Interesting Arcadians - Isaac Singer

History - Newark

Interesting Arcadians - Isaac Singer
By Bob Hoeltzel, Arcadia Town Historian

Isaac Merrit Singer (1811-1875), inventor of the sewing machine which bears his name, apparently did not boast of his life in Newark, New York. In later life, he may have denied this phase in his colorful career.

The Dictionary of American Biography, in its circumspect article on the life of Isaac Singer, does not mention Newark, saying only that, "At twelve he left home (he had been born in Pittstown, N.Y. but early moved with his parents to Oswego), went to Rochester, and for seven years worked at all sorts of unskilled labor. He finally entered a machine shop as an apprentice machinist but after four months he left and began nine years of wandering from state to state, making a good living because of his mechanical cleverness and gaining wide experience."

Should the article have said "near Rochester" ? I have often said that when traveling far from home and wanting to avoid the trouble of convincing someone that there really is a Newark in New York State. A much longer and better-researched article in American Heritage in 1958 appears to have copied from DAB for its brief reference to the early life of our subject.

Described as "a massive man" (6 ft. 4 in.) with a stentorian voice, he spent some time traveling the country as a Shakespearean actor. This life appealed to his flamboyant nature, but did not provide him with the income his equally flamboyant tastes required. Reluctantly, he returned to the boring life of a machinist -well equipped with the talent inherited from his German-born father.

With no mention of Newark in the biographies cited above, why can we lay some claim to the development of this unusual character into the mechanical genius he became?

Nearly a century ago, John Daggett, Jr., ex-Lt. Governor of California, wrote a series of letters to the ARCADIA WEEKLY GAZETTE telling of Newark of his boyhood. His father started Newark's first sizable industry (employing up to 100 men), a foundry and machine shop which made carding machines and other cloth-making machinery. The enterprise was located on South Main St. where St. Michael Church and Parish Center are now. (Franklin Street was not put through until later.) After several years, the business was moved to East Union Street. In the letter published April 10, 1903, Daggett wrote, in part, "Singer, the sewing machine inventor, also worked there (the Daggett shop) for a time as a journeyman and, I have heard my uncle, Charles Cooper, tell of the ridicule Singer had to endure from his fellow-workers for his cranky notions."

And, on August 14, 1907, "How different the fate of Singer, who, while a journeyman machinist working, subjected to the jibes and jokes of his fellow-workmen who doubted the practicality of the machine, upon his invention of the sewing machine..." Unfortunately, we are not told when this was.

There is also this puzzling mention in an article by W. C. Burgess, former co-editor, printed in a Newark newspaper in the 1930s: "The old building standing on the spot where the Ford block was located was the starting point of the great Singer Sewing Machine Company."

The Ford block was built in the 1870s on the SE corner of North Main and Van Buren Streets. Earlier village maps show nothing on that site. When the Barge Canal was put through (1913-18), the Ford block was moved across the street to the NE corner. It was razed by Urban Renewal. On the latter site once stood the Oren Aldrich Inn which was really more of a boarding house. Perhaps young Singer boarded there during his stay in Newark.

Peter and Prudence Kipp who lived where St. Michael School parking lot is, also boarded workmen from the Daggett shop.

Isaac Singer's first patent was for a machine for drilling rock, in 1839 while working with an older brother helping to dig the Illinois waterway. That invention was not a financial success, nor was his invention of a machine for the carving of wood-block type.

The idea of a sewing machine was nothing new by 1850. The first patents for such a machine had been granted in England in 1790, in Austria in 1819, the U.S. in 1826 and France in 1830. An American, Walter Hunt, made such a machine in 1833, but gave up the idea, conscience-stricken that it would put out of work tailors and dress-makers who worked by hand. Finally, in 1846, a patent was granted to Elias Howe, Jr., an American, whose invention was the best yet, but still far from perfect.

Within the next decade, Singer found employment in Boston, in a shop owned by Orson Phelps. The Chief business was the making of sewing machines, but most of the time was spent in repairing the few machines which had found buyers. Isaac Singer thought he could make a sewing machine that would work. Skeptical, Phelps retorted, "If you can make a really practical sewing machine, you will make more money in a year than you can in fifty with that carving affair."

Already a married man with a growing family and a thirst for fame and fortune, Singer found his incentive. Working day and night, Isaac Singer invented in 11 days the first sewing machine that really worked. To fully understand Singers motivation, it is important to note his unusual personal life.

As a young man, Isaac Singer married Catharine Haley, whom he left with two children. He took up with Mary Ann Sponsler, who bore him ten children, all out of wedlock. There were other common-law unions - five simultaneously for a time! In the 36 years from 1834 to 1870 he sired 24 children. He married only twice.

For a time, Singer took in Elias Howe as a business partner to end litigation over patent-infringement, as Howe owned the patents and Singer did not. As soon as possible, Singer got rid of Howe.

A lasting, and less likely partnership developed between the near-illiterate and amoral Isaac Singer and one Edward Clark, a graduate of Williams College, attorney and Sunday School teacher. Despite his rambunctious temperament and large ego, Singer recognized that he needed a man of Clark's careful business acumen, legal knowledge and refinement if he was to deal with other successful businessmen. Mr. Clark, sensing the success the Singer Manufacturing Co. could attain, swallowed his misgivings and stuck with the partnership in spite of his wife's repeated plea that he "leave the nasty brute."

With the opening of the first foreign factory, near Glasgow in 1867, the company became a world-wide success. After a scandal involving two of his paramours on the streets of New York, Singer retired with one of his ladies to France, where he soon met a Parisian woman, Isabella Boyer, who seems to have had a calming influence on the aging Isaac. They moved first to London, then to an estate near Torquay, Devon, England. The property consisted of a 115-room mansion, a coach house housing 50 coaches and other amenities of like grandeur.

Isaac submitted to baptism and settled down to the life of a doting father and grandfather, gladly entertaining his various children. This bliss was not to last long. He died on July 23, 1875, just shy of his 64th birthday. Singer's 22 living children and his various wives, both legal and common-law, engaged in years of expensive litigation. None of the descendants lived up to Isaac's genius.

Edward Clark died in 1882 and his heirs, dominant stock holders in the company, have used their inheritances to enrich the village of Cooperstown, by building the Farmer's Museum, Fenimore House, home of the State Historical Society, and an outstanding museum of early-American art. A museum of French art in Williamstown, Mass., the development of Palm Beach, Florida, and generous support of the Metropolitan Museum of Art have all been accomplished with Singer money through Clark's generosity.

While he likely gave it no credit at all for his later success, Isaac Singer possibly did benefit from the discipline and training received in the Daggett shop in Newark, under the no-nonsense management of John Daggett, owner, and Warren S. Bartle, foreman.

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