746 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



" This paper/' says Percy, " excited much attention, and was the 

 first really public announcement of the invention." It was read 

 in America with great interest ; and it has recently become pub- 

 licly known that under its stimulus the Hon. Abram S. Hewitt 

 caused an experimental converter to be erected at the furnaces of 

 Messrs. Cooper & Hewitt, at Phillipsburg, N. J. To an inquiry 

 from me regarding this converter Mr. Hewitt has very courteously 



replied as follows : 



New York, February 13, 1891. 

 W. F. Durfee, Esq., Birdsboro, Berks County, Pa. 



Dear Sir: In reply to your letter of the 11th instant, I cheerfully furnish the 

 very meager description which is necessary to enable you to describe the intro- 

 duction of the Bessemer process, so far as Cooper & Hewitt are concerned, in this 

 country. On reading the paper of Mr. Bessemer, delivered at Cheltenham, I 

 directed that an apparatus should be prepared at our works at Phillipsburg, N. J. 

 The idea had been to use the ordinary blast from the furnace engines, which at 

 the time were blowing about five pounds to the inch. I can not give you any 

 drawing of the converter, but it was built according to the description contained 

 in the Cheltenham paper. The capacity was about one ton. Before the appara- 

 tus was tried, Mr. Cooper went to Europe, where he ascertained that the Besse- 

 mer invention was a total failure, because the material produced was unfit for 

 use. On receipt of this information, we suspended all further efforts to produce 

 steel by the direct process, and, as a matter of fact, it now turns out that no steel 

 was ever made in this experimental apparatus. So far as I know, therefore, the 

 first actual steel made in this country by the Bessemer process was produced at 

 Wyandotte ; and, in ignorance of the fact that our apparatus was really never put 

 in operation, I think I made a larger claim than would be justified by the facts; 

 but you will remember that what I said was not intended to set up any claim for 

 priority, but only to establish the fact that we were very hospitable to new ideas 

 in the development of the steel business. Sincerely yours, 



(Signed) Abram S. Hewitt. 



This very frank letter is confirmatory of the fact (until re- 

 cently undisputed) that " the first actual steel made in this country 

 by the Bessemer process was produced at Wyandotte " more than 

 eight years after Mr. Bessemer read his paper at Cheltenham. In 

 1856 Mr. Bessemer obtained two patents in the United States for 

 his improved method of making steel ; " but," says Swank, " was 

 immediately confronted by a claim of priority preferred by "Will- 

 iam Kelly, an iron-master of Eddyville, Ky., but a native of 

 Pittsburg, Pa." 



Before speaking further of the relative claims of Bessemer and 

 Kelly, we will explain as fully as space will permit the apparatus 

 invented by the former, which, with slight modifications, is used 

 wherever Bessemer steel is manufactured. The vessel in which 

 the melted pig iron, or iron taken in a molten state directly from 

 the blast-furnace, is transmuted into steel, is called a " converter." 

 Fig. 57 is a vertical section of an early form of one of these ves- 

 sels, which are made of heavy plate iron, and provided with a 



