Seth Boyden and Elder Mother

Seth Boyden (November 17, 1788 – March 31, 1870) was an American inventor.

Contents 1 Life 2 Honors 3 References 4 External links

Life

He was born in Foxboro, Massachusetts on November 17, 1788. He had a brother, Uriah A. Boyden.

He worked as a watchmaker and moved to Newark, New Jersey.

Boyden perfected the process for making patent leather, created malleable iron, invented a nail-making machine, and built his own steamboat. He is also credited with having invented a cut off switch for steam engines and a method for producing zinc from ore. At the time of his death, he told friends that he had, even at that time, enough experiments on hand to last two whole lifetimes.

In 1818, Boyden received a piece of German manufactured patent leather (said to be a German military cap front) from a local carriage manufacturer and used that to investigate the possibility of creating a version of leather in the United States that was treated in such a way that the material would be decidedly more dressy than work boots and similar leather goods, but retained its desirable qualities of protection and durability. To reverse engineer the European patent leather, Boyden set up a shed at the Malleable Cast Iron Foundry of Condit & Bowles at 25 Orange in Newark, New Jersey (40°44′13″N 74°10′56″W / 40.736807°N 74.182262°W / 40.736807; -74.182262Coordinates: 40°44′13″N 74°10′56″W / 40.736807°N 74.182262°W / 40.736807; -74.182262) and ultimately discovered a way to produce his own patent leather. Using a formula that was based on a series of treatments using layers of linseed oil-based coats, the new shiny leather began commercial production on 20 September 1819. Boyden’s efforts resulted in the production of glossy leather that quickly caught on as a complement for formal dress. Ironically, Boyden never patented his inventive patent leather process.

Boyden began his work with malleable iron in 1820, when he was 32 years old. From observing the behavior of iron that stuck to the walls of his grandfather's forge, he had developed a theory about the heat treatment of iron. He completed his research in 1826, and won an award ("Premium No. 4") from the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia two years later, who noted that Boyden's annealed cast iron specimen No. 363, containing an assortment of buckles, bits, and other castings, were "remarkable for their smoothness and maleability" and "the first attempt in this country to anneal cast iron for general purposes."

Several sources state that Boyden "made the first American daguerreotype" and this statement appears on a plaque at the base of a Boyden statue in Newark's Washington Park. While it has long been accepted that D.W. Seager of New York City produced the first daguerreotype in America, it is unclear which other Americans may have been experimenting with the process prior to a public display of Seager's daguerreotypes in the Summer of 1839. A daguerrean camera built by Boyden still exists in the collection of the Newark Museum.

Boyden rarely patented his inventions, preferring instead to take individual contracts and to build and sell off businesses. He did make large sums from this, but not enough to support his research and to provide for his old age. During the last 15 years of his life, Boyden lived in near-poverty in Hilton, New Jersey (now Maplewood, New Jersey) and developed a hybrid strawberry known as the Hilton strawberry. Site of Seth Boyden's workshop in Newark, NJ. Honors

Seth Boyden's name is found on an elementary school in Maplewood, New Jersey, and a complex of public housing projects in Newark, New Jersey. Additionally, a statue of Boyden stands in Newark's Washington Park. A library in Foxborough, Massachusetts is named after him.

Elder Mother and Seth Boyden

The Elder Mother is thought to be the guardian of the elder trees, and it was said, until recent times in various parts of England and Scandinavia that to take wood from the elder tree one would have to ask the Elder Mother first, or else ill luck would befall the woodsman. The woodsman would have to ask the Elder Mother like so:

"Old girl, give me some of thy wood and I will give thee some of mine when I grow into a tree."

One such story of the Elder Mother's revenge concerns a writer earlier in the 20th century.

When calling in on the mother of a sick child, the mother told him:

"It were all along of my maister’s thick ‘ead. It were in this ‘ow't’ rocker comed off t'cradle, and he hadn’t no more gumption than to mak’ a new ‘un out on illerwood (elder wood) without axing the Old Lady’s leave, and in course she didn’t like that, and she came and pinched the wean that outrageous he were a’most black in t’ face; but I bashed un off, and putten an eshen on, and the wean is gallus as owt agin."

Another tale, from Somerset, casts the Elder Mother as the villain, a witch that a farmer sees as an elder milking his cow. The farmer shoots at the witch with a silver bullet but misses and is chased back into the farmhouse. The old granny, however, picks up the burning coal from the fire with a shovel and throws it at the elder tree, burning cinders, and thus the witch is dead.

A tale from Northamptonshire tells of man who cut a stick from an elder, and saw that the tree was bleeding. Later he meets the local witch and sees that she has a bloodied bandage on her arm.

Another tale not only has the elder-tree witch (sometimes later claimed to be various famous characters such as Mother Shipton) as the somewhat dubious heroine, but also with saving England from being conquered by a king and his knights (sometimes said to be Danes). This is also the story of how the Rollright Stones that lie on the border between Oxfordshire and Warwickshire came to be. When the king and his knights marched towards Long Compton they came upon a witch who told the king:

"Seven long strides thou shalt take,

And if Long Compton thou shalt see, King of England thou shalt be."

The king however went onwards saying:

"Stick, stock, stone As King of England I shall be known."

However on the King's seventh stride a hill rose up before Long Compton making him unable to see the town. The witch was there again with her chant:

"As Long Compton thou canst not see

King of England thou shalt not be. Rise up stick and stand still stone For King of England thou shalt be none; Thou and thy men hoar stones shall be And I myself an eldern tree."

And thus the king and his knights were turned to stone and the witch turned herself into an elder tree. Similar and related beliefs

In Denmark, an elder twig put in the mouth was traditionally thought to drive out evil spirits and thus could cure toothache. Also in Denmark, if you were to stand under an elder on Midsummer's Eve you could see the Elf-king and his host. A similar tradition existed in Scotland where it was said to happen on All Hallows or Samhain.

In England, it was thought that the elder tree could never be hit by lightning and that carrying the twigs of an elder could protect their bearer from rheumatism. Farmers used to protect their animals from evil by placing a cross made from elder on their cow-sheds and barns.

In some Slavic countries, such as Russia, it is thought that the tree had the power to ward off evil. In Sicily, it was claimed to have the power to ward off snakes.
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