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John H. Hall (soldier)
John Hancock Hall (January 4, 1781 – February 26, 1841) was the inventor of the M1819 Hall breech-loading rifle and a mass production innovator. Early life Hall was born in 1781 in Portland, Maine. He worked in his father's tannery until setting up his own woodworking and boat building shop in 1810 where he tinkered with guns in his spare time. He had taken an interest in firearms during militia service and focused on increasing the rapidity of loading.Rose, Alexander '' American Rifleman'' (March 2009) pp.51-83 Career On May 21, 1811, Hall patented a single shot, breech-loading rifle in collusion with Washington, D.C. architect Dr. William Thornton.Smith, Merritt Roe. "John H. Hall, Simeon North, and the Milling Machine: The Nature of Innovation among Antebellum Arms Makers." Technology and Culture. 4th edition. Volume 14. Johns Hopkins UP, 1973. pages 573-91. JSTOR. Web. 1 December 2010 He began manufacturing his new rifles at the rate of 50 per year until the United S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portland, Maine
Portland is the largest city in the U.S. state of Maine and the seat of Cumberland County. Portland's population was 68,408 in April 2020. The Greater Portland metropolitan area is home to over half a million people, the 104th-largest metropolitan area in the United States. Portland's economy relies mostly on the service sector and tourism. The Old Port is known for its nightlife and 19th-century architecture. Marine industry plays an important role in the city's economy, with an active waterfront that supports fishing and commercial shipping. The Port of Portland is the second-largest tonnage seaport in New England. The city seal depicts a phoenix rising from ashes, a reference to recovery from four devastating fires. Portland was named after the English Isle of Portland, Dorset. In turn, the city of Portland, Oregon was named after Portland, Maine. The word ''Portland'' is derived from the Old English word ''Portlanda'', which means "land surrounding a harbor". The Greater ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harpers Ferry Arsenal
The Harpers Ferry Armory, more formally known as the United States Armory and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, was the second federal armory created by the United States government. (The first was the Springfield Armory.) It was located in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (since 1863, West Virginia). It was both an arsenal, manufacturing firearms, and an armory, a storehouse for firearms. Along with the Springfield Armory, it was instrumental in the development of machining techniques to make interchangeable parts of precisely the same dimensions. The Armory was a long, narrow complex of buildings, located alongside the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad line on a strip of land alongside the Potomac River. The entrance was close to the center of town, with its train station and hotels, and the bridge, the B & O Railroad Potomac River Crossing. At its peak, just before the Civil War, the Armory had 400 employees. During the Civil War, the Armory was destroyed and its equipment removed; it was not ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Firearm Designers
A firearm is any type of gun designed to be readily carried and used by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see Legal definitions). The first firearms originated in 10th-century China, when bamboo tubes containing gunpowder and pellet projectiles were mounted on spears to make the portable fire lance, operable by a single person, which was later used effectively as a shock weapon in the Siege of De'an in 1132. In the 13th century, fire lance barrels were replaced with metal tubes and transformed into the metal-barreled hand cannon. The technology gradually spread throughout Eurasia during the 14th century. Older firearms typically used black powder as a propellant, but modern firearms use smokeless powder or other propellants. Most modern firearms (with the notable exception of smoothbore shotguns) have rifled barrels to impart spin to the projectile for improved flight stability. Modern firearms can be described by their caliber (i.e. b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
19th-century American Inventors
The 19th (nineteenth) century began on 1 January 1801 ( MDCCCI), and ended on 31 December 1900 ( MCM). The 19th century was the ninth century of the 2nd millennium. The 19th century was characterized by vast social upheaval. Slavery was abolished in much of Europe and the Americas. The First Industrial Revolution, though it began in the late 18th century, expanding beyond its British homeland for the first time during this century, particularly remaking the economies and societies of the Low Countries, the Rhineland, Northern Italy, and the Northeastern United States. A few decades later, the Second Industrial Revolution led to ever more massive urbanization and much higher levels of productivity, profit, and prosperity, a pattern that continued into the 20th century. The Islamic gunpowder empires fell into decline and European imperialism brought much of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and almost all of Africa under colonial rule. It was also marked by the collapse of the large S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1841 Deaths
Events January–March * January 20 – Charles Elliot of the United Kingdom, and Qishan of the Qing dynasty, agree to the Convention of Chuenpi. * January 26 – Britain occupies Hong Kong. Later in the year, the first census of the island records a population of about 7,500. * January 27 – The active volcano Mount Erebus in Antarctica is discovered, and named by James Clark Ross. * January 28 – Ross discovers the "Victoria Barrier", later known as the Ross Ice Shelf. On the same voyage, he discovers the Ross Sea, Victoria Land and Mount Terror. * January 30 – A fire ruins and destroys two-thirds of the villa (modern-day city) of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. * February 4 – First known reference to Groundhog Day in North America, in the diary of a James Morris. * February 10 – The Act of Union (''British North America Act'', 1840) is proclaimed in Canada. * February 11 – The two colonies of the Canadas are merged, into the United Province of Canada. * Febru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1781 Births
