HorseshoesIn 1835, the first U.S. patent for a horseshoe manufacturing machine was issued to Henry Burden (1791-1871) of Troy, N.Y. He made nearly all the horseshoes used by the Union calvary during the Civil War. His machine produced a horseshoe from a rod of iron that was fed into it. With improvements made in later years, his nine machines were capable of making sixty horseshoes a minute. Production was both more rapid and uniform than the handmade method which it superceded. Burden was born in Scotland and emigrated to the U.S.in 1819. He started in the Troy iron industry in 1822, as superintendent of the Troy Iron and Nail Factory. His horseshoe-making machines, and Burden's other inventions which automated work that was previously done by hand, made the factory extremely profitable. By periodically buying shares of the stock of the corporation, he owned it by 1848.« |
