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The Lobdell Car Wheel Co., 1830-1867

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Harold C. Livesay
Harold C. Livesay
Affiliation:
Graduate Student in History, Johns Hopkins University
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Abstract

While the growth of American railroads and textile mills from their beginnings through the Civil War has been extensively studied, much less attention has been given to smaller manufacturing firms which grew at the same time from job-shops to major units in the industrial structure. This paper studies one such firm, whose growth was a function of the skills of its proprietors, the benefits of its location, and the demand for manufactured items created by the growth of agricultural and transport sectors of the economy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , Summer 1968 , pp. 171 - 194
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1968

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References

1 A frequent obstacle to the study of early American industry is a shortage of trustworthy sources. In the Lobdell case, however, this is a minor problem. Many of the firm's papers (70,000 items) are deposited at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. This study is largely based on these papers, which consist principally of the firm's incoming mail for the period 1830–1886. In addition there are drafts of replies to incoming letters, and large quantities of inbound and outbound shipping records. The principal shortcoming of these papers is a lack of comprehensive financial records which precludes accurate quantification of income and expense prior to 1860. After 1860 financial data is available in the Census of Manufactures, and in the Federal Tax Records in the National Archives.

2 Lobdell Car Wheel Company, Catalog and Price List, 1891 (Wilmington, 1891), 4.Google Scholar A copy of this catalog is in the Lobdell Car Wheel Company Papers at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (hereafter cited as LPHSP). The Mount Savage Iron Works pioneered in making railroad equipment. It rolled strap rails in the 1830's, and T rails by 1844. It was one of the first American furnaces to use coal for fuel. Temin, Peter, Iron and Steel in Nineteenth Century America (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), 48Google Scholar; Hungerford, Edward, The Story of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (New York, 1928), 72.Google Scholar

3 Historical and Biographical Encyclopedia of Delaware (Wilmington, 1882), 385Google Scholar; Biographical and Genealogical History of Delaware (Chambersburg, Pa., 1899), II, 1151.Google Scholar

4 Warner, Arthur E., A Historic Sketch of Economic Developments in Wilmington, Delaware, and Environs (Newark, Delaware, 1962), 12Google Scholar; Canby, Henry Seidel, The Brandywine (New York, 1941)Google Scholar gives a literate, detailed description of early years of Wilmington industries.

5 Conrad, Henry C., History of the State of Delaware (Wilmington, 1908), I, 342Google Scholar; Lunt, Dudley C., “The Farmers Bank — An Assurance Company,” Delaware History, VIII (1958–1959), 54–79.Google Scholar

6 Whitman, William B., “Business and Government in Nineteenth Century Delaware” (M.A. thesis, University of Delaware, 1964), 8, 53, 67Google Scholar; Gray, Ralph D., “The Early History of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal,” Delaware History, IX (1960–1961), 76Google Scholar; also by the same author in the same volume, “Transportation and Brandywine Industries,” 303–325 passim. Local enthusiasm for railroads was stimulated by articles in the Delaware Gazette which printed glowing reports of railroad prospects. Wilmingtonians apparently were convinced. When 3,000 shares of Wilmington & Susquehanna stock went on sale on March 12, 1835, they were sold in twenty minutes. One of the lucky buyers was Jonathon Bonney. Delaware Gazette, March 13, 1835; Potter, Jack C., “The Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad” (M.A. thesis, University of Delaware, 1960), 71–72, 154).Google Scholar

7 Bonney & Bush to Lamden & Bennet, April 7, 1840; same to Murphy & Brach, June 27, 1840, all in LPHSP 1840; Bonney & Bush to Murphy & Brach, June 23, 1838, LPHSP 1838.

8 Innumerable letters to and from McIntyre are scattered throughout the LPHSP 1835–1845. For Mclntyre's relationship to the firm see George Abbott to Bonney & Bush, February 18, 1840, LPHSP 1840.

9 This analysis of shipping methods as well as all others that follow are derived from insurance receipts, bills of lading, shipping receipts, and railroad freight bills found throughout LPHSP. For the early 1830's a Bonney & Bush MS Receipt Book in the collections at the Historical Society of Delaware was used (hereafter cited as MS Receipt Book). The same sources plus invoices gave the origins of raw materials.

