Company type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Chemicals |
Genre | Industrial Manufacturing |
Founded | 1813 |
Founder |
|
Defunct | 1928 |
Fate | Merger |
Successor | DuPont de Nemours & Company |
Headquarters | , |
Number of locations | Valley Falls, New York |
Key people |
|
Products | Gunpowder |
Schaghticoke Powder Company was a powder mill located in Rensselaer County, New York in the village of Schaghticoke. The powder mill was founded by Josiah Masters and Nicholas Masters in 1813 for the supply of gunpowder during the War of 1812.
The Schaghticoke Powder Works was located on the south banks of the Hoosick River approximately a half mile southeast of the Schaghticoke village. The powder works was established on one hundred acres and developed with twenty separate buildings processing special grades of gunpowder. The Schaghticoke Powder Works manufactured sixty thousand powder kegs or one million and five thousand pounds of powder per year. By 1893, the Schaghticoke Works mill was recognize as one of the oldest gunpowder mills in the United States manufacturing various propellant grades for eighty years in the Hudson River Valley. [1]
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon, and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). The sulfur and carbon act as fuels while the saltpeter is an oxidizer. Gunpowder has been widely used as a propellant in firearms, artillery, rocketry, and pyrotechnics, including use as a blasting agent for explosives in quarrying, mining, building pipelines, tunnels, and roads.
Rensselaer County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 161,130. Its county seat is Troy. The county is named in honor of the family of Kiliaen van Rensselaer, the original Dutch owner of the land in the area. The county is part of the Capital District region of the state.
Grafton is a town in Rensselaer County, New York, United States. The population was 2,051 at the 2020 census. It is believed that the town received its name from Grafton, Vermont, where the first town supervisor, Nathaniel Dumbleton, was originally from. The town is an interior town near the north-central part of the county. NY Route 2 passes across the town.
Pittstown is a town in Rensselaer County, New York, United States. The population was 5,540 at the 2020 census. It is in the northern part of the county.
Valley Falls is a village in Rensselaer County, New York, United States. The population was 466 at the 2010 census. The village lies on the boundary of the towns of Pittstown and Schaghticoke, but is mostly in the northwestern part of Pittstown.
Conshohocken is a borough on the Schuylkill River in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania in suburban Philadelphia. Historically a large mill town and industrial and manufacturing center, after the decline of industry in recent years Conshohocken has developed into a center of riverfront commercial and residential development. In the regional slang, it is sometimes referred to by the colloquial nickname Conshy.
Schaghticoke is a village in Rensselaer County, New York, United States. The population was 592 at the 2010 census.
SchaghticokeSKAT-i-kohk is a town in Rensselaer County, New York, United States. The population was 7,445 at the 2020 census. It was named for the Schaghticoke, a Native American tribe formed in the seventeenth century from an amalgamation of remnant peoples of eastern New York and New England. The tribe has one of the oldest reservations in the United States, located in what is now Litchfield County, Connecticut. It has been recognized by the state of Connecticut but has not yet achieved federal recognition.
The Burden Iron Works was an iron works and industrial complex on the Hudson River and Wynantskill Creek in Troy, New York. It once housed the Burden Water Wheel, the most powerful vertical water wheel in history. It is widely believed that George Washington Gale Ferris Jr., inventor of the Ferris wheel, had occasion to observe the wheel while a student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The iron works site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as an archaeological site in 1977. The Burden Ironworks Office Building was previously listed in 1972.
The Confederate Powderworks was a gunpowder factory during the American Civil War, the only permanent structures completed by the Confederate States of America. Colonel George Washington Rains chose the old United States Arsenal site between the Augusta Canal and Savannah River in Augusta, Georgia, as a secure inland location with good rail and water connections.
New York State Route 40 (NY 40) is a north–south state highway in eastern New York in the United States. It is 54.67 miles (87.98 km) long and runs from NY 7 in the city of Troy north to NY 22 in the town of Granville. NY 40 also passes through the villages of Schaghticoke and Argyle and enters the vicinity of the village of Greenwich. It intersects three east–west highways of note: NY 67 just outside Schaghticoke, NY 29 west of Greenwich, and NY 149 in the hamlet of Hartford. Incidentally, NY 40 has overlaps with all three routes.
New York State Route 67 (NY 67) is an 86.55-mile-long (139.29 km) east–west state highway in eastern New York in the United States. The western terminus of the route is at an intersection with NY 5 in the town of St. Johnsville. Its eastern terminus is at the Vermont state line in Hoosick, where it continues eastward as Vermont Route 67 (VT 67).
The Orange Mill Historic District is the only historic district in the Town of Newburgh in Orange County, New York. It encompasses the 42 acres (17 ha) of county-run Algonquin Park and many of the surrounding lands. It is centered along Powder Mill Road just off NY 52, a mile northwest of the city of Newburgh, at the edge of the suburban hamlet of Gardnertown.
Oswell Eve, sometimes referred to simply as Oswald, was a mariner, ship chandler, gunpowder manufacturer and member of the American Philosophical Society, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, elected in 1768. He attended the College of Philadelphia and was an associate of Dr. Benjamin Rush, later signer of the Declaration of Independence.
A powder mill was a mill where gunpowder is made from sulfur, saltpeter and charcoal.
Speigletown is a hamlet within the town of Schaghticoke, New York in Rensselaer County, New York, United States.
The Poesten Kill is a 26.2-mile-long (42.2 km) creek in Rensselaer County, Upstate New York. It flows westerly from its source at Dyken Pond in the town of Berlin to its mouth at the Hudson River in the city of Troy. The creek was used historically as a source of water for the local inhabitants and farmers. During the Industrial Revolution, it became an important source of water power, and many mills and factories sprung up along its banks.
Joseph H. Allen was an industrial businessman, an officer in the Civil War, and a town supervisor[a] of Brunswick, New York. Allen was born in Alburg, Vermont, to parents of British descent and left home at an early age. After several business ventures, he became successful in the auger and hoe business, selling mainly to the American South. He successfully ran for supervisor of the Town of Brunswick in 1856 and justice of the peace in 1861. At the beginning of the Civil War, his sales plummeted so he closed his business and enlisted in the Union Army. Allen was wounded multiple times during his service and ended his career at the rank of lieutenant colonel. He returned home to reopen his factory, which was instrumental to the industrial success of the hamlet of Eagle Mills in the mid to late 19th century. He died in 1884 at the age of 62.
Oriental Powder Company was a gunpowder manufacturer with mills located on the Presumpscot River in Gorham and Windham, Maine. The company was one of the four largest suppliers to Union forces through the American Civil War.
Spring Mill is an unincorporated community in Whitemarsh Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States.