Читать книгу The Inventive Life of Charles Hill Morgan: The Power of Improvement In Industry, Education and Civic Life - Allison Chisolm - Страница 20

After the town’s Independence Day celebration, where he must have discussed his recent experiences out west and his availability for employment with several of Clinton’s machinists, the enterprising young man began several short-term jobs. As his diary notes the number of hours worked at each project, his hourly wage was likely about 25 cents an hour.

The first job was for the Lancaster Quilt Company, often called the Counterpane Mill. On July 7, he spent three hours “drawing a heart cam” for them, and earned 75 cents. Then his former employer, J.B. Parker, found more than 40 hours’ worth of work for him in July and early August. He asked Morgan to work on a horseshoe machine, drafting and possibly machining a hanger and drop shaft, and for six hours one day, “shoe sole prep.”

Parker was now the proprietor of Parker & Palmer, a partnership formed in 1852 with Gilman M. Palmer’s forging company, after the Clinton Company decided to make the machine shop independent of its business. As the Clinton Almanac described it in its 1856 edition, “this shop is situated near the railroad depot, and produces some $35,000 worth of machinery per annum, and employs about 30 men. This, as well as the Foundry, have Steam for their motive power.”

Morgan also found work that summer with E.W. Goodale, who had travelled with him to New York back in March and had previously supervised him in the Clinton Company machine shop. Goodale was developing a machine to manufacture paper bags, a novel concept in 1855 but one of several in development. Charles made drawings of a number of parts of the machine, including wing folders. The design process for new machinery, as he learned, can be one of trial and error. In late July, he confessed in his diary, “found that I had made a mistake in figures of my drawing of wing folders—cost of making the pattern___.” The cost of his mistake was never recorded. Goodale paid him $11.50 for 44 hours of his drafting services, or about 26 cents an hour.

Morgan’s digestive upsets continued on and off through the summer, and on August 2, he travelled to Worcester to consult Dr. Sargent. Like Dr. Rogers had said earlier in the year, Dr. Sargent recommended that Morgan leave Clinton. He did not suggest travel west, but rather east for some sea air, prescribing mackerel fishing.