10 In 1860 there was $17,500,000 worth of “labor saving machinery” manufactured in the United States; only “little over a million” dollars worth was made in the South. United States Bureau of Census, Manufactures of the United States in 1860 (Washington, 1865), ccvii.Google Scholar According to Robert C. Black, southern railroads were almost entirely dependent upon northern foundries for basic castings in 1861. Railroads of the Confederacy (Chapel Hill, 1952), 24.Google Scholar In 1859 there were 210 rolling mills in the United States; 21 of them were in the South. Lesley, J. P., The Iron Manufacturer's Guide (New York, 1859), 747.Google Scholar

11 This conclusion is derived from a study of orders received and bills of lading for outbound shipments as well as fragmentary letterbooks in LPHSP. The papers are not complete, but the pattern is clear enough.

12 George Farcis to Bonney & Bush, Oct. 23, 1840, LPHSP 1840; Lamden & Bennet to Bonney & Bush, July 12, 1841, LPHSP 1841; one customer was offered a three–horsepower steam engine for $500. The boiler was four feet in diameter and twenty feet long. Bonney & Bush to Jesper Cardin, Dec. 20, 1838, LPHSP 1838.

13 McIntyre to Bonney & Bush, March 16, 1840, LPHSP 1840.

14 George Bush to Charles Bush, January 22, 1836, LPHSP 1836; John Pedrick to Charles Bush, Nov. 25, 1840, LPHSP 1840; Seamans & Shackleford to Bonney & Bush, April 13, 1838; Bush to McIntyre, August 13, 1838; George Abbott to Bush & Lobdell, February 18, 1840, LPHSP 1838–1840; Abbott to Bonney & Bush, March 7, 1838; Seamans & Shackleford to Bonney & Bush, April 13, 1838, LPHSP 1838.

15 Association of Manufacturers of Chilled Car Wheels, Historical Sketch of the Lobdell Car Wheel Company (n.p., 1936), 1.

16 William D. Lewis MS Diary, Historical Society of Delaware, entry for July 27, 1831; Holmes, William F., “The New Castle and Frenchtown Turnpike and Railroad Company” (M.A. thesis, University of Delaware, 1961), 101, 125.Google Scholar

17 Bonney served on the committee appointed in 1834 to secure financial support for the proposed Wilmington & Susquehanna Railroad, Delaware Gazette, December 19, 1834.

18 Assn. of Manufacturers of Chilled Car Wheels, Sketch, 1; Bush to McIntyre, August 13, 1838, LPHSP 1838; “Notes Wm. Bush for George G. Lobdell 1838,” LPHSP 1838; John P. Crozier to Bonney & Bush, July 8, 1837, LPHSP 1837; J. Johnston to Bush & Lobdell, June 16, 1838, LPHSP 1838; Bush & Lobdell to McIntyre, March 9, 1838, LPHSP 1838.

19 Numerous letters Frankford Arsenal to Bonney & Bush, LPHSP 1837–38; Promissory Note from Bush & Lobdell to David Bush dated October 10, 1837, paid March 1, 1840, LPHSP 1837; Bush & Lobdell to McIntyre, March 9, 1838; The P. W. & B. was a staunch proponent of the policy, much debated among early leaders [see Cochran, Thomas C., Railroad Leaders 1845–1890 (New York, 1965), 83, 115, 116Google Scholar], of turning maintenance work over to outside contractors. Prior to the Civil War the P. W. & B. did so regularly. Philadelphia, Wilmington, & Baltimore Railroad, Annual Reports, 1840–1866.

20 Assn. of Manufacturers of Chilled Car Wheels, Sketch, 1.

21 Lobdell personally supervised the mixture of pig irons that went into the furnaces, prescribed the casting techniques, and inspected the finished product. His practice, he declared, was always “to break up any wheel about which there is the least doubt; to break up hundreds rather than run the risk of sending one bad wheel away.” Quoted in Assn. of Manufacturers of Chilled Car Wheels, Sketch, 3.

22 At this time metallurgy was in its infancy. There were no accurate scientific tests to ensure homogeneous raw materials. The master founder had to depend on his personal knowledge of irons to make selections.

