Charles E. Billings

Charles Ethan Billings

Born	(1834-12-05)December 5, 1834 Weathersfield, Vermont
Died	June 5, 1920(1920-06-05) (aged 85) Hartford, Connecticut
Resting place	Cedar Hill Cemetery

Charles Ethan Billings (December 5, 1834 – June 5, 1920) was an American mechanical engineer, inventor, superintendent, and businessman. He was elected president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1895.

Biography[]

He was born in Weathersfield, Vermont, the son of Ethan F. and Clarissa M. (née Marsh) Billings.^[1] He served his apprenticeship at Robbins & Lawrence in Windsor, Vermont.^[2] Robbins & Lawrence was a factory and armory that was an important early node in the social network of the 19th century machine tool industry.^[3]

In 1856, at the age of 21, he worked at the Colt armory in Hartford, Connecticut as a die sinker and tool maker and became their expert on the drop forging process.^[2] In 1862, he went to E. Remington & Sons, where he built up their forging plant, increasing its efficiency and saving $50,000 by one improvement in frame forging alone.^[2] At the end of the American Civil War, he returned to Hartford as the superintendent of the Weed Sewing Machine Company, which had taken over the old Sharps Rifle Works, built by Robbins & Lawrence.^[2]

In 1868, while at the Roper Repeating Arms Company in Amherst, Massachusetts, he worked with Christopher M. Spencer.^[2] The Roper company failed and in 1869, the two founded a partnership in Hartford, Connecticut called ,^[2] which would manufacture sewing machines, drop-forged hand tools, and machine tools. Billings perfected a drop hammer for metal forging in the 1870s and designed the copper commutator which was central to the operation of electrical generators and motors.

In 1895, Billings was president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.^[2]

He died on June 5, 1920 in Hartford, Connecticut and was interred at Cedar Hill Cemetery.^[4]

References[]

^ Billings, Dwight Morris Archived 2006-10-10 at the Wayback Machine at www.accessgenealogy.com
^ Jump up to: ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Roe 1916, pp. 174–177.
^ Roe 1916, p. 187.
^ "Charles Ethan Billings". www.findagrave.com. Retrieved 2 February 2020.

Bibliography[]

Roe, Joseph Wickham (1916), English and American Tool Builders, New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, LCCN 16011753. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (LCCN 27-24075); and by Lindsay Publications, Inc., Bradley, Illinois, (ISBN 978-0-917914-73-7).

External links[]

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1880–1899	Robert H. Thurston (1880–1882) Erasmus D. Leavitt (1883–1884) John E. Sweet (1884–1885) Josephus F. Holloway (1885–1886) Coleman Sellers II (1886–1887) George H. Babcock (1887–1888) Horace See (1888–1889) Henry R. Towne (1889–1890) Oberlin Smith (1890–1891) Robert W. Hunt (1891–1892) Charles H. Loring (1892–1893) Eckley B. Coxe (1893–1894) Edward F. C. Davis (1894–1895) Charles E. Billings (1895–1896) John Fritz (1896–1897) Worcester R. Warner (1897–1898) Charles W. Hunt (1898–1899) George W. Melville (1899–1900)
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