YOUR

YOUR committee, in asking me to speak to you this evening, intimate that I am a patriarch, and that I have seen American Hardware develop from its very beginning. When we reflect that less than 50 years ago nearly all our Hardware was imported from other countries, and that many at this table have in their lifetime seen American Hardware manufactures grow from nothing to their present magnificent proportions, I do almost feel like one of the old Hardware pioneers of America.

But, Mr. Chairman, I can show that I am not one of the very first. A grave has been unearthed on this continent, covered by strata of soil and geological formation, which science tells us must have taken 10,000 years to form. Its hewn stone casing and inscriptions give unquestioned evidence of the chisel and the hammer. The ornaments and the kitchen Hardware, inclosed with the body, are cunningly wrought and well devised. History and poetry look for stories of great battles and noble deeds in these graves; art looks for statues and ornamental devices; neither art nor poetry will aid me in looking up the details of the Hardware business at that time, and hence I must do it for myself. This grave and the thousand other evidences of prehistoric nations point to a people who knew as much in their way as we do in ours. Evidences accumulate that nations have flourished and disappeared upon this continent so far back in time that the mind cannot conceive it. We have mummies that are older than any in Egypt. These, in turn, are antedated by other peoples long since lost in antiquity. Ages before the flood they were growing corn in Ohio and mining copper, silver and gold in various localities; they were weaving cloth, making dyes of all colors from herbs, berries and minerals. The facts revealed point to a people who filled teeth with gold and who operated for cataract in the eye- -one of the most delicate attempts known to our modern surgery. If these remote people could do these things shall we suppose that they did not have the finest of tools, and that they did not know all about fashioning, tempering and polishing them? From whom should they obtain these and similar tools except from the Hardware merchant? Shall we doubt that there was the Hardware store, and that it had its sign and its imposing show window? There was unquestionably the Hardware merchant; and he was distinctively a Hardware merchant. The same man who sold implements of war and of husbandry manifestly did

The American nations built public works as great or greater than any known in Europe. The Peruvians had public roads 2000 miles long. Humboldt pronounced them among the most stupendous works ever produced by man. They built magnificent bridges of stone,

EDITOR'S NOTE.-This paper was read before the Massachusetts Hardware Dealers' Association, December 13, 1893.

and even invented suspension. bridges thousands of years before they were finally introduced to Europe. In Central America and Mexico the wonderful ruins tell' of a dense population. One city covers a space six miles in diameter. Its long avenues are lined with ruins of public buildings, palaces, factories, edifices and halls, in continuous lines, like our modern cities. These evidences of former grandeur cover an immense territory, including many of our southern and western states. One fort on the Little Miami River, Ohio, has a circuit of 4 or 5 miles and an embankment 20 feet high. It could garrison 60,000 men with their families and provisions.

They had a chain of fortifications reaching from the State of New York across Ohio to the Wabash, and many other works of equal magnitude; yet nowhere in history can I find an ancient spade, or shovel, or wheelbarrow.

In the valleys of the Mississippi and tributaries and throughout Ohio and many other portions of this country are evidences of prehistoric man which baffle our present knowledge. Whatever the purpose of these mounds was, the fact that there are over 10,000 of them in Ohio gives some idea of the extent of the ancient people who built them. They are far more numerous in southern localities and in the Gulf of Mexico. To have such works possible, under any circumstances, there must have been settled life with its accumulations and its organized industries. They had their manufacturers and merchants; and they used implements of agriculture, of war and of peace. No trace of their dwellings or

their factories or their stores is left. Their circular earthwork inclosures are perfect circles, and their square inclosures are perfect squares. They are constructed with geometrical precision, which implies a knowledge of science. Implements made of copper, silver, obsidian and greenstone, finely wrought, are found in abundance. Their axes, single and double, adzes, chisels, drills or gravers, lanceheads, knives, bracelets, pendants and the like, of copper; their ornaments made of silver and mica from the Alleghanies, and shells from the Gulf of Mexico,

all testify to their organized industries. They had the art of spinning and weaving.

