America's First Match Manufacturer
Jacob Weller of Thurmont Created Friction Matches
© Jim Rada
Dec 10, 2008
Jacob Weller was a blacksmith in Mechanicstown, Maryland (now Thurmont) in the early years of the 19th Century. In August 1805, Weller purchased two acres on the south side of Main Street in Mechanicstown. He built a one and half story stone building with a workshop behind it.
First Use of the Match House
Weller began operating his edge tool factory from the workshop. He made shovels, hoes and other tools using the flowing water of Hunting Creek for power.
Making Matches
Around 1825, Weller also started making something new in America.
“In a stone building still standing on W. Main St. and now called the Old Match House, he produced wooden matches dipped into a mixture of his secret formula,” Earl Arnett, Robert Brugger and Edward Papenfuse wrote in their book, Maryland.
These early matches were called lucifers and they were based on French matches that Weller had seen in Frederick, Maryland. Most people still tended to used flint and steel to create sparks to start a fire.
“Their process was slow and laborious, each splint having to be cut and dipped separately in the composition which formed its head,” James Cooke Mills wrote in Searchlights on Some American Industries.
The splints were hand cut from basswood or other softwoods.
“The matches were first subdivided by hand and later by machinery, and then dipped into the brimestone mixture, etc., and then set aside to dry. The result was a marketable block of matches — from which individual matches could be broken off as they were needed. The matches were then placed in boxes and were peddled throughout Frederick County at twenty-five cents a box. With each box went a piece of sand paper upon which to ignite the matches,” George Wireman wrote in Gateway to the Mountain.
The Success of Matches
“They were well known by 1832 when a student at Mount St. Mary's college wrote of buying some which sold for 12 and a half cents a block,” A. W. Cissel wrote in her article, “Jacob Weller: America's first manufacture of stick matches.”
Matches as Devil’s Work
Although it turned out to be a simple formula that Weller used, it was a dangerous one. Experiments with the formula resulted in several explosions in the workshop, according to Cissel.
“Jacob and son Joseph traveled extensively to sell the matches, with little success, especially when they attempted to sell the matches to area farmers, they were met with suspicion for their new-fangled and possibly dangerous product,” Cissel wrote.
Many people also thought the matches were the work of the devil.
“Peddlers whom Jacob Weller sent out to market his flame-producing bits of wood, often encountered vigorous sales resistance, often expressed by the sharp teen of the householder's dogs. Many wild tales swept through the countryside. The frontier folk warned each other that these new fire sticks would explode and blow a man, his family and his earthly possessions high into the peaceful Mary-land sky,” Wireman wrote.
Failure to Patent
Weller didn’t patent his invention and so other enterprising businessmen bought his matches and used them to develop their own. The first patent for friction matches was issued to a man in Massachusetts in 1836.
This mistake led Weller to financial ruin in the late 1830’s.
 |
