Im going to tell a short family story that my dad and his sisters insist was true. Back in my Grandpa Chaunceys days as the overall Supervisor of the Spinning Room at Saxon Mills (Spinning Super) he would from time to time time tinker with the Spinning Frames. He was a very gifted mechanic and folks tell me that he could do full tear downs for maintenance rebuilds of the frames. For those of you that have never had the pleasure of trying to bear down an old time Spinning Frame, the task was usually done by men as the women who tended the frames generally were not strong enough or heavy enough to step on the pedal at the end of the frame and bring the Spin Beam to the locked bottom position so the frame could be doffed. So, Grandpa decided to try and make an attachment that would bear down the frame without much human effort. These frames were 200 bobbin open frames with doffers having to hustle down the frame to get it back into production as quick as you could. The room itself was hot, loud and humid as cotton works better in the process if the humidity is high. The next frame scheduled for an overhaul was the test mule for his idea. So the mill had the traveling representative of the Saco-Lowell Company come in from time to time and do a complete overhaul. When the mechanic came in he happened to pass the frame where the test mule frame had Grandpas bear down mechanism grafted to it. The company rep stopped at that frame and began to look at it as he realized that the device was not anything Saco-Lowell had ever used. The company rep asked the floor mechanic what the thing was and the floor mechanic stated that it was Old man Nixs bear down pedal. The company rep asked how it worked and the floor mechanic told him that it was due to doff in a bit and that he would show him. So when the time came, the floor mechanic called over a petite female spinner and asked her to bear it down to which she stepped up on the pedal and pressed it to the floor where it auto locked in place. As soon as the frame came to the bottom the beam made a small jump up then back down and the beam locked into place. This was a revelation to the company rep as it now meant that the frame could be set to doff by anyone not just men. The company man asked if there was a Patent on the device and the floor mechanic told him he did not think so that Mr. Nix was just seeing if he could make it work and that the Mill Superintendent had decided that the cost and time to make one for each machine was too expensive, so this was the only one made. The company man went on to the frame he was there to work on but before he left he spoke to Grandpa and even got some sketches of the parts that the shop fabbed up along with his own notes and sketches that he made on site. A year or so went by and some of the older frames were being pulled off line and a newer improved version was to be brought in as they were faster with less parts and better reliability. And as the new ones were un-crated and set up by Saco - Lowell mechanics there was a new modern pedal system on the frame to bear down the beam. Yes it was Grandpas pedal, improved and made more compact but still the proto type version was obvious in its design. The company rep had taken the design back home, changed it some, patented it and sold it to Saco - Lowell for what was described as a fortune, whereas he retired and moved to Florida. When they asked Grandpa what he thought about it he supposedly just shrugged and stated that he was content to know it could be done. So thats how my folks could have been rich from all the pedal mechanisms that were put on the frames. Yet Grandpa was a simple, common man and content with his life as it was and never was bitter about it at all. But man, my Dad is still mad about it to this day!
Posted on: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 03:23:45 +0000
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