WILLIAM KELLY

THE following sketch of William Kelly's life and of his claims to the first conception of the pneumatic process for steel making are reproduced here in a slightly abridged form from a very interesting article, "The Romance of Steel and Iron in America," by Herbert N. Casson, in Munsey's Magazine for April 1906.

In 1846 William Kelly and his brother bought the Suwanee Iron Works, near Eddyville, Kentucky. Kelly's father was a well-to-do landowner in Pittsburgh, where it is said that he erected the first two brick houses in the city. At the time when William Kelly began to make iron he was thirty-six years old, a tall, well-set-up, muscular, energetic man, with blue eyes and close-cropped beard. In inventiveness his brain

ranked high; in business ability, low. He had left a commission business and become an iron maker mainly to carry out a process which he had invented, by which larger sugar kettles were to be made. The "Kelly kettles" became well known among the Southern farmers.

He had married Miss Mildred A. Gracy, of Eddyville, and secured the financial backing of his wealthy father-in-law. His iron plant was a fairly good one, close to high-grade ore, and needing the work of about three hundred negro slaves. Mr. Kelly was strongly opposed to slavery, and tried to escape from being a slaveholder by importing Chinese. He was the first employer in this country to make this experiment, and found it successful; but international complications prevented him from putting it into practice on a larger scale.

Kelly's first aim was to make good wrought iron for his Kettles

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and for customers in Cincinnati. His iron was refined in what was called a "finery fire," a slow, old-fashioned process which used up quantities of charcoal.

In a year all the wood near the furnace had been burned, and the nearest available source of supply was seven miles distant—a fact with which the unbusinesslike Kelly had not reckoned. To cart his charcoal seven miles meant bankruptcy, unless he could invent a way to save fuel.

One day he was sitting in front of the "finery fire" when he suddenly sprang to his feet with a shout, and rushed to the furnace. At one edge he saw a white-hot spot in the yellow mass of molten metal. The iron at this spot was incandescent. It was almost gaseous. Yet there was no charcoal-nothing but the steady blast of air. Why didn't the air chill the metal? Every iron maker since Tubal-Cain had believed that carbon and oxygen had an affinity for each other. They knew what air was and what iron was, and like a flash the idea leaped into his excited brain— there is no need of charcoal; air alone is fuel.

It was as simple as breathing and very similar, but no human mind had thought of it before. When the air is blown into the molten metal the oxygen unites with the impurities of the iron and leaves the pure iron behind. Oxygen-that mysterious element which gives life to all creatures, yet which burns up and destroys all things; oxygen, which may be had without money in infinite quantities-was now to become the creator of cheap steel.

Kelly was carried away by the magnitude of his idea. His unrestrained delight, after months of depression, amazed every one in the little hamlet. Most of his neighbors thought him crazy. Only three listened with interest and sympathy-two English iron workers and the village doctor.

At first Kelly snapped his fingers at opposition. "I'll prove it publicly," he said. At his invitation a number of jesting iron makers from Western Kentucky gathered around his furnace the following week, and Kelly, caring nothing for patents, explained his idea and gave a demonstration of it. Air was blown through some melted pig iron, agitating it into a white heat, to the amazement of the brawny onlookers. A blacksmith seized a piece of the refined iron, cooled it, and with his hammer produced in twenty minutes a perfect horseshoe. He flung it at the feet of the iron-men, who. could not believe their eyesight, and seizing a second scrap of iron, made nails and fastened the shoe to the foot of a nearby horse. Pig iron, which cannot be hammered into anything, had been changed into malleable iron, or something very much like it, without the use of an ounce of fuel.

Surely, the thing was too absurd. Seeing was not believing. "Some crank'll be burnin' ice next," said one. The iron-men shook their heads and went home to boast in after years that they had seen the first public production of "Bessemer" steel in the world.

Kelly called his invention the "pneumatic process," but it became locally known as "Kelly's air-boiling process." He proceeded at once to refine his iron by this method. He sent his steel, or refined iron, or whatever it was, to Cincinnati, and no flaws were found in it. Years before Mr. Bessemer had made any experiments with iron there were

steamboats on the Ohio River with boilers made of iron that had been refined by Kelly's process.

