Discovering steel Henry found work in a local saw shop – an enterprise owned by the Johnson brothers – a struggling firm beholden to British Sheffield steel because of the strong prejudice Adversity and triumph: against tools made in America at the time. Henry matured into adulthood learning how to operate a fly press to cut teeth and coining them into a proper hammer-set; understanding how pitch, plate gauge and the steely resolve of Henry Disston the hang of a handle worked in a harmony of efficiency to sever wood fibre quickly while Mark Harrell looks at the life and achievements of Henry Disston, promoting an aesthetic serving form as well as function. His father, a skilled mechanical the man behind the long and fruitful Disston saw legacy engineer, had taught his son well: a good mechanic and businessman will always prosper, as long as he confronts adversity head on, with imagination and a strong drive to persevere. PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF BRENT BEACH Henry’s masters floundered by the close of the 1830s and by the time he came of age, his severance pay arrived in the form of $350 worth of materials, jigs and a head churning with ambition. Like other young men seeking Disston’s improved their way in the hardscrabble Philadelphia universal saw clamp of 1840, Henry was determined to carve his own mark in a world filled with opportunity and someday out-compete the British from a friend and went back to work. He property was arrested for fraud. Authorities sawmaking industry in his adopted home. spent three days of each week marketing seized Henry’s equipment, selling it for Renting a basement hovel at 21 Bread his wares and taking orders, then drove back rent owed by his dishonest landlord. Street, Henry hand-built a furnace and himself mercilessly over the next three days Henry indebted himself yet again, this time carted coal from the wharf over a mile making saws to fill those orders. Deliveries with doubled rent, forcing him to move his away to fire it. He then tempered his own followed on Saturday, whereafter he would operation shortly afterward to new premises saws, hammer-smithed them into proper collapse in his Bread Street hovel, attend on Third and Arch Streets. Two years later, tension, ground the plates, cut the teeth, church on Sunday and prepare for the next he was turned out once more and moved set and filed them razor-sharp. He carved week. Somewhere in the misery, Henry met to a third location on Laurel Street. The the handles, machined the brass fasteners, his second wife Mary and remarried – a only good to come out of the last move folded the sawbacks and trued everything ray of light piercing what had become an was the inclusion of steam power for his into proper alignment. That Disston was abysmally dark decade. He re-established new shop. Despite the dizzying cycle of able to produce at all bears testament to his his product line among the Philadelphia relocations, Henry continued making saws, sense of unyielding determination to make it, hardware stores and life improved. Mary firmly entrenching himself in the Philadelphia confronting daily the jungle law struggle of Disston bore a son – Hamilton Disston – market as a tough young businessman with an a one-man shop with rent to pay, groceries and four more sons would follow. But the incredibly steadfast commitment to quality. to buy, coal to cart and materials to source. 1840s were not yet finished with Henry. Despite the kind of odds that turn achievers Responding to the lure of a steam-powered Market domination into quitters, Henry Disston nonetheless shop in 1844 and indebting himself to equip By 1846, the war with Mexico was on and brought to market over a dozen handmade it, the speculator posing as the owner of the demand for saws and other tools bolstered ➤ saws a week. PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARK HARRELL, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED The best saws in Philadelphia His typical strategy was to cart his wares to a hat was a young British boy of 14 Marianna from his eight children for the hardware store, ask the proprietor for his best from Derby made of as he and his 60-day voyage across the Atlantic. There British saw and then proceed to snap it across Wsister watched their father convulse were qualities apart from young Henry’s his knee. Before the aghast store owner could and die of a stroke not three days after their natural mechanical ability, where talent stops say anything, Henry produced one of his own, arrival in Philadelphia in 1833 to market a and character begins. Perhaps it was the claiming: “Try that with mine. You are welcome lace machine? Steel. Young Henry Disston – resolve in his steady blue eyes and the to it; this is the best saw in Philadelphia.” founder and patriarch of the famed Disston way his strong jaw and thick shock of dark And he was as good as his word. & Sons Keystone Saw Works – was made of brown hair evinced an air of determination. Courtship, marriage and children follows steel far tougher than any alloy extant today. Henry’s spirit conveyed resilience, even a any man’s initial blush of success and Henry Disston would go on to become one ruthless fixation to prevail, his visage yet the young entrepreneur moved out of his of America’s wealthiest men, a prominent conveying the temperance of a restless basement flat into his first real shop, while leader of the exploding industrial age and and compassionate soul. he and his bride Amanda eagerly awaited com . a capitalist visionary whose ruthlessness Some children mature early because the arrival of twins, but the twins died shortly in business was matched only by his they have no choice, and such was the lot after they were born, with Amanda following wkfinetools compassion and remarkable loyalty to the of young Henry and Marianna. Taken in afterward. And then, his shop burned to the . workforce he employed and protected. reluctantly by friends, Henry had to find work ground. Henry Disston had landed at rock while Marianna was groomed for domestic bottom, crushed in spirit and penniless at Bright spark service and expedited marriage. Lives had the age of 23. Disston’s father, Thomas, must have seen to get on back in 1833 – they were lived on Slammed by soul-sucking grief, medical PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY www OF

something special in his second oldest child, a far more abbreviated basis than today’s PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY WWW.DISSTONIANINSTITUTE.COM OF bills and demanding creditors, Henry started having selected Henry and his older sister medical advances allow. Henry Disston (1819–1878) all over again on the strength of a $5 loan Reproduction of the plant of Henry Disston & Sons Ltd, the largest saw manufacturing house in the world

