Ilion High School - Class of 1916

Ilion Citizen - August 24, 1916

How a Backwoods Blacksmith Became Famous - The Legacy He Left Ilion

Article 7

How a Backwoods Blacksmith Became Famous - The Legacy He Left Ilion

Eliphalet Remington, Son of a Pioneer and Youth of the Wilderness,
Necessity and Genius, Founded the Gigantic Factories Which
Today Bear His Name. His Service to Our Country

The merry whistle of a youth, just entering his manhood, mingled with the shrill clang, clang of metal against metal, rang out upon the morning air one day in the fall of 1816. The wooded hills resounded with the echo and the breezes repeated the melody again and again. Had a traveler happened along the wooded half-trail, half-road, he would have paused in his plodding to listen to the joyous sound coming from the direction of the forge. And, if he had the curiosity, his footsteps would turn in the direction from whence the sounds came. Presently he would stand before the open door of the old stone building. Looking in, his eyes met the happy bronzed face of a sturdy young man - little more than a youth - a son of the backwoods, one whose environment had, as it were, encased him in a sylvan cloak, and who presented the perfect picture of the backcwoods-black smith. As stroke after stroke fell upon the red hot metal, it was transformed from a rude piece of iron into a fine bit of finished work, and with other taps here and there, the piece was shaped into an article which delighted the eye of the worker.

Close scrutiny revealed the fact that it was a rifle barrel, not one that had been made in the factories of Great Britain or Germany, but the unpolished model of rural invention, which this youth had moulded with the few and crude instruments that were at his command. To Young Remington, the barrel was a perfect pattern of those which cost much more in the cities far remote from the rude forge. The morning following the completion of his task. Eliphalet asked permission of his father to take the barrel to Utica to have it rifled and finished. The father consented and after a long tramp of fifteen miles over the forest trails, the rifler's shop was reached adn the gun barrel was soon in his hands. The old rifler congratulated the enterprising Remington youth on his wonderful skill. Elated by this Eliphalet returned home with the finished gun. After showing it to his friends in the surrounding country, orders came in to him in great numbers for barrels similar to his. He eagerly made them and tramped to Utica two or three times a week to have them rifled, each time returning with his previous load, finished.

Remington's fame as a gunsmith increased steadily and business rushed to him from the valley around. With the increased amount of work to be done, and the more frequent trips to Utica, he decided on a bold business action. If he could make a barrel that was perfection in itself, why not the entire gun? This was a question which he could solve in no other way than by trying.

So Eliphalet Remington started in upon this greater task with a confidence that was surprising to say the least. He encountered many difficulties, but overcame them one by one.

And so, in this fashion, as the days passed, piece after piece was produced, each one a pattern peculiar to itself. Finally, one day as the darkness began to enfold the hills of the gulph, Eliphalet Remington immersed a piece of iron into a sputtering tub of water. After forcing it around in the tub he slowly pulled it forth and examined it closely. With a joyous twinkle in his eye, he sat down on a rude homely-made stool and heaved a sigh of contentment. Was it possible? Had he made a real gun; one that would prove an equal to those he had purchased from the gunsmith in Utica? And with his own hands? As he sat in the old forge building, he gazed longingly into the dying embers that were slowly fading to ashes, the bellows had long since ceased to fan the coals to a reddened flame.

As his eyes dwelt upon the forge he thought of his achievement, for it was an achievement, he had forged a gun that would take its place as a rival to those then in use.

As he thought, of the task which he had accomplished, the water wheel creaked its musical song to the atmosphere. The fall of the water over the wheel had a melody all its own, it told of the small brook which turned the wheel, it told of its desire to reach the river, the bay, the sea. It also symbolized in its monotonous fall the story of perseverance, of mastery over the elements, of resoluteness to reach its goal. And the song of the stream lulled young Remington into a sub-consciousness. He dreamed a dream, and there flitted before his eyes the paths that the years to come would lead through. He saw in his vision years of endeavor, success, failure, and then a greater success. Greater and greater, until, like the brook that turned the wheel at his forge, he had reached the goal. The dream had told the story of true endeavor, of earnestness of perseverance. It embodied all the true elements that make up the leaders of industry.

As the darkness of evening thickened Eliphalet Remington roused from his dream and stood erect before the door of the stone hut. He glanced at the forge which had long since blackened from the cool autumn air, and with an unsteady step placed the piece of iron which he had last forged with the other pieces in a chest which occupied the corner of the room. He did seem to have the strength which had ordinarily been his - this youth of Sylva. Perhaps it was the labor of finishing his task that tired him; possibly it was mere exhaustion from overwork. But to the youth himself, it was the unsteady feeling that encompasses the spirit of him who has accomplished something of importance, something worth while, something that would maintain itself through out the years to come. That was the feeling that young Remington felt when he left the forge that evening to walk to his home some distance away.

What his thoughts were that night as he lay in his bed in the home that had been finished by the labors of himself and his father is not known, but suffice it to say that he beheld, or thought he beheld a future before him. Possibly not that his genius would build the gigantic plants that are today erected to his name, but we can not doubt but that he realized that his achievement was more than a simple act of ordinary labor, that the day would come when he - Eliphalet Remington - would make guns that would place his name on a high standard.

In 1828, the year in which the elder Remington died, the business outgrew the little shop by the brookside, and Eliphalet had to look to a larger establishment in order to retain the business which was rapidly increasing. Accordingly he bought the Clapsaddle farm on the banks of the Erie Canal and set about to build a factory building. Here where access to the great waterway was easy, Eliphalet Remington rechristened the industry that bears his name.

Affairs ran along, with many improvements being made, for about ten years, and the energetic young man became famous and a prosperous manufacturer. In 1839, he formed a partnership with Benjamin Harrington for the purpose of making, aside from the guns, farm utensils and other iron articles. It should be remembered that at this time no iron mines in the vicinity made it necessary to collect scrap iron of every description far and near. When the supply of these ran out ore beds were found in Oneida County which were tapped.

In 1845, when the Mexican War broke out, Remington procured an order for guns. It had previously been given to Ames & Co. of Springfield, Mass., but it was transferred to the Remington concern when the former refused to accept it. New machinery was built and the factory enlarged. Several thousand rifles were made at this time. It was the first national fame that Eliphalet Remington won. A few years later, when dissension foretold death to the union, the firm of E. Remington & Son again came to the aid of Uncle Sam. Thousands of carbines were made, and every man and boy in Ilion was pressed into service. Additional buildings were put up and steam was added to water power. Expensive machinery was installed, and work day and night ensued. Besides the rifles there was such an urgent call for building was rented in Utica, the daily output being three hundred pistols.

The strenuous work which Eliphalet Remington had gone through was more than he could stand, and ere long sickness and death overcame him. "The Father of American Gun-Making" passed to his reward. No man ever served his country in a better manner than Remington. When the union were threatened from without and from within, Eliphalet Remington was appealed to that it might live. The mighty guns, which were the offspring of the original one which he had forged in the gulph, stand the mighty waves of war.

But, with the end of the Civil War, a few years after Eliphalet died, came a period of readjustment, which spelled disaster to Ilion and the Remingtons. The national government canceled all orders pending which ... the company into bankruptcy. The machinery which had been secured was not paid for neither was the buildings which had just been erected. only bank also failed. Later, when prosperity returned, the Remingtons, in strictest honor paid in full, with interest, all the stockholders and creditors who were interested in the bank.