Seth Boyden (November 17, 1788 – March 31, 1870) was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
inventor. He was the brother of
Uriah A. BoydenUriah Atherton Boyden was a Boston inventor and mechanical engineer. He was the brother of Seth Boyden.He designed a water turbine that became known as the Boyden turbine....
.
A
New EnglandNew England is a region of the United States. It is located at the northeastern corner of the US, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, Canada and the state of New York, consisting of the modern U.S...
native (born in Foxboro, Massachusetts) who moved to
Newark, New JerseyBrick City redirects here. For the township in Ocean County, see Brick Township, New Jersey.Newark is the largest city in New Jersey, and the county seat of Essex County. Newark has a population of 281,402, making it the largest municipality in New Jersey and the 65th largest city in the U.S...
, Boyden perfected the process for making
patent leatherPatent leather is leather that has been given a high gloss, shiny finish. The original process was developed by Newark-based inventor Seth Boyden in 1818 with commercial manufacture beginning September 20, 1819. His process used a linseed oil–based lacquer coating...
, created
malleable ironMalleable iron is cast as White iron, the structure being a metastable carbide in a pearlitic matrix. Through an annealing heat treatment the brittle as cast structure is transformed. Carbon agglomerates into small roughly speherical aggregates of graphite leaving a matric of ferrite or pearlite...
, invented a
nailIn engineering, woodworking and construction, a nail is a pin-shaped, sharp object of hard metal or alloy used as a fastener. Formerly wrought iron, today's nails are typically of an alloy of steel, often be dipped or coated to prevent corrosion in harsh conditions or improve adhesion.Nails are...
-making machine, and built his own
steamboatA steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels....
. He is also credited with having invented a cut off switch for steam engines and a method for producing zinc from ore. At the time of his death, he told friends that he had, even at that time, enough experiments on hand to last two whole lifetimes.
Boyden began his work with malleable iron in 1820, when he was 32 years old. From observing the behavior of iron that stuck to the walls of his grandfather's forge, he had developed a theory about the heat treatment of iron. He completed his research in 1826, and won an award from the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia two years later.
Several sources site that Boyden "made the first American daguerreotype" and this statement appears on a plaque at the base of a Boyden statue in
Newark-United Kingdom:* Newark-on-Trent, a market town in Nottinghamshire in the East Midlands region of England and the oldest Newark** Newark * Newark, Peterborough in Cambridgeshire...
's Washington Park. While it has long been accepted that D.W. Seager of New York City produced the first
daguerreotypeA daguerreotype is an early type of photograph, developed by Louis Daguerre, in which the image is exposed directly onto a mirror-polished surface of silver bearing a coating of silver halide particles deposited by iodine vapor. In later developments bromine and chlorine vapors were also used,...
in America, it is unclear which other Americans may have been experimenting with the process prior to a public display of Seager's daguerreotypes in the Summer of 1839. A daguerreian camera built by Boyden still exists in the collection of the
Newark MuseumThe Newark Museum is the largest museum in New Jersey, USA. It holds fine collections of American art, decorative arts, contemporary art, and arts of Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the ancient world...
.
Boyden rarely
patentA patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for a public disclosure of an invention....
ed his inventions, preferring instead to take individual contracts and to build and sell off businesses. He did make large sums from this, but not enough to support his research and to provide for his old age. During the last 15 years of his life, Boyden lived in near-
povertyPoverty is the condition of lacking basic human needs such as nutrition, clean water, health care, clothing, and shelter because of the inability to afford them. This is also referred to as absolute poverty or destitution...
in Hilton,
New JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered on the north by New York, and to the east by the Hudson River, Upper New York Bay, the Kill Van Kull, Newark Bay, the Arthur Kill, Raritan Bay, Sandy Hook Bay, Westchester County, New York City, Long Island, and...
(now
Maplewood, New JerseyMaplewood is a township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the township population was 23,868.-History:...
) and developed a hybrid
strawberryFragaria is a genus of flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae, commonly known as strawberries for their edible fruits. There are more than 20 described species and many hybrids and cultivars. The most common strawberries grown commercially are cultivars of the Garden strawberry...
known as the Hilton strawberry.
External links
- Seth Boyden at Find A Grave
Find A Grave is a website providing access and input to an online database of cemetery records.-History:According to the founder, Salt Lake City resident Jim Tipton, the website was developed in 1995 to address the lack of any existing site that catered to his hobby of visiting the graves of...
- Remembering the forgotten Seth Boyden at Google News Archive