Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Batchelder, Samuel

BATCHELDER, Samuel, inventor, b. in Jaffrey, N. H., 8 June, 1784; d. in Cambridge, Mass., 5 Feb., 1879. His early life was spent in New Ipswich, whither his parents had removed, and in 1808 he became interested in a cotton factory at this place, which was the second that was erected in New Hampshire. In 1825 he removed to Lowell, where he superintended the erection of the Hamilton Company's mills. In 1831 he was called on to undertake the erection of a cotton-mill for the York Manufacturing Company in Saco, Me., and to superintend its operations. The mills under his management were very successful, and the plant and capital were greatly enlarged. In 1846 he removed to Cambridge, Mass., where he continued to reside, and, although a representative in the Massachusetts state legislature, he yet for many years continued his relations with the mills, being president of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, the Appleton Company, the Essex Company, the Everett Mills, the York Manufacturing Company, and the Exeter Manufacturing Company — having an aggregate capital of about $5,000,000. About 1832 he devised the first stop-motion to the drawing-frame, which has since been used in this country and England. In 1832 he patented the steam-cylinders and connections now universally used in dressing-frames for drying yarns. His greatest invention was the dynamometer used for ascertaining the power for driving machinery. It was first used in the York mills in 1837, and was considered preferable to any known apparatus for determining the power actually used in driving machinery. In early life he contributed to the “Boston Monthly Anthology” and to the “Port Folio,” and he was the author of the “Responsibilities of the North in Relation to Slavery” (Cambridge, 1856), and “Introduction and Early Progress of the Cotton Manufacture in the United States” (Boston, 1863). A sketch of his life was published in pamphlet form (Lowell, 1885).