The Match Industry In America

The first manufactory of friction matches was located in the center of the Couuecticut valley, in the historie community known as Chicopee street. The principie of this invention had been thought out in Europe, but bright Yankee minds were quick to catch the idea from across the water, and the manufacture progressed as rapidly here as there. The credit for this invention is probably due to John Walker, a chemist, who lived in England iu Stocktonon-Tees. He was experimenting with chlorate of potash and found that it could be instantly ignited by frictiou when coated on a stick with pbosphorus and drawn through folded sandpaper. This discovery was made in 1829, and, the attention of Michael Faraday called to the new idea, it soon became popular, and the manufacture was started nearly simultaneously in Europe and America. The first factory for the making of friction matches on a large scale is stated to have been established in Vienna in 1833, but the factory on Chicopee street was running nearly as early