In a Minnesota mine a mass of copper weighing nearly six tons has been found, which was evidently detached by prehistoric man. It lay upon a cob work of round logs or skids, the ends of which showed plainly the marks of a small axe or cutting tool, and the mass of copper had been raised several feet along the foot of the lode on timbers by means of wedges. Copper mauls, or sledges, weighing 25 pounds were also found. The whole copper region of Lake Superior shows the work of ancient miners at all the mines of any importance. Their settlements extended into Virginia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Missouri. They were not ancestors of the wild Indian.

Some of the wrought ornaments of the mound builders equal in finish and beauty the finest manufactured by the ancient Peruvians. They made chain, and they had a great store of copper, flax and other rich commodities. They were in some way related to the ancients of Yucatan, Guatemala and Southern Mexico. The fact that they extended through Texas to South America indicates an exceedingly large and very populous condition in the remote past. In Central America, mostly buried in heavy forests, are wonderful ruins of great cities and temples. In Colorado and California. are ruins of more permanent structures of stone, which, in their day, might have excelled the famous Pueblos of New Mexico. There was a higher degree of civilization in the ancient times than has been shown by the people of the same race there in our time. Ruins throughout North and South America display intelligence, skill and much labor. Aqueducts and subterranean reservoirs and cavernous passages show the extent of their knowledge and engineering skill.

The history of the conquest of Mexico reads like a fairy tale. Our present object, however, is to reflect that these great peoples had their merchants, their manufacturers; and that they engaged in the Hardware business as we do to-day; and that if we can discover the nature and extent of their Hardware, we can, in a large measure, find out their condition and habits and their stage of civilization. The ancient graves disclose almost every article of Hardware known to us at the present day: bodkins, screws, horseshoes, shawl pins, buckles, knives, helmets, shields, tweezers, door keys, sheep shears, etc.

While it appears that in very ancient times the natives of Central America possessed copper implements for tilling the fields and knew the use of the chisel, researches show that the use of the axe and hatchet in various forms, the blow pipe, the copper adze and the meat chopping knife are far back in time. They made nails, and they are believed to have brought the manufacture of bronze to great perfection, and are even said to have possessed the art of tempering brass.

We are on the threshold of investigations in this country which shall reveal the evidence of man on this continent so far back in the ages that our previous estimates of the development of man shall be dwarfed into insignificance. However savage his state may be assumed to have been, primitive man must have possessed implements, weapons, domestic utensils, Hardware -implements more or less rough, but still implements for cleaving wood, constructing places of shelter, carving his food, catching and preparing his fish, trapping his game and other similar uses. Man has never existed without a defensive weapon. We patiently search for these

tools and implements, and our search has been and will be rewarded.

Those of us who have seen iron pipes buried in the earth return to oxides and to sand in a few years' time, and those of us who wonder what becomes of all our pins can understand that through the ages that have lapsed all traces of ordinary implements of Hardware may well have disappeared again and again. Nevertheless, bones and implements have been found in certain strata of the earth, the age of which is known to geologists. Some of these long preceded the flood. The more enduring stone is naturally found where perishable Hardware of other varieties has disappeared.

It is evident that if we have met with the bones of the cave bear and of man in conjunction with relics of his industry, such as implements and utensils, we can assert with some degree of certainty that Hardware was known at the time of the cave bear, and that man lived in the quaternary epoch.

It is interesting to note that in diluvial beds the hatchet and the axe have been found-stone, to be sure, but in such perfection as to be the shape of the same article reproduced down through all the ages, until to-day we sell the same hatchet and the same axe, in pattern.

In a prehistoric cave in France there have been found the remains of the bear and of man, together with numerous well-made implements of stag or reindeer's horn, carefully fashioned and beveled, with holes drilled therein; knives and other weapons, and the bear's tooth carved in the shape of a bird's head and drilled. This cave had a cement floor or layer of made ground of an ossiferous and vegetable character, strengthened with fragments of stone. There were also ashes and charcoal, showing the existence of a fire.

The jaw bone of the great bear, with an immense canine tooth left in place, and the whole carved, finished and fashioned into the shape of a convenient and formidable weapon, further testifies to the skill and workmanship of the people in that remote age.

During the Glacial Period man's greatest need was fire. This he doubtless obtained by rapidly revolving a pointed stick against inflammable woods, resin or grease of wild animals by means of the bow drill.