23 Lesley, Manufacturer's Guide, 751; Lobdell Car Wheel Co., Catalog, 1891, 3–4. The firm continued to use this type of iron well into the twentieth century. Charcoal iron was in general use in car wheels at least as late as the 1880's. See Clark, Victor S., History of Manufactures of the United States (New York, 1929), II, 208.Google Scholar Charcoal iron was preferred because it contained no sulphur.

24 Aside from iron the principal materials required for the foundry were coal to fire the melting furnaces, and sand for molds. Coal was purchased from dealers in Philadelphia, Pottsville, and Schuylkill Haven and shipped to Wilmington by water. Sand was ferried across the river from South Jersey sand pits. These patterns did not change until the Civil War, except that in the late 1850's the firm purchased some bituminous coal at the mines in central Pennsylvania. This coal was shipped to Wilmington by rail. Other materials required in small quantities — sheet iron, brass, lead, firebrick, etc., were purchased locally or in Philadelphia and shipped down on the Bush packet. Lobdell occasionally considered the purchase of iron mines and furnaces, but the firm did not do so until the 1880's. Lobdell to J. J. Stonebrunner, LPHSP 1850; Edwards, Richard (ed.). Industries of Delaware (Wilmington, 1880), 123.Google Scholar

25 Bush, & Lobdell, , Catalog, 1851 (Wilmington, 1851)Google Scholar, passim. A copy of this catalog is at the Historical Society of Delaware.

26 See letters to and from Asa Whitney, Lyman Kinsley, Ebenezer Lester, L. B. Tyng, and Trego, LPHSP 1840–65, passim.

27 Charles Hewitt of Trenton Iron Works invented a wheel similar to Lobdell's in 1855, but it was abandoned because the firm could not produce it at a competitive price. Nevins, Allan, Abram S. Hewitt, With Some Account of Peter Cooper (New York, 1935), 119.Google Scholar

28 Bush & Lobdell to Erie, August 28, 1840; same to P. W. & B., Feb. 8, 1842; same to Murphy and Allison, Sept. 11, 1860, LPHSP. Demanding return of the broken wheels was not prompted by suspicion or parsimony. Lobdell recorded which iron went into various lots of wheels; examining broken wheels was an integral part of research and development.

29 Bush & Lobdell, Catalog, 1851, 6–7; T. Lapham to Bush & Lobdell, Feb. 19, 1843, LPHSP 1860.

30 Bush & Lobdell, Catalog, 1851, pp. 9–14. Norris sold locomotives to English railways at least as early as 1840. See William Norris to Bush and Lobdell, Jan. 14, 1840, LPHSP 1840.

31 Chandler, Alfred D. Jr., Henry Varnum Poor (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), 42–43Google Scholar; American Railroad Journal, XXVI (1853), 566–67, 620, 643Google Scholar; American Railroad Journal, XXXII (1859), 842Google Scholar; Railroad Record, IX (1861), 79.Google Scholar

32 Inventory Bush and Lobdell Old Firm, July 31, 1859,” LPHSP 1859, showed the firm had bound volumes of the American Railroad Journal, 1832–1858; LPHSP, passim.

33 Bush & Lobdell to McIntyre, LPHSP 1840–45. This was an unwelcome sideline to McIntyre, who did not particularly enjoy it since he worked on straight commission and sales seldom resulted immediately. There are many letters to and from salesmen throughout LPHSP. Some of them received straight salaries; others were paid salary plus commission. In 1860, G. W. Colby got $40 per month and fifty cents per wheel; A. B. Day received a salary of $1,500 per year. “Account with A. B. Day;” “Account with G. W. Colby,” LPHSP 1860.

34 This list of magazines was compiled from advertisements in journals in the Bureau of Railway Economics Library, Washington, D.C., and receipts for advertising bills in LPHSP.

35 Colby to Bush & Lobdell, Dec. 2, 1860, LPHSP I860; Cochran, Leaders, 407.

36 There is extensive correspondence between the commission merchants named in LPHSP. The most informative is that between Jesup and Lobdell.

37 Lobdell Car Wheel Co., Catalog, 1891, 11–12. In 1867 the capacity was further increased to 250 wheels per day.

38 “Inventory Bush and Lobdell Old Firm, July 31, 1859,” LPHSP 1859.

39 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Manufactures of the United States in 1860 (Washington, 1855), 24Google Scholar; Temin, Iron and Steel, 266.

