Henry Burden

Henry Burden (April 22, 1791 – January 19, 1871) was an engineer and businessman who built an industrial complex in Troy, New York called the Burden Iron Works. Burden's horseshoe machine, invented in 1835, was capable of making 60 horseshoes a minute. His rotary concentric squeezer, a machine for working wrought iron, was adopted by iron industries worldwide. His hook-headed spike machine helped fuel the rapid expansion of railroads in the U.S. The Burden Iron Works is now an historical site and museum.

Early life Henry Burden was born on April 22, 1791 in Dunblane, Stirlingshire, Scotland, the son of Peter Burden (1752–1829) and Elizabeth Abercrombie (1756–1837). His father was a sheep farmer. An account cited that he constructed a threshing machine for his father before he went to college. He returned to the farm making implements and a water wheel to power them.

He emigrated in 1819 with a letter of introduction to Stephen Van Rensselaer III, courtesy of the American Minister in London.

Career Burden started at the Townsend & Corning Foundry, manufacturers of cast iron plows and other agricultural implements, located in Albany’s south end - near today’s Port of Albany. In 1820, he invented an improved plow, which took first premium at three county fairs, and a cultivator, The factory was located on north side of the Wynantskill Creek in South Troy, about a half-mile northeast of today’s Troy-Menands bridge.

Innovator He experimented not only in the manufacture of items like horseshoes and spikes, but also in the production of machines to make them. The hook-headed spike he invented was used on nearly every railroad in the United States, contributing to the rapid progress of railroad building in the country. The wheel's design caught the eye of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute student George W.G. Ferris, who in 1893 unveiled his own invention, the Ferris Wheel, similar to Henry Burden's water wheel. and an accomplished mechanic who could make a better piece of work than any man in his shops and deal a heavier sledge blow than any of his strikers at the forge. He was considered both upright and apt to assume the uprightness of others.

Steamboats Burden had a great interest in navigation. As early as 1825 he laid before the Troy Steamboat Association certain original plans whereby the construction of steamboats for inland navigation could be greatly improved, and which some years later were adopted in the building of the steamer 'Hendrick Hudson.' In 1833, he created the steamboat "Helen," named in honor of his wife. Its deck rested upon two cigar-shaped hulls, three hundred feet in length, with a paddle-wheel amidships thirty feet in diameter. The boat was lost on its first trial due to pilot mismanagement, and Burden turned his attention to ocean navigation. Helen Burden (1826–1891), who married Gen. Irvin McDowell (1818–1885). Henry James Burden (1828–1846), who died at age 18, unmarried. William Fletcher Burden (1830–1867), who married Julia Ann Hart (1833–1867). James Abercrombie Burden (1833–1906), who married Mary Proudfit Irvin (1848–1920). Isaiah Townsend Burden (1838–1913), who married Evelyn Byrd Moale (1847–1916). Jessie Burden (1840–1911), who married Charles Frederick Wadsworth (1835–1899).

His wife died on March 10, 1860, in Troy. Henry Burden died of heart disease on Thursday morning, January 19, 1871. Burden's funeral was held at the Woodside Presbyterian Church, which he had built near the ironworks. On the day of the funeral the Burden Mills, the Albany Iron Works, the J.A. Griswold & Co. works, and the Cohoes rolling mill of Morrison and Colwell all closed so that the workers could attend. Also in attendance was the Thomas Cornet Band wearing "the usual badge of mourning".

At one time Henry Burden employed almost one-eighth of the population of the city of Troy, and "spent a lifetime in devising means for lightening toil". Another grandson, Arthur Scott Burden, was the first husband of Cynthia Roche.