Tag: “Henry Burden”

Margaret Proudfit’s biography of her father, Henry Burden, gets downright giddy over the invention that made his fortune, the horseshoe machine: Watch this wonderful piece of mechanism at work which in a second of time makes a horseshoe. Before you are two strong frames between which are four revolving shafts geared together and getting…

It’s not possible to leave the biography of Henry Burden without relating this wonderful passage, “The Wonders of the Puddling Forge,” which we daresay borders on some sort of gothic pornography: The chemical elements of pig-iron are such as to render it unfit for any serviceable use in these mills, and it therefore undergoes…

So here’s an attempt to show just where the Troy Iron and Nail Factory and the rest of Burden’s burgeoning Upper Works were, which should give you an idea of just how much this tiny corner of Troy has changed and changed back — from wooded vale to center of industry to pleasant steep…

As mentioned before, Henry Burden took charge of the Troy Iron and Nail Factory in 1822 when it was a smallish factory at the top of the Wynantskill in Troy, where Mill Street runs up the hill to Campbell Avenue today. “With more than ordinary foresight he caught glimpses of that future in which…

It’s baffling that Henry Burden isn’t better remembered around here. His inventions improved the iron industry, advanced mechanization and helped build the railroads. His use of hydropower on the Wynantskill was world famous. His massive iron and steel works in South Troy employed thousands when the collar industry was growing on the north end…

We’ve been talking about the Troy Iron and Nail Factory Company, which was powered by the falls of the Wynantskill, below what is now Burden Pond in Troy. Water power began there in 1809, and its use expanded as the company grew. Arthur James Weise writes: “The five water-wheels of the works being insufficient…

It hardly seems fair to talk about the Nail Factory Cemetery without diving more into the history of the nail factory itself. As mentioned before, the Troy Iron and Nail Factory Company (which today would no doubt be shortened to “TINFCO”) was established on the Wynantskill, just a little way north of modern-day HVCC,…

Until I ran across it on the Troy Irish Genealogy Society’s website, I had never heard of the Nail Factory Cemetery, but apparently it was once a well-known feature at the top of the Wynantskill’s descent to the Hudson. Arthur James Weise’s “The City of Troy and Its Vicinity” reports that the Troy Iron…

By 1872, when this advertisement ran in the Troy Daily Whig, Henry Burden had long been famous for his advances in iron work. He began in the nail business and later invented an automated horseshoe-making machine. He powered his factory with a gigantic water wheel on the Wynantskill. He built his iron works into…