40 Bonney & Bush MS Receipt Book; Census, Manufactures, 24; Harlan & Hollingsworth to Bush & Lobdell, October 9, 1860; LPHSP 1860; Harold B. Hancock, “The Industrial Worker Along the Brandywine,” typescript copy at Eleutherian Mills Historical Library, Wilmington; Abeles, J. Emil, “The German Element in Wilmington from 1850–1914” (M.A. thesis, University of Delaware, 1948), 28Google Scholar; Drescher, Nuala M., “The Irish in Industrial Wilmington” (M.A. thesis, University of Delaware, 1960), 48–50.Google Scholar Lobdell never employed any slaves, although he could have done so legally until 1865.

41 Harlan & Hollingsworth to Bush & Lobdell, Oct. 9, 1860, Whitney to Lobdell, April 4, 1865, LPHSP. Exchanging information on pay scales appears to have been common practice. See Cochran, Leaders, 304; Bonney & Bush to McIntyre, March 9, 1838, LPHSP 1838; “Account New Firm with Old Firm or GG Lobdel S.P. with Bush and Lobdell,” Lobdell Papers, Eleutherian Mills Historical Library (hereafter cited as LPEM); Census, 1860, Manufactures, 23–24.

42 Weeks, Joseph D. (ed.), Report on the Statistics of Wages in Manufacturing Industries, Tenth Census, Vol. XX (Washington, 1886), 136Google Scholar; “The Rules,” LPHSP 1841. An almost identical set of rules used by another Wilmington firm is in Harlan & Hollingsworth Company, Semi–Centennial Memoir of the Harlan and Hollingsworth Company (Wilmington, 1887).Google Scholar

43 Erie to Bush & Lobdell, July 17, 1860; Bush & Lobdell to Erie, January 19, 1860; same to and from Trego, 1860; passim, LPHSP 1860.

44 The wanderings of the Lobdell schooner, Maria Fleming, can be followed in the telegrams and letters of her captain, Richard Shaw. When no cargo for the firm was available, Shaw picked up any cargo he could find that was headed in the right direction.

45 “An Agreement between H. S. MoComb, William Bush, and George G. Lobdell, June 19, 1856,” LPHSP 1856.

46 Memo to E. O. Gibson,” May, 1860, LPHSP 1860.

47 This weapon could cut both ways. After accepting Florida Railroad Company bonds from Harlan & Hollingsworth, Lobdell shopped around for an axlemaker who would take them in payment. Rebuffed by Trego in Baltimore, he managed to foist them off on N. D. Thompson, owner of Union Steam Forge, Bordentown, New Jersey. Thompson later regretted taking bonds “worth about the value of the paper they are printed on.” Lobdell to Trego, Feb. 15, 1860; Trego to Lobdell, March 7, 1860; Thompson to Lobdell, Dec. 18, 1860, LPHSP 1860.

48 Among the major firms which accepted southern railroad paper in payment are the following: Norris, Baldwin, Rogers (locomotive builders), Whitney, Lobdell (wheels, axles, castings), Murphy & Allison, Harlan & Hollingsworth (car builders), Jesup, Lapham, Williams & Page (commission merchants). LPHSP 1850–60.

49 “Bush and Lobdell in account with M. K. Jesup and Company, 1859–60,” LPHSP. Jesup was a private banker originally; he controlled at least one railroad, the Dubuque & Iowa City. Cochran, Leaders, 47–116.

50 1860 figures:

Source: Census, 1860, Manufactures, 53, 55. Dun & Bradstreet listed Bush & Lobdell's credit as “Good as old Gold,” until July 15, 1861, when Lobdell was characterized as: “at present though probably solvent he would not be able to pay if pushed.” Delaware, vol. 2, p. 15, Dun & Bradstreet Collection (Baker Library, Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration).

51 Memo, July 1, 1861, LPEM.

52 On Hewitt see Nevins, Hewitt, 152–53; for Anderson, Dew, Charles B., Ironmaker to the Confederacy (New Haven, 1966), 38–60.Google Scholar

53 Lobdell to Central, Nov. 14, 1860, LPHSP 1860.

54 Central R.R. to Lobdell, Oct. 18, 1860, LPHSP 1860.

55 LPHSP 1860–1861; Wharton & Petsch to Lobdell, January 5, 1861. Wharton & Petsch regretted the delay in ordering more wheels, but they had been ordered to make gun carriages for the South Carolina Militia.

