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Anthony Harkness

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Anthony Harkness
Born(1793-07-10)July 10, 1793
Portsmouth, Rhode Island, US
DiedMay 10, 1858(1858-05-10) (aged 64)
Cincinnati, Ohio, US
OccupationBusinessman, machinist, inventor
Known forPioneered locomotive industry in Cincinnati, Ohio

Anthony Harkness (July 10, 1793 – May 10, 1858) was an American businessman, machinist, and inventor who was associated with the making of steam engines for water pumps, sugar mills, cotton mills, steamboats and railroad locomotives. He pioneered the railroad locomotive industry of Cincinnati, Ohio. He was successful in several business enterprises and became very wealthy. In his retirement, Harkness founded Glendale, Ohio, an upscale community just north of Cincinnati.

Biography[]

Early life[]

Harkness was born on July 10, 1793, in Portsmouth, Rhode Island.[1]

Career[]

Harkness became a machinist in Paterson, New Jersey, in his early twenties. He learned part of his trade from locomotive builder Thomas Rogers, became skilled at his profession and buy 1818, he had been promoted to a manager's position at a cotton factory. The financial panic of 1819 caused him to migrate westward to Cincinnati to find better employment opportunities as a trained mechanic. That city had also been hit by the first widespread and durable financial crisis in the United States and he was unable to find work. Harkness then left the city and tried farming, but failed to make a good income.[2]

A. Harkness & Sons Foundry circa 1848 was two-story with smoke stack and three-story building in foreground on Front Street, east of Lawrence Street.
Little Miami (built 1853) train in Xenia, Ohio, 1865

In 1820, when he was twenty-seven years old, Harkness went back to Cincinnati and established a machine shop and copper foundry on the northeast corner of Broadway Street and Pearl Street. In 1827, he partnered in the enterprise with , another mechanic, and they manufactured steam engines for many uses, being one of the first such shops in the city. About a year later, Harkness retired from that partnership and accumulated a large fortune of $4,000 (equivalent to $94,000 in 2020). He borrowed another $2,000 and in mid-1828, with this $6,000 total (equivalent to $141,000 in 2020), he built a new shop on the north side of Front Street, just east of Lawrence Street.[1][3] There, he built machinery and steam engines for riverboats and sugar mills.[4]

The two-story machine shop with a smokestack on Front Street was the nucleus for the later three-story Harkness factory complex that, within a few years, occupied an entire city block at the northeast corner of Front Street between Lawrence and Pike streets in Cincinnati.[5] The factory Harkness had manufactured equipment and engines for sugar mills.[6] The Bank of the United States loaned him the money he needed to produce a large order of sugar mills and manufacture the engines that ran them.[1]

With the profits from his factory, Harkness developed other enterprises, including the Hamilton Foundry that made machinery for river steamboats from 1829 to 1840.[1][7][8] Another new enterprise he had was the Franklin Cotton Mills, in which he partnered with and .[8][9] Strader was already associated with the Little Miami Railroad company and knew there was a shortage of locomotives. He brought this to the attention of Harkness and suggested his shop, which was well equipped, build steam engines for locomotives.[10] Harkness partnered with designer Alexander Bonner Latta and in 1846, went into railroad locomotive manufacturing, becoming the pioneer manufacturer of locomotives in the city.[11]

Harkness built engines for the Little Miami railroad company's two locomotives at a loss. He replaced Latta with the master mechanic of the railroad company, . The time taken to manufacture locomotives was then reduced from between six and nine months to three weeks, making them profitable. Harkness built seven locomotives for the Little Miami Railroad, the Madison and Indianapolis Railroad, and the Mad River and Lake Eric Railroad companies in 1847. The next year he bought the machine shops of Yeatman and Shield, expanding his machine shop on Front Street across the entire city block from Lawrence Street to Pike Street. He then built locomotives on speculation and had them available for potential railroad customers.[12] By 1848, Harkness had built fifteen locomotives for various railroad companies at a total cost of $110,000 (equivalent to $3,290,000 in 2020).[13] He built a total of thirty locomotives for the Little Miami Railroad company by 1856 for use in Cincinnati.[6] He is considered the founder of the Cincinnati locomotive industry.[1][6]

Retirement and death[]

Harkness locomotive engine at the first Glendale (Ohio) train depot in 1918

In 1852, Harkness had a cancer on his nose that at first was determined incurable, even after several treatment attempts. A Dr. Newton was called in to attempt a cure and accomplished it with his "special medicine".[14] Harkness retired in 1853 as a wealthy person, having amassed half a million dollars (equivalent to $15,600,000 in 2020).[15] He died of cancer on May 10, 1858, at the age of 65, in Cincinnati.[16]

Personal life[]

Harkness married Mary Hoagland on February 17, 1817.[17] He had a son, William, who committed suicide in 1853,[18] and a daughter, Jane, who died in 1880 at the age of 54.[19]

Legacy[]

Around 1853, Harkness founded Glendale, Ohio, an upscale community just north of Cincinnati.[20]

References[]

  1. ^ a b c d e White 1965, p. 9.
  2. ^ White 1965, pp. 9–46
  3. ^ Moore 1887, p. 35.
  4. ^ White 1965, p. 30.
  5. ^ "Early Days of Glendale Reclled". The Cincinnati Enquirer. Cincinnati, Ohio. January 7, 1923. p. 69 – via newspapers.com open access.
  6. ^ a b c "The Locomotive Builder". The Cincinnati Enquirer. Cincinnati, Ohio. March 23, 1969. p. 167 – via newspapers.com open access.
  7. ^ "Captain Thomas P. Leathers". The Times-Picayune. New Orleans, Louisiana. December 10, 1887. p. 6 – via newspapers.com open access.
  8. ^ a b Wallace 2011, p. 320.
  9. ^ "Illness of Samuel Fosdick". The Cincinnati Enquirer. Cincinnati, Ohio. August 5, 1881. p. 8 – via newspapers.com open access.
  10. ^ White 1965, p. 10.
  11. ^ White 1965, p. 11.
  12. ^ White 1965, p. 22.
  13. ^ "Railroad Cars". The New Orleans Crescent. New Orleans, Louisiana. November 24, 1848. p. 3 – via newspapers.com open access.
  14. ^ "A Remarkable Cure". The Charleston Daily Courier. Charleston, South Carolina. July 31, 1852. p. 2 – via newspapers.com open access.
  15. ^ Moore 1887, p. 36.
  16. ^ White 1965, p. 40.
  17. ^ Crayon 1902, p. 99.
  18. ^ "Suicide". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Brooklyn, New York. November 26, 1853. p. 2 – via newspapers.com open access.
  19. ^ "Deaths". The Cincinnati Enquirer. Cincinnati, Ohio. July 28, 1880. p. 5 – via newspapers.com open access.
  20. ^ White 1965, p. 42.

Sources[]

External links[]

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