Events January–March * January – William Pitt the Younger, later Prime Minister of Great Britain, enters Parliament, aged 21. * January 1 – Industrial Revolution: The Iron Bridge opens across the River Severn in England. * January 2 – Virginia passes a law ceding its western land claims, paving the way for Maryland to ratify the Articles of Confederation. * January 5 – American Revolutionary War: Richmond, Virginia is burned by British naval forces, led by Benedict Arnold. * January 6 – Battle of Jersey: British troops prevent the French from occupying Jersey in the Channel Islands. * January 17 – American Revolutionary War – Battle of Cowpens: The American Continental Army, under Daniel Morgan, decisively defeats British forces in South Carolina. * February 2 – The Articles of Confederation are ratified by Maryland, the 13th and final state to do so. * February 3 – Fourth Anglo-Dutch War – Capture o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American System Of Manufacturing
The American system of manufacturing was a set of manufacturing methods that evolved in the 19th century. The two notable features were the extensive use of interchangeable parts and mechanization for production, which resulted in more efficient use of labor compared to hand methods. The system was also known as armory practice because it was first fully developed in armories, namely, the United States Armories at Springfield in Massachusetts and Harpers Ferry in Virginia (later West Virginia), inside contractors to supply the United States Armed Forces, and various private armories. The name "American system" came not from any aspect of the system that is unique to the American national character, but simply from the fact that for a time in the 19th century it was strongly associated with the American companies who first successfully implemented it, and how their methods contrasted (at that time) with those of British and continental European companies. In the 1850s, the "Americ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Machine Tools
A machine tool is a machine for handling or machining metal or other rigid materials, usually by cutting, boring, grinding, shearing, or other forms of deformations. Machine tools employ some sort of tool that does the cutting or shaping. All machine tools have some means of constraining the work piece and provide a guided movement of the parts of the machine. Thus, the relative movement between the workpiece and the cutting tool (which is called the toolpath) is controlled or constrained by the machine to at least some extent, rather than being entirely "offhand" or " freehand". It is a power-driven metal cutting machine which assists in managing the needed relative motion between cutting tool and the job that changes the size and shape of the job material. The precise definition of the term ''machine tool'' varies among users, as discussed below. While all machine tools are "machines that help people to make things", not all factory machines are machine tools. Today machine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simeon North
Simeon North (July 13, 1765 – August 25, 1852) was a Middletown, Connecticut, gun manufacturer, who developed one of America's first milling machines (possibly the very first) in 1818 and played an important role in the development of interchangeable parts manufacturing. North was born in Berlin, Connecticut, into a prosperous family able to provide all six sons with farms of their own. North was given a farm in Berlin, a gift that enabled him to marry Lucy Savage when he was only twenty-one years old; the couple had five sons and three daughters. In 1795 the Norths purchased a sawmill located on the brook that ran beside their land. Simeon hired a man to help run it, enlarged the building to house a forge and trip-hammer, and began manufacturing scythes from imported steel. Four years later, he obtained a contract to make pistols and began to add a factory to the mill building. North's brother-in-law Elisha Cheney was a skilled clockmaker, a trade he had learned from his f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virginius Island
Virginius Island is a formerly inhabited island of some , on the Shenandoah River in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. The island was created by the Shenandoah Canal, constructed by the Patowmack Company between 1806 and 1807, which separates it from the town of Harpers Ferry. The canal was constructed to enable boats to bypass rapids on the river, and also channel water to drive machinery. In the nineteenth century Virginius Island contained Harpers Ferry's industry (aside from the Arsenal) and working-class housing: a boarding house and row houses. Virginius Island is part of the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. A thriving industrial town Virginius Island was a thriving industrial town in the first half of the nineteenth century. The Shenandoah was a great source of power by which to operate machinery. There was good access to markets via the Potomac, and even more after the Winchester and Potomac Railroad, which ran through the island, arrived in 1836. Its successor, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shenandoah River
The Shenandoah River is the principal tributary of the Potomac River, long with two forks approximately long each,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August 15, 2011 in the U.S. states of Virginia and West Virginia. The river and its tributaries drain the central and lower Shenandoah Valley and the Page Valley in the Appalachians on the west side of the Blue Ridge Mountains, in northwestern Virginia and the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. There is a hydroelectric plant along the Shenandoah river constructed in 2014 by Dominion. Course The Shenandoah River is formed northeast of Front Royal near Riverton, by the confluence of the South Fork and the North Fork. It flows northeast across Warren County, passing underneath Interstate 66 from its formation. Beyond the I-66 bridge the river flows through a set of bends before turning to the northeast again, crossing into Clarke County below I-66. Five mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interchangeable Parts
Interchangeable parts are parts ( components) that are identical for practical purposes. They are made to specifications that ensure that they are so nearly identical that they will fit into any assembly of the same type. One such part can freely replace another, without any custom fitting, such as filing. This interchangeability allows easy assembly of new devices, and easier repair of existing devices, while minimizing both the time and skill required of the person doing the assembly or repair. The concept of interchangeability was crucial to the introduction of the assembly line at the beginning of the 20th century, and has become an important element of some modern manufacturing but is missing from other important industries. Interchangeability of parts was achieved by combining a number of innovations and improvements in machining operations and the invention of several machine tools, such as the slide rest lathe, screw-cutting lathe, turret lathe, milling machine and metal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