The use of the bow appears to have been known from the beginning of time, and the bow drill of our present day appears through all the history of antiquity. The flint arrow head and the long bow are also common to mankind in all ages and in all lands. Stone implements of various kinds, and in some cases for uses which we can hardly conjecture, also appear to have accompanied man almost from his earliest stages. The varying types of these stone implements mark the date of the starting point of manufactures and the arts. We find among them flint knives, scrapers, agricultural implements and domestic utensils. We have found in this country immense beds of flint flakes, showing that these implements were made at regular factories, and the chips and imperfect implements found in these beds indicate that they were made upon a very large scale, and that there was the manufacturer and hence the merchant and, of course, the drummer. We find also the mines from which the suitable flint was extracted, and that the mines were shored up and protected with posts and lumber, to stay the earth in place, much as we do mining to-day. It is also manifest that there were varieties and different qualities of these various implements, some of them being made from the common flint, while others are made from obsidian, quartz, jasper, agate and jade.

The manufacture of tomahawks, scrapers and chisels.

and the skill required in fitting them to handles gave employment to large numbers of men. These men were skilled mechanics, and had all the questions of wages, hours of labor, etc., which we have to-day. Perhaps they had their labor unions. These are the primitive Hardware manufacturers.

The potter's art we are not discussing, but it also dates. back to the earliest epoch of man. How soon the potter's wheel or lathe was known we cannot yet determine.

Implements made of reindeer horn, sharks' teeth, teeth of the cave bear and of polished bone are also found; while the needle, having an eye pierced at the base, was manifestly known to the cave dwellers and to earliest man. Bodkins, stilettoes, saws and needles are found. The perfect flint drill, with sharpened point and cutting edge, also appears in the Stone Age. The spoon made from the reindeer's horn, and delicate instruments made from polished horn and bone; the flint saw and the chisel, the bone harpoon and the horn comb were in use by the cave dwellers.

These people on this continent, far back in time, have a remarkable similarity to man in other parts of the world. They passed through the same periods with much the same experience in knowledge and development as in the better known countries of Europe. Their Stone Age, their Bronze Age and their Iron Age are distinctly marked. They had on this continent the same stories of the flood; the same rules of art and of architecture; the same pyramids; the same common form of arch; the same belief in immortality; the same compass; the same knowledge of astronomy; a similarity in languages and in alphabets. The plow is found in ancient Egypt and in ancient Peru; the axe of the Stone Age in Europe is the axe of the Stone Age in this country. The stone arrow head of Switzerland is the same as the stone arrow head of America.

The bronze chisel and the spear head of oldest Europe are almost identical with those of North America. Both countries knew the use of the magnet; the signs of the zodiac; and they calculated eclipses and watched the periods of the planets and constellations. The carpenters' and masons' tools of oldest Europe are almost identical with those we use to-day. Even the obelisks of Egypt have their counterpart in America. The division of time employed at Thebes was strikingly similar to that found in use in Mexico. The round towers of ancient Ireland and Scotland are the same as those in New Mexico and Colorado. Ancient Phoenician idols of the horned god Baal are the same as those found in Dakota and Peru. Coins of ancient Tyre and of Central America are strikingly similar in size and in the device thereon.

We find in this country mounds shaped like the elephant, yet it is known that the elephant never existed here. In ancient Mexico also idols and bas-reliefs faithfully portraying the elephant have been found.

These coincidences are mentioned to show that at various times, through vast antiquity, the old world and the new have in some way come together and have interchanged knowledge, arts, forms of government, implements of war and of agriculture.

Now, who were the venturesome and ambitious men who undertook these voyages, and what was their incentive? I answer that it was the traders, and that they sold implements of war, of husbandry, of the chase, and of the domestic life; in other words, they sold Hardware and were the drummers. They pushed out into all quarters of the earth. Hardware and civilization have gone together since the Glacial Period.

The Hardware implements found in these ancient

graves record the progress of man and fix his stage in the advancement of the race. Since time began commerce has been the great educator, explorer and mover of the world, and in the forefront of these exploits is the Hardware merchant.

