Bagley Manufacturing Locations 1840s-1850s

Continuation of the article below:

Bagley Extension Pen Case Manufacturing Steps

Bagley & Co. employ some forty hands and work up weekly an average of $1,000 worth of gold, silver, and iridium, using American coin alone.

Bagley Patents in Operation

The silver is used in their manufacture of the cases, for which they hold the only patents now existing in this country. These inventions both have for their object the purpose of shortening the case, to make it more portable in the pocket [referring to patent no. 4,557 awarded in 1846 and patent no. 6,981 awarded in 1850]. 

Bagley Pencil Extra Lead Storage

The first section makes a place for the ever-pointed leads in the head of the part which was formerly occupied wholly by the machinery by which the leads are screwed down, to be always ready for use. This enables the manufacturer to dispense with so much of the length of the case as formerly was necessary for carrying the spare leads, immediately next to the seal. 

Bagley Extension Case Protects Gold Pen Nib

The other patent processes consist of making the case of four tubes. The outer and the third are joined at the bottom the second inserted between these, being pulled out from the top when using the pen; the fourth carries the pen itself, which, when put away reversed, is protected by the third tube from contact with the one pushed down, and thus saved from the injuries to which before it was constantly subjected. In this manner Bagley has managed to make his largest size recording pen, such retail for $8, in a plain silver case, double or slide, with perfect security to the point, into a length of three inches.

Bagley  Extension Pen Case Manufacturing Steps

Ingots to Tubes

His processes for the manufacture of the gold and silver cases are also of great interest to the reader who desires information. The silver coin is first melted into ingots of suitable dimensions, and then rolled between presses to the required thickness and width when it is next turned up on a steel cylinder and soldered into tubes. 

Drawing According to the 4991 Patent

Rods are then inserted into these tubes, and placing them on a mandrill, with holes bored through the drawplate of decreasing dimensions, they are drawn by machinery down to the required diameter and thickness, their length increasing of course. 

Fluting, Chasing, & Barleycorn Engraving

The tube being next cut into pieces of the desired length, they are placed on a small rod, in a machine, and pressure being brought to bear on them by the use of a lever worked with a pedal, they are in instantly fluted. The chasing of the heads and rings is beautifully and quickly accomplished by a very small machine into which they are inserted, when proper dies are brought to bear on them, which press the metal into the fanciful forms desired. 

The most singular process in this branch of the business is that of putting on or cutting the “watered" ornaments of the unfluted cases. This is done with a very complicated machine, not more than one and a half foot in bulk square, wherein a cutting tooth scratches on the case any form of device or “watering" desired. It contains a great many wheels and other combinations removable at pleasure, some of which are changed as often as a different design is required to be worked, with the single cutting tooth thus made to move eccentrically. It works with great rapidity, and never fails to discharge its office, cutting Tetters, flowers, or graceful combinations of curves, or straight lines, as may be required, with more rapidity and accuracy than one can conceive who has not witnessed its operation. This is the only machine of the particular kind that we know of in the world -- Mr. Bagley, by whom it has been brought to its present remarkable perfection, doing his best to keep the secret of its multifarious arrangements to himself. Its “barley corning" is said to be deeper, more regular and distinct, than any other similar machine-engraving executed in either hemisphere.

Bagley Product Distribution

But I must hasten on. In 1840 gold pens first became an article of commerce in the United States, and already they are exposed for sale by every stationer, and almost every jeweler and watchmaker, from Bangor to San Francisco being, as it were, as necessary stock in such trade as “domestics" in that of the dry goods dealer. 

There are “none, to speak of," imported but, on the contrary, large quantities are sent, at least by the house of Bagley & Co., abroad. 

If your Washington readers will for an instant reflect on the probable number for sale in your city, and then remember that they are, in use everywhere in the United States as extensively as with you, they will get an idea of the rapidity with which they are turned out -- only about three hundred and fifty hands in all being employed in their fabrication. 

Bagley Factory Filled Global Orders

The house of Bagley & Co. makes none except to order, either for jobbers here, for American and foreign merchants, or for individuals. 

They thus fill heavy orders from London, Paris, Germany, Spain, China, South America, and Mexico. 

When I was in their counting room yesterday, they were packing an invoice just made to fill an order from Sierra Leone Besides their factory (which is in the upper story of a huge iron building on Duane Street) they have an establishment in the lower part of Broadway for wholesaling;, and one of the most magnificent stores under the Irving House, opposite Stuart's, where they supply their city customers. 

This last is the only establishment in the city exclusively appropriated to selling gold pens singly; the city demand for their work being much more general than for any other such pens. It is said that they may thank for this preference their use of iridium instead of rhodium, their particular skill in cutting the points and shaping the pen so as to give it great strength and elasticity, Bagley’s patents for saving space in the handles, effectually preventing injury to the pen in the case, and Bagley’s beautiful little machine for “watering" ornaments on the case, which works so like a thing of life and will. 

Bagley Trained the Trade Workforce

A. G. Bagley, by whose side and under whose instructions more than half the mechanics in the Union engaged in the business learned the trade, who, as before remarked, invented every machine in use peculiar to the business, is not yet thirty-seven years of age. Though so young, he has already lived to see his country rank the first in the world in an article of commerce which he may be said to have established for it. That this remark is emphatically true may be drawn from the fact that his house sends to Paris alone, on special orders, more gold pens than are imported from Europe into every part of the United States. 

Bagley to Mallat Ink Reserve Comparison

I may add that those which are imported into the United States are all made in Paris, where a lip or elliptical bow [referring to the French Mallat Brevete Pen] is placed on the inside of the pen, in order to make them hold as much ink as possible. They do not “go down" here; the inside rasping applied by Bagley being found best adapted to attain the desired end.

W.D.W.

The original published story was authored by William Douglas Wallach (1812 – December 1, 1871) who was an American surveyor and newspaper entrepreneur. Born in Washington, D.C., he earned a civil engineering degree at Columbia College and moved west doing survey work, reaching the Republic of Texas in 1838 where he supported Sam Houston and the annexation of Texas to the U.S.