56 Nevins, Hewitt, 152.

57 Lobdell to Trego, May 24, 1861, LPHSP 1861.

58 Lobdell to J. Marston, May 15, 1861, LPHSP 1861.

59 The firm sold 1,000 shares of Western Maryland stock in late November, 1861; Jesup to Lobdell, December, 1861, passim, LPHSP, 1861; Lobdell to Cabeen, October 30, 1861, LPHSP 1861; Lobdell to David C. Wilson, January 1, 1862, LPHSP 1861.

60 Mooted at length in Gilchrist, David T. and Lewis, W. David (eds.), Economic Change in the Civil War Era (Greenville, Del.)Google Scholarpassim. The effect of the Civil War on Delaware industries is discussed in Wilkinson, Norman B., “The Brandywine Home Front During the Civil War,” Delaware History, IX (1961), 265–81, XI (1964), 111–48.Google Scholar

61 War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 3 (Washington, 1900) V, 999Google Scholar; Murphy, Herman King, “The Northern Railroads During the Civil War,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, V (June, 1918–March, 1919), 328Google Scholar; Weber, Thomas, The Northern Railroads in the Civil War 1861–1865 (New York, 1952), 194, 222Google Scholar; Swatner, Eva, “Military Kailroads during the Civil War,” Military Engineer, XXI (1929), 310–16, 434–39, 518–26Google Scholar; LPHSP 1862–65.

62 Contract October 9, 1862, between Captain H. Robinson, AQM, and Harlan & Hollingsworth to supply box cars for United States Military Railroads. MS Memorandum of Cars purchased from various persons for the United States Government. Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General Consolidated Correspondence File, 1794–1915 (National Archives).

63 F. B. Sturgis to Lobdell, April 18, 22, and 29, May 12, 1862, LPHSP 1862; “George G. Lobdell Claim for Car Wheels,” MS Quartermaster General Office. Register of Claims, Supplies, and Occupation of Real Estate 1874. K. File #4823 (National Archives).

64 Lobdell to Sturgis, October 10, 1862, LPHSP 1862.

65 Harold B. Hancock, “Annual Assessment of Income, Carriages and Plate for the year 1863 in Delaware,” typescript, Historical Society of Delaware; MS list of Income Taxes paid in Division 1, Collection District Number 2 of the State of Delaware, Internal Revenue Bureau Accessions List, 1864 (National Archives).

66 Delaware, vol. 2, pp. 15, 42. Dun & Bradstreet Collection. Lobdell made an advantageous settlement with the Bush family by persuading the trustee, Henry S. McComb, to take all the firm's southern railroad bonds in settlement. In return, Lobdell got clear title to the business and $10,000 in Wilmington bank stock. McComb, an original stockholder in the Union Pacific and the Credit Mobilier, used the bonds as a springboard to a career as a carpetbag railroader. See Stover, John F., “Colonel Henry S. McComb, Mississippi Railroad Adventurer,” Journal of Mississippi History, XVIII (No. 3), 179.Google Scholar

67 Black, Railroads, 23.

68 Many northerners collected at least part of pre–war southern debts. Anderson paid his (Dew, Tredegar, 301); Lobdell collected from many railroads in full with back interest (Mobile and Ohio to Lobdell, Sept. 13, 1866, LPHSP 1866). Stover's Railroads of the South 1865–1900 (Chapel Hill, 1955)Google Scholar is unclear on the subject but indicates that southern railroads generally acknowledged pre–war debts and eventually paid them. Tennessee railroads were required to pay back interest on state bonds issued to United States Military Railroad rolling stock (Weber, Railroads, 218).

69 MS List of Income Taxes paid in Division 1, Collection District Number 2 of the State of Delaware, Internal Revenue Bureau Accessions List, 1867 (National Archives). This return shows the firm's income for 1867 as $585,000.

70 For a succinct discussion of pre–Civil War finance of industry, see Bruchey, Stuart, The Roots of American Economic Growth, 1607–1861 (New York, 1965)Google Scholar, Chapter 7.