Vulcan unquestionably had an existence in fact, and it is only the halo of time and imagination that deifies him. He was a smith, armorer and chariot builder. He made horseshoes of brass, and was an unusually good Hardware manufacturer. (Any of us who are unusually good in our line will doubtless go down to posterity in much the same exalted memory.) He is said to have forged thunderbolts, but we Hardwaremen know that he would not make up any stock for which there was not a demand. If he "forged" at all, it suggests the anvil and heated iron; but all his products were brass and plainly locate him in the Bronze Age. His goods had a large sale on account of their quality.

Whoever was the original of the Venus of Mythology, it is plain that she needed kitchen Hardware, manicure sets, and I had almost said a pocket knife, but I am in some doubt as to whether she wore a pocket.

us.

Recent events at Chicago have exalted the name of Columbus, but we of the trade know that Columbus was, in fact, a hardware drummer. He carried a line of pocket knives, hatchets, fish-hooks and small wares, and was seeking to extend his trade. At a dinner given by the Hardware Association, in Spain, after one of his trips, he won a wager on some quite ordinary trick with an egg. He told those people at home that he had "discovered" Discovered us! Forsooth! Our people worked off some coon skins and other articles with which the market was much overstocked, and induced him to give us several hawk bells for a single skin. These hawk bells were worth more to our women than all the surplus skins in the market; for they enabled them to adorn themselves with European novelties and to walk the streets of our cities in all the pride and glory of decorated beauty. Moreover Columbus died poor, as is still the custom of Hardware commercial men. Many drummers from other lands had visited us before, far back in time, and many shall do it again.

We cannot help thinking of people in far countries, or in far off ages, as benighted and unused to the advantages we enjoy.

When we read of the beauty and wealth of Helen of Troy we are prone to believe that she was, nevertheless, a barbarian, and, in the absence of our modern silver plated fork, she tore her food asunder (perhaps by putting one foot on it), and in general lived and conducted herself in a very crude manner. We must rest assured, however, that her household utensils covered not only all the devices for utility and convenience known to us, but were, moreover, probably adorned and embellished with workmanship such as we rarely see.

When we read of the magnificent bronze shields and the shining helmets of Ulysses' army we are carried away with the sublimity and poetry of the situation, but our subject for this evening is Hardware. Would it be unpoetical for me to wonder who sold Ulysses those shining helmets, and whether they originally came one dozen in a box, nested and assorted sizes, and whether the drummers who failed to get the order were blamed by their houses? May we believe that Ulysses claimed that some of the boxes were one-sixth of a dozen short or that he took off 2 per cent. when he did not pay within ten days. The license of our trade gives us the right to inquire, but poetry is silent on these points and may even take offense at our temerity.

The dawn of the bronze epoch revolutionized the Hardware trade, and hence the civilized world. The copper mines of Lake Superior and of Minnesota have manifestly been worked in prehistoric ages. Evidences of brass foundries have been found in various places upon this continent. It is already made plain that the inhabitants of North America for a long time worked the pure copper into Hardware implements. How long they did this before they discovered that an alloy of copper and tin would make bronze we do not know, but it was thousands of years. Every day, however, brings new developments, and in time the history of the Hardware trade on this continent will be unfolded.

The transition from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age can be read in the disclosures of the lake dwellers of Switzerland. This wonderful people lived through the Stone Age and for long ages continued on until they lapped over into the Bronze Age. Some of their settlements disclose only stone implements, while others of a later date show the bronze chisel, the bronze winged hatchet, the bronze knife, the hexagonal hammer, the tanged knife of ornamental design, the socket knife and the bronze sickel; they show also the bronze fish-hook, barbed, and in exact similitude of our present device. The ornamental hat pin, as now used, together with other articles of utility and ornamentation, are plentiful. The stone mold for casting the copper or bronze hatchet is of exceedingly ancient date, but probably the use of sand was far more common, and hence we have less traces of that method.

It is a singular fact that the ancient Egyptians show no evidence of previous barbarism and gradual development, but they spring upon the world at once in a high state of cultivation. It is also remarkable that in all ancient Europe they show no evidence of having used copper before they discovered the advantage of an alloy with tin. They appear to have begun abruptly to use bronze. Is it possible that developments on this continent shall prove that the art was introduced to them by the inhabitants of this land?

