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H
 D
.
In Tewksbury, England, May 24th, 1819, was born a little boy who was
destined to become one of the leading manufacturers of the nineteenth
century. At fourteen he came to America with his father, who died three
days after their arrival here. A poor, homeless orphan, in a strange land—
ah! it takes courage to rise from such a beginning. There is little 'luck' in the
life of such boys who become wealthy. The poet says:

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"The fading flowers of pleasures
Spring spontaneous from the soil,
But the real harvest's treasure
Yields alone to patient toil."
Whether these lines ever caught the eye of Henry Disston or no, we are
not able to say; certain it is, however, that he concurred in that belief, for so
hard did he work, and so closely did he study the business, that he was
made foreman when he was but eighteen.
When his seven long years of apprenticeship was up he arranged with his
employer to take his wages in tools. With scarcely any money, he wheeled a
barrow load of coal to his cellar where he began to make saws. Saws of
American manufacture, were at that time held in poor esteem, and he had a
great public prejudice to overcome. But Henry Disston determined to show
people that he could compete with foreign goods, and to do this he
sometimes sold goods at an advance of only one per cent. He moved to a
small room twenty feet square, at the corner of Front and Laurel streets; this
was in 1846. In 1849 he was burned out, and before he rebuilt he obtained
control of additional land adjoining that which he had occupied, and here
built a new factory. Now he began to reap the reward of his early toil and
study. He was enterprising, like all successful men, and his inventive genius
soon enabled him to get up new designs for teeth to do different kinds of
work. He never allowed a poor tool, or an imperfect one, to be shipped from
his factory. Consequently a market once gained was easily kept. His
enterprise induced him to add a file works to his already large business; in
fact, the Keystone Saw Works made a splendid exhibit at the Centennial,
showing all kinds of tools made from steel. His works cover hundreds of
acres of land, and employ over fifteen hundred hands, while the business
extends all over the world.
In March, 1878, this great manufacturer died in Philadelphia. He was a
very common man—great wealth did not spoil him, and he could perform
with his own hands any part of the work in his immense establishment. This
ability to work thorough mastery of the business, which had taken years of
patient thought to develop, brought about his splendid success.

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