The Gunpowder Copper Works were built in 1817 on the Gunpowder River, 10 miles from Baltimore, by Levi Hollingsworth. Water power was used in manufacturing. In 1866 the rolling-mill was transferred to Canton. It is now operated by the Baltimore Copper Smelt ing & Rolling Company, who are engaged in smelting and in the manufacture of blue vitriol and sulphuric acid.
The manufacture of yellow metal for sheath ing vessels was the subject of a patent by H. F. Muntz, of Birmingham, England, about the year 1840. This mixture, which contains a large percentage of spelter and can be rolled while hot, being cheaper than copper, naturally came largely into use for ship-sheathing. It was first made to this country by the Revere Copper Company, within a year or two after its produc tion in England. Later, it was made by the Taunton Copper Manufacturing Company, the New Bedford Copper Company and the Bridge water Iron Company. The decline of American ship-building, and legislation permitting Ameri can vessels engaged in foreign trade to use the foreign metal without payment of duty, have greatly decreased the demand for yellow metal in the United States.
The causes that have tended to localize the manufacture of sheet brass do not affect the rolling of copper. The makers of sheet copper usually do not remanufacture their product. So that, while most of the brass-mills are lo cated in Connecticut, the copper-mills are dis tributed throughout the country: in Massachu setts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Illinois.
The manufacture of seamless tubes of brass and copper is an important part of the brass business. These tubes are made in the Nauga tuck Valley by The American Brass Company and also by the American Seamless Tube Com pany of Boston, and by other manufacturers. Early in 1848, Joseph Cotton, Joseph H. Cotton, William E. Coffin, Holmes Hinckley and Daniel F. Child, all of Boston, despatched to England an engineer, Joseph Fox, to learn how to make seamless brass tubes, paying a large sum to Messrs. Green and Alston, the English pat entees, for the instruction of Mr. Fox, and the right to make tubes by their process in the United States. Previous to that time all copper and brass tubes for use in locomotive and marine boilers and for the hundreds of other uses to which tubes were put, were brazed: that is, made of strips of metal put in a rounded form and their edges brazed together. In 1850
the gentlemen before named organized a cor poration called the American Tube WorIcs, of Boston, and began the manufacture of seamless drawn brass tubes. Such tubes have taken the place of the brazed tubes in all cases where steam or other high pressures are involved.
There are no public records correctly show ing the present condition of the brass and copper industry in America. Figures can only be obtained by personal application to the manu facturers. The following details, showing the state of the business in the year 1903, are taken from information furnished by 20 of the largest corporations, and include the entire business of the country in rolled brass, copper, tube and wire. In a few instances, where in formation was refused, an estimate of the busi ness has been made, but this does not exceed 13 per cent of the total.
The nominal capital invested was $17,000,000, but the amount of the actual investment was about $29,000,000.
The average number of persons employed was 16,000.
The annual consumption of copper was 300,000,000 pounds.
The annual consumption of spelter was 43,500,0(10 pounds.
The value of the annual product was $73,700,000.
If the foregoing figures were doubled they would fall short of the amount invested and the extent of the industry in the year 1915. The increased volume of business is mainly supplied by extension of previously existing plants, but some corporations of more recent origin have come into prominence, notably the Buffalo Cop per and Brass Rolling Mills of Buffalo, N. Y.
Brass founders or manufacturers of articles of cast brass are not induded in the foregoing figures. That is a separate branch of business, and it is carried on by a great number of foundries in the United States, consuming a large quantity of ingot copper and of old metal. Many manufacturing concerns, also, have their own foundries, where metal is cast, to be used in their various departments.