Did you know: Robert Harper obtained his 125-acre patent from Lord Fairfax in 1751, but was not the first person to obtain a warrant for the land, and his name was not on the original plat or certificate of survey. George Washington, over the objections of his own War Dept., insisted that the “situation in the fork at the junction of the Potowmac and Shenandoah rivers is the most eligible” for the establishment of a federal armory. James Stubblefield, who oversaw the installation of Thomas Blanchard’s lathe for cutting gun stocks, was so impressed with the new machine that he sent a sample gunstock to President James Madison. John H. Hall, hampered in his quest to mechanize arms production by a lack of water power, wrote of the “strange mistake of those who in the first instance, constructed the works at Harpers Ferry for the National Armory.” These and other stories of innovators and 19th-century technology are explored in this new book by author David T. Gilbert.
Did you know: Robert Harper obtained his 125-acre patent from Lord Fairfax in 1751, but was not the first person to obtain a warrant for the land, and his name was not on the original plat or certificate of survey. George Washington, over the objections of his own War Dept., insisted that the “situation in the fork at the junction of the Potowmac and Shenandoah rivers is the most eligible” for the establishment of a federal armory. James Stubblefield, who oversaw the installation of Thomas Blanchard’s lathe for cutting gun stocks, was so impressed with the new machine that he sent a sample gunstock to President James Madison. John H. Hall, hampered in his quest to mechanize arms production by a lack of water power, wrote of the “strange mistake of those who in the first instance, constructed the works at Harpers Ferry for the National Armory.” These and other stories of innovators and 19th-century technology are explored in this new book by author David T. Gilbert.
Did you know: Robert Harper obtained his 125-acre patent from Lord Fairfax in 1751, but was not the first person to obtain a warrant for the land, and his name was not on the original plat or certificate of survey. George Washington, over the objections of his own War Dept., insisted that the “situation in the fork at the junction of the Potowmac and Shenandoah rivers is the most eligible” for the establishment of a federal armory. James Stubblefield, who oversaw the installation of Thomas Blanchard’s lathe for cutting gun stocks, was so impressed with the new machine that he sent a sample gunstock to President James Madison. John H. Hall, hampered in his quest to mechanize arms production by a lack of water power, wrote of the “strange mistake of those who in the first instance, constructed the works at Harpers Ferry for the National Armory.” These and other stories of innovators and 19th-century technology are explored in this new book by author David T. Gilbert.
