David Melville And The First American Gas Light Patents (cont'd)

BY DANIEL W. MATTAUSCH

Reprinted from The Rushlight , December 1998. Copyright The Rushlight Club. All rights reserved.

From his business on State Street in Boston, Captain Winslow Lewis accumulated his wealth as the de facto "Superintendent for lighting the United States light houses." A notable lighting figure in his own regard, he patented an illuminated ship's binnacle on June 24, 1808 and an Argand lamp combined with a parabolic reflector and lens on June 8, 1810. (29) By the end of 1812, Lewis had received at least $16,000 from the U.S. government in exchange for installing his Argand devices in lighthouses. (30) Lewis' capture at sea by the British on March 1, 1813 while en route to the Charleston Lighthouse reminds us of the context of the times, as the War of 1812 had another two years to run its course. While Lewis was released after only four days, the lighthouses (and the last $8,000 of his contract with the government) would have to wait until the conclusion of the war. Flush with cash and with his primary lighting interests postponed, Lewis formed an active partnership with Melville who apparently assigned him half of his patent rights in exchange for a $2,000 investment in the enterprise. Lewis also arranged for the manufacture of their gas machinery in Boston. (31)

A modified advertisement on June 5, 1813 indicated that gas lights had been installed at a Cotton manufactory allegedly belonging to Seth Bemis located at Watertown, Mass. (seven miles west of Boston). (32) All of the scattered literature on Melville throughout this century and last accepts this claim at face value. Nevertheless, a passing sentence in an 1863 genealogical register sheds considerable light on this installation by the mention that Lewis introduced "cotton duck into his factory at Watertown" [italics added]. (33) It seems clear that Lewis' Watertown textile factory was the same as Bemis' Watertown textile factory, and Lewis' involvement was shielded from the advertising public to create an aura of impartiality for the new installation. (34) This advertisement also provided the first public evidence of Melville's partnership with Lewis, mentioning them both as "proprietors of Letters Patent" for the "Improved Gas-Lamp." (35)

Unfortunately, Lewis was an impatient investor. On November 7, 1813, Lewis wrote Melville that he was concerned by a lack of sales and not inclined to invest any more capitol in the enterprise. (36) Nevertheless, by November 13th a second installation, in the Wenscott Manufacturing Co.'s factory, "1 1/4miles from Mill Bridge" near Providence, was completed. (37) With Lewis' involvement the manufacturing foundation of the effort must have been well established since they now claimed "An apparatus for any number of lights can be furnished in ten days after application ... (38)

Just when things were again starting to look promising, Melville encountered a series of setbacks. Existing installations began to experience problems. On December 9, 1813 the Wenscott Company complained that they "cannot make the gas pass from the condenser to the cistern" and that the gasometer contained "only enough for two hours' consumption, instead of three, as calculated. (39) Melville also had to raise his prices. Starting at $10.00 per light in February, by November 20, 1813 he found it necessary to increase his charge to $13.00 per light. (40) Naturally, potential customers were displeased. On January 6, 1814 Oshea Wilder, the proprietor of a wire manufactory in Paterson, New Jersey, wrote, "[I] am considerably disappointed at the price you ask for the lights... the price you ask would not permit us to avail ourselves of it ... I most sincerely wish that the gas lights were in general use, as I believe they would be highly useful to the manufacturer." (41)

Mentioned nowhere in the company advertising was another installation, at the Arkwright Mill near Providence (perhaps closer to Pawtucket), principally belonging to Mr. James De Wolf of Bristol. It was at Arkwright that something went seriously wrong. As the American Gas Light Journal explained in 1859, "An explosion took place, blowing [a] small outer building to pieces, and the factory proprietor's courage also [italics added]." (42) A full account of the accident, "gathered entirely from recollection," was printed in the journal Iron Age:

Mr. Abraham Churchill, employed in the capacity of watchman, saw what he thought to be a light moving about the mill, and went to the building adjoining, which contained the gasometer. Entering the building, he removed the candle from the lantern, and holding the flame to the mouth of a large stopcock, turned on the gas. The flames were instantly drawn within the gasometer, which exploded, destroying the building and so injuring Mr. Churchill that he died the following morning. (43)

This was probably the first American gas industry fatality, foreshadowing many mindless examples of natural selection in the nineteenth century. Unfortunately, the contemporary newspapers apparently let us down again as Iron Age added, "We have not discovered (although we have diligently searched) the date of Mr. Churchill's death, nor any references to the accident in the public prints." (44) What is clear however, is that the gasometer was not rebuilt.

While Melville's efforts were to continue (Lewis apparently advanced more capital by the end of the year), this incident and the difficulties already mentioned were fatal to his attempt to introduce gas lighting into manufactories. He maintained the lights in his home until 1817, the same year he received a one year contract from the U.S. Government for a trial of gas in the Beaver Tail Lighthouse near Newport. Nevertheless, this experiment and its dramatic twists and turns is another story.

Instead of being on the cusp of a great new American industry, Melville was, in fact, too far ahead of his time. Like all of his contemporaries, his gas burners were primitive and inefficient (Figure 5), and his wooden cisterns with pipes made of tin and copper leaked. From a historical perspective, these problems are not surprising. The issue of distribution leakage (later known as "street loss") was to hound a much more sophisticated gas industry well into the 1870s and it was not until electric lights competed with gas that efficient and economical burners were available. James Flexner wrote of similar problems at the turn of the eighteenth century in his landmark work on steamboats:

"In America, nothing that could not be made or repaired by a village blacksmith was capable of general application. This created a paradoxical situation: Americans were given to improvising gadgets, but as soon as the gadget became complicated, it was forced into the position of a freak, a philosophical toy. (45)"

Despite his ultimate failure, Melville's pioneering work anticipated a multimillion-dollar industry that was to sweep the country by mid-century. He died in Newport on September 3, 1856 at the age of 84.

One hundred and thirty nine years ago, in an account of Melville's work, the authors concluded "we are happy that it has fallen to our lot to do justice to his memory, the perpetuation of which, in this connection, we leave to others."(46) A fitting summary nearly two hundred years after those experiments in Newport, because recognition of his contributions has nearly been lost and, of course, we are those "others."

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