Boiler?

DuncanBSutherland · Post by **DuncanBSutherland** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 8:41 pm

My great-grandfather was a puddler from Lanarkshire who emigrated to Youngstown, Ohio, USA in 1884. In the 1900 Federal Census his occupation is listed as 'bolier. Is 'boiler' perhaps slang for puddler? Or something different altogether?

Thanks!

Duncan

Post by **paddyscar** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 9:11 pm

Hi Duncan:

Growing up in a steel town, I would say that a puddler from Lanarkshire would be the counterpart of an American boiler(maker) - someone involved in producing and pouring molten metal.

Frances

DuncanBSutherland · Post by **DuncanBSutherland** » Sun Nov 11, 2007 1:24 am

Thanks, Frances.

I just stumbled on the following:

James J. Davis, The Iron Puddler: My Life in the Rolling Mills and What Came of It (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1922), pp. 90 – 95.

Chapter XIV
BOILING DOWN THE PIGS

"An iron puddler is a "pig boiler." The pig boiling must be done at a certain temperature (the pig is iron) just as a farmer butchering hogs must scald the carcasses at a certain temperature. If the farmer's water is too hot it will set the hair, that is, fix the bristles so they will never come out; if the water is not hot enough it will fail to loosen the bristles. So the farmer has to be an expert, and when the water in his barrel is just hot enough, he souses the porker in it, holding it in the hot bath the right length of time, then pulling it out and scraping off the hair. Farmers learned this art by experience long before the days of book farming.

"And so the metal "pig boiler" ages ago learned by experience how to make the proper "heat" to boil the impurities out of pig-iron, or forge iron, and change it into that finer product, wrought iron."

If anyone else on TS has a relative who was a puddler I highly recommend Davis' little book--which is available for download as an e-book at no charge from http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1297.

Duncan

Post by **paddyscar** » Sun Nov 11, 2007 5:21 am

Hi Duncan:

make the proper "heat" to boil the impurities out of pig-iron, or forge iron, and change it into that finer product, wrought iron."

The night sky would light up whenever the cars carrying the molten by-product called slag, came out of the plant and dumped it. We would watch it run down the sides of the dump, looking very much like a volcano. In extreme winter cold, there were often thunderous bangs as the hot slag hit the cold dump. Very exciting to see as kids.

Frances