But now came a form of opposition that Kelly could not defy. His father-in-law said: "Quit this foolishness or repay the capital I have advanced." His Cincinnati customers wrote: "We understand that you have adopted a new-fangled way of refining your iron. Is this so? We want our iron made in the regular way or not at all."

About the same time Kelly's ore gave out. New mines had to be dug. Instead of making ten tons a day, he made two.

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He surrendered. He became outwardly a level-headed, practical, conservative iron maker and won back the confidence of his partners and customers. Then one night he took his "pneumatic process" machinery three miles back into a secluded part of the forest and set it up. Galileo, he said: "Nevertheless, air is fuel!" No one knew of this secret spot except the two English iron-workers whom he brought out frequently to help him.

Under such conditions progress was slow. By 1851 his first converter was built a square, brick structure, four feet high, with a cylindrical chamber. The bottom was perforated for the blast. He would first turn on the blast and then put in melted pig iron with a ladle. About three times out of five he succeeded. The greatest difficulty was to have the blast strong enough, otherwise the iron flowed through the airholes and clogged them up.

His second converter was made with holes in the side, and worked better. He discovered that he could do ninety minutes work in ten, and save further expense in fuel. One improvement followed another. In all he built seven converters in his backwoods hiding place.

In 1856 Kelly was told that Henry Bessemer, an Englishman, had taken out a United States patent for the "pneumatic process." This aroused Kelly's national pride more than his desire for a monopoly, and he at once filed in the Patent Office his claims to priority of invention. The Patent Office was convinced and granted him United States Patent No. 17,628, declaring him to have been the original inventor.

Then came the panic of 1857, and Kelly was one of the thousands who topped oyer into bankruptcy. To get some ready money, he sold his patent to his father for a thousand dollars. Not long afterwards, the elder Kelly died and willed his rights to his daughters, who were shrewd, businesslike women. They regarded their brother William as a child in financial matters and refused to give him his patent. After several years of unjustifiable delay, they transferred it to Kelly's children. And so, between his relations and his creditors, Kelly was brought to a standstill.

But even at the lowest point of defeat and poverty, he persevered. Without wasting a day in self-pity, he went at once to the Cambria Iron Works, at Johnstown, Pa., and secured permission from Daniel J. Morrell, the general superintendent, to make experiments there.

"I'll give you that corner of the yard and young Geer here to help you," said Morrell.

In a short time Kelly had built his eighth converter,-the first that really deserved the name, and was ready to make a public demonstration. About two hundred shopmen gathered around his queer-looking apparatus. Many of them were puddlers, whose occupation would be gone if Kelly succeeded. It is often fear that makes men scoff, and the

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puddlers were invariably the loudest in ridiculing the "Irish crank." "I want the strongest blast you can blow," said Kelly to Leibfreit, the old German engineer.

"All right," answered Leibfreit. "I gif you blenty!"

Partly to oblige and partly for a joke, Leibfreit goaded his blowing engine to do its best, hung a weight on the safety-valve, and blew such a blast that the whole contents of the converter went flying out in a tornado of sparks. This spectacular display filled the hundred shopmen with delight. For days you could hear in all parts of the works roars of laughter at "Kelly's firewirks." In fact, it was ten years' joke in the iron trade.

In a few days Kelly was ready for a second trial, this time with less blast. The process lasted more than half an hour and was thoroughly unique. To every practical iron maker, it was the height of absurdity. Kelly stood coatless and absorbed beside his converter, an anvil by his side and a small hammer in his hand. When the sparks began to fly, he ran here and there, picking them up and hammering them upon his anvil. For half an hour every spark crumbled under the blow. Then came one that flattened out, like dough-proving that the impurities had blown out. Immediately he tilted the converter and poured out the contents. Taking a small piece, he cooled it and hammered it into a thin plate on his anvil, proving that it was not cast iron.

He had once more shown that cold air does not chill molten iron, but refines it with amazing rapidity if blown through it for the proper length of time. His process was not complete, as we shall see later, but subsequent improvements were comparatively easy to make. Bessemer, by his own ecorts, did not get any better "steel" in 1855 than Kelly had made in 1847.

