John Brown Francis Herreshoff

John Brown Francis Herreshoff (February 7, 1850 – January 30, 1932) was an American chemist and the second winner of the Perkin Medal. He was also the president of The General Chemical Company.

Career Herreshoff was a metallurgical chemist affiliated with the firm of Herreshoff Manufacturing Company, builders of yachts and torpedo boats. Herreshoff was hired by G. H. Nichols and Company in 1880 or 1882. He invented and built for them a water-jacketed furnace, and quickly became a partner in the company. Others built according to his smelter plans furnaces up to 100 tons in 1890. He was greatly interested in obtaining copper from pyrite ore.

In 1890, Herreshoff developed a form of the contact catalytic process for the company of which he was a partner. In 1892 the Herreshoff process went into large-scale industrial production, and "Nichols Lake Substitute" copper was henceforth a competitor to the "Lake Superior" copper standard of the US Bureau of Mines. In 1900 Herreshoff was made vice-president of the Nichols Copper Company. an award conferred annually by the American section of the Society of Chemical Industry to a scientist residing in America for an "innovation in applied chemistry resulting in outstanding commercial development". It is one of the highest honors given in the U.S. chemical industry.

Patents

(1883): Copper smelting furnace (1884): PULLEY BLOCK (1886): Sulphuric acid tower (1886): FIRE DOOR FOR FURNACEs (1887): Process of concentrating sulphuric acid (1887): Apparatus for concentrating sulphuric acid (1887): APPARATUS FOR SEPARATING LEAD OR BASE BULLION FROM SLAG, MATTES, AND SPEISS (1895): Chimney (1896): Roasting furnace (1899): Roasting furnace (1900): Apparatus for casting metal (1902): Method of making sulfuric anhydrid (1902): Apparatus for the manufacture of sulfuric anhydrid (1902): Process of making sulfuric acid (1903): Process of making sulfuric acid (1906): Purification of burner-gases (1906): Apparatus for purifying burner-gases (1909): Ore-roasting furnace (1910): Reverberatory furnace (1910): Furnace for roasting ores (1912): Roasting-furnace (1925): Condenser

Personal life Herreshoff was born February 7, 1850, in Bristol, Rhode Island, to Charles Frederick Herreshoff III (1809–1888) and Julia Ann Lewis (; 1811–1901).

John Brown Francis Herreshoff was married four times. He first married – on February 9, 1876 – Grace Eugenia Dyer (; 1851–1880), with whom he had a daughter, the painter Louise Chamberlain Herreshoff (1876–1967).

After Dyer's death, he married – on October 25, 1882, in Philadelphia – Emaline Duval ("Mildred") Lee (; 1863–1930). From that marriage, he had two sons and a daughter. One of the sons, Frederick Herreshoff (1888–1920), became a noted American amateur golfer. Through his daughter from that marriage, Sarah Lothrop Herreshoff (1889–1958), he is the grandfather of the Italian painter (1914–2011). Herreshoff and Lee divorced June 4, 1919, in Manhattan.

Five days later, on June 9, 1919, Herreshoff married Carrie Lucas Ridley (; 1878–1924), her second. On October 5, 1924 ( months after Carrie's death), Herreshoff married Carrie's sister, Irma Grey Ridley (1872–1946).

Herreshoff died January 30, 1932, at the home of his daughter in New York City.