While we grope in the dark, seeking to find the modes of living, method of work, details of trade and other interesting facts with reference to most of the ancient peoples, we are certainly indebted to ancient Egypt for its picture writing. We must be exceedingly thankful for the inspiration which caused them to decorate their tombs and all available places with those famous flat pictures of angular men and women engaged in the ordinary pursuits of life. They unfold to us a better story of their every-day life than could be obtained in any other way. A painting from the tomb of Rameses III, at Thebes, shows an Egyptian kitchen, with the various processes of preparing the feast. It plainly shows our present butcher knife, the poker, pots and kettles, wash basin, various pans and bowls, soup ladles, ropes passing through rings, kitchen tables, and the syphon of various sizes. The fire and bake oven quite nearly approach our modern stove, and the tray upon which the servant handed viands to the guest was the same device we use to-day. Bronze spoons and ornamental ladles of various lengths, as well as those of shell and alabaster, are found at Thebes. Small strainers or colanders also abound, and doors appear with the ordinary butt hinges and with ornamental strap hinges of our exact patterns.

We also find the shutter bolt like that we use to-day. Their well-known skill in glass blowing leaves no doubt of their knowledge of the blow pipe and the crucible. Ancient sculptures represent the lantern, and Herodotus mentions a fête of lanterns which took place at a certain

season of the year. They made cotton and linen cloth, which, together with mummy cloth, they manufactured on a large scale. This necessitated needles of all descriptions for the marvelous needle work they produced.

They made gold and silver wire far back in antiquity, doubtless drawing it through holes in metal plates, as we do. Wire drawing was first attempted with the more ductile metals like gold and silver, and at a much later period followed brass and iron wire. They had the flax hackle or comb, the knitting needle, spindles for weaving and the smoothing" iron " for cloth. Paintings at Thebes show the carpenter at work with the square, the bow drill and the marking awl. Others show the hand saw, the cooper's adze and the breast drill just as we use them now. Another painting shows the currier at work, between 3000 and 4000 years ago, and the circular knife he uses is precisely similar to that of our modern currier. The tools known to be in common use by the Egyptian carpenters were the axe, chisel, various kinds of hatchets, mallet, hand saws, two sorts of planes, plummet, square, rule, the hone, and the leather bag containing nails. The cutting tools were all of bronze, the blades being fastened to the handles by thongs of hide.

The bow drill is of the earliest date, and appears to have been always known on this continent as well as in Europe. The Egyptian carpenter had his tool chest, made of inlaid or veneered wood of various hues; and one painting represents an assistant spreading glue with a brush, and having his glue pot over the fire. It is noticeable that the chest handles on the carpenter's chest are of the same pattern as we use for that purpose today.

The Egyptian mummies, and these various paintings, and the mention of various writers, reveal to us to-day that these people had, in common use, the door knocker, pitchfork, flail, sickle, grass hook, plow, hoe, cattle yoke, hooped barrels and firkins, harrow, razor, hand mirrors, the comb, bellows, wooden mallets, levers, lifting cranes, door hasps, the butchers' steel, the balance scale with weights, the pole axe, forceps, try square, the wedge, and nails and tacks in variety. All these things point to the Hardware merchant and to the manufacturer of these various articles of Hardware and nails; and they open a wide realm for speculation as to their business customs, their competition, their bad debts and other details. We may wonder what manufacturer made those nails and whether the nail business was close then as now, and whether the redolent mummy would make nails again if he could return to earth to-day.

Now as to the hand saw. It is a curious fact that the one shown on the tomb at Thebes, 4000 years ago, is the same in outline and construction as those we use to-day. How long it took for the evolution of the saw to establish that exact shape, and that particular place for the handle, we may not know; but we may well wonder that with our ingenuity and our constant endeavor to improve everything, we have never found that some other shape. for the hand saw is better.

There is such an abundance of Hardware all through antiquity that I do not like to find fault; but I am struck with the fact that nowhere can I find the bolt and nut. Hence, of course, there is no ancient wrench of any kind.

Nor can I find the auger or bit, though the Egyptians had the breast drill-probably using it with any durable borer to worry out a hole, with the aid of emery or similar material. I can find no screwdriver in ancient times, and no sign of the common slotted head screw.

It is manifest that if Vulcan could have sent to the nearest Hardware store for carriage and tire bolts, wood