For this exact account of Kelly's achievements I am indebted to Mr. J. H. Geer, who was his helper at Johnstown, and to others who were eye-witnesses of his earlier success in western Kentucky.

As early as 1861 Capt. E. B. Ward, of Detroit, and Z. S. Durfee, of New Bedford, obtained control of the patents of William Kelly, who had previously successfully experimented with the pneumatic process at Eddyville, where he owned the Eddyville Iron Works. In 1861 Mr. Durfee went to Europe to study the Bessemer process. During his absence Captain Ward invited William F. Durfee, also of New Bedford, and a cousin of Z. S. Durfee, to erect an experimental plant at Wyandotte, Mich., for the manufacture of pneumatic steel, and this work was undertaken in the latter half of 1862.

In May, 1863, Daniel J. Morrell, of Johnstown, and William M. Lyon and James Park, Jr., of Pittsburgh, having become partners of Captain Ward and Z. S. Durfee in the control of the patents of Mr. Kelly, the Kelly Pneumatic Process Company was organized, Mr. Kelly retaining an interest in any profits which might accrue to the company. It was resolved to complete the experimental works already undertaken and also to acquire the patent in this country of Mr. Mushet for the use of spiegeleisen as a recarburizing agent. This patent was granted in England in 1856 and in this country in 1857. Mr. Z. S. Durfee accordingly went to England to procure an assignment of Mr. Mushet's patent. The latter purpose was effected on the 24th of October, 1864, upon terms which admitted Mr. Mushet, Thomas D. Clare and John N. Brown of

England, to membership in the Kelly Process Company. On September 5, 1865, the company was further enlarged by the admission to membership of Charles P. Chouteau, James Harrison and Felix Valle, all of St. Louis. In September, 1864, William F. Durfee succeeded in making Bessemer steel at the experimental works at Wyandotte. This was the first Bessemer steel made in the United States.

Kelly remained at Jownstown for five years. By this time he had conquered. His patent was restored to him, and Mr. Morrell and others bought a controlling interest in it. He was now honored and awarded. The "crank" suddenly became a recognized genius. By 1870 he had received thirty thousand dollars in royalties; and after his patent was renewed he received about four hundred and fifty thousand more. his process had been improved and widely adopted, Kelly spent no time claiming the credit or basking in the glory of his success. No man was

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ever more undaunted in failure and more modest in victory. He at once gave all his attention to manufacturing high-grade axes in Louisville, and founded a business which is today being carried on at Charleston, West Virginia, by his sons.

When more than seventy years of age, he retired and spent his last days at Louisville. Few who saw the quiet, pleasant-faced old gentleman in his daily walks knew who he was or what he had accomplished. Yet, in 1888, when he died, it was largely by reason of his process that the United States had become the supreme steel-making nation in the world. He was buried in the Louisville cemetery.

Th new process was perfected by a third inventor, Robert F. Mushet, a Scotchman. He solved a problem which had baffled both Kelly and Bessemer-how to leave just enough molten metal to harden it into the required quantity of steel. Instead of frantically endeavoring to stop the process at exactly the right moment, Mushet asked:

"Why not first burn out all the carbon, and then pour back the exact quantity that you need?"

This too, was a simple device, but no one had thought of it before. Since then other improvements have been added by Holley, W. R. Jones, Reese, Gilchrist and Thomas.

The new metal was soon called by the name of "Bessemer steel." Strictly speaking, it was not steel in the original use of the word. It was a new substance, very much like wrought iron. It was not hard enough to serve for all purposes. For knives, for springs, for hammers, for a thousand finer uses, steel must still be made by slower and more careful methods. The Bessemer product does the rougher work, where quantity and cheapness are essential. In an axe, for instance, the cutting edge is made of crucible steel and the rest of Bessemer steel. All the steel rails, the great beams and girders that make our skyscrapers and bridges, the plates of steamships, the wire, nails, tubes, freight-cars and innumerable things, great and small, are made of the new metal that was first produced less than sixty years ago.

It is probable that one reason for the naming of Bessemer steel was the fact that true steel was then selling at three hundred dollars a ton. The new metal might have been less highly esteemed had it been announced merely as a modified form of iron.

In 1870, both Kelly and Bessemer applied to the United States Patent Office to have their patents renewed. The Commissioner of