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➤ the fledgling Henry Disston Keystone Saw with saw design, such as the venerable Works. Finally flush with success, misfortune Disston D8 Handsaw. Calling his plant dealt Henry yet another blow in 1849 superintendent into his office one day in when a boiler explosion blew his shop into 1873, Henry chalked out a design for a smithereens. Miraculously, Henry and his skew-backed saw designed for lighter weight employees escaped unhurt. Now completely without sacrificing cutting action and within fed up with renting, he had the scratch to a matter of days, put into production what purchase his own property in a nearby lot is now known as the Disston D8, the most close to Laurel Street, where the 1850s popular and ubiquitous hand saw in the ushered in a far more prosperous era. The world, thousands of which are still sold on dark days of the 1840s were behind him. eBay today – a testament to Henry Disston’s Henry Disston sent for his brothers back in entrepreneurial vision. England, who joined him at his Philadelphia plant with some of the best British Leaving a legacy metalworkers in tow. But Disston was not just another ruthless,

Henry had always sought to mix his PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY WWW.VINTAGESAWS.COM OF powerful capitalist, milking every dime out own alloy, and in 1855 poured the first of his labour force. He was a very devout heat of crucible saw steel produced in man, whose caring, paternal leadership America. By now, he not only made saws, style was underscored by a deep concern but also knives, circular saws for lumbermen for every employee in his company. America and other carpenter tools. By the close had rapidly industrialised and urban living of the decade, Henry Disston and his The 1940 medallion conditions were horrific. Henry cast his eyes

Keystone Saw Works was firmly established PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF WIKIPEDIA COMMONS on the Tacony district a few miles northeast as a leading Philadelphia concern making Henry Disston & Sons, Inc, saw blade advertisement of Philadelphia. Ever concerned for the ➤ international headway. in American Machinist, 1920 By 1861, Henry Disston dominated the American saw market, spurred in part by a tariff on foreign materials with the advent of the Civil War. His oldest boy, Hamilton Disston, volunteered to enlist in the Army, despite Henry’s strong opposition and intent to buy his draft replacement. 25 other workmen from Disston Keystone Saw Works joined Hamilton. Throughout the war, Henry profited immensely from fabricating armaments for the Union Army and became one of the wealthiest men in the country. But he wasn’t just another robber baron. Intensely patriotic to his adopted country, Disston paid a sum equal to half their Army pay to workers enlisting, with the promise that their jobs would be waiting for them upon their return from the war. Henry also offered his manufacturing base to the Federal Government, fabricating swords, Hammer-smithing a vintage Disston sawplate back into true guns, armoured plate and a multitude of other metal items related to the war effort.

Explosive growth Hamilton Disston miraculously survived the war, returning home a local hero and that

was when Henry changed the name of his PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF BOB GARAY company from ‘Henry Disston’ to ‘Disston and Henry Disston Jr, a direct descendant of the founder of the Disston Saw Company – grandson of Jacob S. Disston Jr Son’. During the next several years, Hamilton Disston’s four other brothers followed suit. Disston & Sons had become a family dynasty and their progeny would carry the company through the next hundred years. The 1870s saw explosive growth with Disston & Sons. Disston’s zeal for patenting each new technological development was matched only by his utter ruthlessness with the competition. He often sued other PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF C COURTESY PHOTOGRAPH companies for patent infringement and bought out those he could. Names such as Jackson, Richardson and Harvey Peace fell under Disston’s sway, now a juggernaut

as the world’s leading sawmaker. With all M e T an unquenchable thirst for innovation, aphy Laurel Hill Cemetery, .B

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY THESAWBLOG.COM OF located on 3822 Ridge he employed a team of metallurgists to logspot Ave, Philadelphia, is experiment with mixes of alloys to field only This advertisement highlights the venerable Disston D8, a product as synonymous with the Disston name as the Model . com home to the mausoleum the best steel and constantly experimented T is to Henry Ford of the Disston family

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➤ safety, morale and welfare of his rapidly growing employee base, Henry envisioned a neighbourhood free of brothels, tanneries and saloons – a clean, well-lit place to live and work, where a man could raise his family in a safe environment, where his family could worship in a church representative to their faith, where they could picnic at a park and enrich their lives with a library and cultural centre. Henry Disston brought what many called a ‘utopian fantasy’ to fruition and broke ground on a six-acre plot in 1871 – which eventually expanded to the district’s ultimate size of over 350 acres, 122 employee- owned homes, serviced by proper sewers, a waterworks, public schools, a library and cultural centre. Henry Disston did not live to see Tacony blossom into full. Like his father before him, he succumbed to a series of strokes in 1878 shortly before turning 59 and passed away. He left behind a legacy of excellence, production and a tradition not just of sound and ethical business practices, but also of the moral responsibility any leader must shoulder for those in their charge, to ensure that the common good promotes good work and sound product. Sharpening a Disston D8 from the 1887–1896 era Visionary entrepreneur. Patriotic industrialist. Ruthless capitalist. Humanitarian was truly one of the unsung heroes of the woodshop – tools forged in the crucible leader. These are all qualities Henry industrial age whose products still cannot of unspeakable adversity and triumph. Disston evinced every day of his well-lived be surpassed, as Disston hand saws remain Tools made of unyielding, unstoppable life, through spirit and through deed. He a staple of any 21st-century hand tool and uncompromising Disston steel. F&C

Disston Star hammer saw set, patented 1876 Disston saw sharpening vise No.3D

References

Henry Disston – a Biographical Sketch. Jacob S. Disston Jr. © 1950. An address presented at a Newcomen Society Dinner, Jan 17, 1950 Von Sneidern, Erik. (2 August, 2014). The Disstonian Institute. Retrieved from

www.disstonianinstitute.com PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY AXISPHILLY.ORG OF By 1916, Disston & Sons employed over 2,800 men and women on its 64-acre factory plant

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