John Brandt is best known to the engineers and 

 master mechanics of the present time as an early 

 master mechanic of the New York and Erie Railroad, 

 in charge of the shops at Piermont, and by the loco- 

 motives afterwards built lay him at his shops in Pater- 

 son, N.J., but little is generally known of the early 

 history of this self-taught inventive mechanic. 



My acquaintance with Mr. Brandt dates back to the 

 year 1826; he at that time was carrying on a common 

 jobbing blacksmith shop in Lancaster, Pa.; at the same 

 time my father and elder brother were engaged in 

 manufacturing card clothing for wool and cotton card- 

 Lng machines, also in drawing fine brass and copper 

 wire and weaving wire cloth for facing paper moulds, 

 and for covering paper cylinders, this being about the 

 commencement of the transition from hand to 

 machine-made paper. The business of wire drawing 

 and making paper moulds was commenced by my 

 grandfather, Nathan Sellers, during the early part of 

 the revolutionary war. He was in the service from 

 which he was honorably discharged by special act of 

 Congress in order that he might make moulds for 

 paper making. He was sent under military escort to 

 York, Pa., where, under guard, he made the first pair 

 of paper moulds made on this continent, and on which 

 the paper for congressional use and for printing the 

 continental currency was made. 



About the close of the war, the manufactory of hand 

 cards for cotton and wool, and the clothing for carding 

 machines was established in connection with the wire 

 works. The cards were all hand set; that is, the 

 sheets of leather were pierced with holes to receive 

 the wire card teeth on a machine for that purpose. 

 The wire was cut into uniform lengths and formed 

 into the teeth on other machines invented and con- 

 structed by my grandfather. I will here note that 

 these machines were so perfect in plan and construc- 

 tion that they continued in use without alteration or 

 improvement for nearly half a century, until super- 

 seded by machine set cards. In hand-setting when 

 every tooth had to be separately picked up. and, by 

 nimble fingers, put in the holes pierced to receive 

 them, it gave employment to many hundred children. 

 and often to women, at pick-up work as their aid to 

 bread winning. The work was taken home, and re- 

 turned when finished. The register of names and 

 residences of those employed exceeded 3,000; the 

 number having work out ranging between 300 and 

 500. 



Some time previous to the time I am writing of. 

 a machine had been invented for doina; the entire 



168 



work, and was in use to some extent, but owing to the 

 shape and largeness of the pierced holes in the leather 

 and consequent looseness of the teeth, had not then 

 supplanted the more costly hand process. 213 



Early in the year 1826 Mr. James Humes of Lan- 

 caster, Pa., who at that time was carrying on a cotton 

 factory, came to us for new clothing for some of his 

 machines, bringing with him a sample of machine- 

 made fillet or ribbon card that had the teeth more 

 firmly set in the leather than the best hand-made. He 

 represented it as the outcome of the brain and work- 

 manship of an ordinary jobbing blacksmith who had 

 never seen any of the machinery then in use for doing 

 any part of the work of card manufacturing. 



My father was so well pleased with the sample that, 

 learning from Mr. Humes that John Brandt, the in- 

 ventor and maker of the machine, had offered it for 

 sale, he went to Lancaster and found points in the 

 machine of great merit, but it was not constructed in 

 a thoroughly workman-like manner. But as an inven- 

 tion of a man with the few opportunities Brandt had, 

 my father considered it wonderful. 



I think it probable that had Brandt seen the ma- 

 chines then in use, he would not have struck on a new 

 track and worked out what he had done, the great 

 merit of which was, so firmly holding and supporting 

 the wire staple tooth that without bending it could be 

 forced through the leather without it being pierced, 

 but not without leading as it passed through the 

 leather and making irregular work, but would with 

 accuracy follow a puncture no larger than the wire, 

 thus the teeth could be as firmly set as required. This 

 he accomplished by so shaping the end of the die or 

 former on which the wire staple was bent by side 

 benders grooved to the size of the wire being used, 

 that as the die was drawn down and out the pusher 

 following the shape of its end, both die and benders 

 being in contact with the leather, there was no possi- 

 bility of bending the staple as it was thrust home. 

 The second bend or hook of the tooth was then made 

 and the leather moved into position to be pierced to 

 receive the next tooth. 



Feeding in the wire, cutting it into proper lengths, 

 seizing and holding to the die, bending into staple, 

 piercing the leather, thrusting in the tooth, drawing 

 out the die as the pusher advanced, making the second 

 bend or hook of the tooth, moving the leather into 



218 Oliver Evans reportedly designed and built before 1 780 

 a card machine that set teeth at the rate of 3,000 per minute. 

 Sec Bathe and Bathe (cited in note 46 above), p. 8. 



