The Circular Saw

In a lonely, secluded position in the northwest corner of the cemetery near the ever beautiful little Village of Eichmond Kalamazoo County, Michigan, the historian can find, on a pure white marble slab nearly concealed from view by a large cluster of lilac bushes, engraved the simple name of " Benjamin Cummins, born A. D. 1772, died A. D. 1848." And who was Benjamin Cummins? He was the inventor of circular Baws, now in use in this country and in Europe. Nearly sixty years ago, at Burtonville, New York, near Amsterdam, this man hammered out, at his own blacksmith's anvil, the first circular saw known to man kind. He was a noted pioneer in Michigan, a first cousin to one of the Presidente of the United States, a slave owner in New York State, a leading Masón of the days of Morgan, and at whose table the very elite of the then great State of New York feasted and drank freely of his choice liquors and wines; a vessel ownei on the North Eiver before the days oi steamboats, a captain in the war of 1812 where, after having three horBes sho from under him, with one stroke of his sword he brought his superior officer to the ground for an insult and because he was a traitor and a coward, and after having been court-martialed, instead o having been shot, he was appointed a col onel in his place. And in this lowi; grave are the ashes of the man who nearly seventy years ago, at Albany, New York, took up and moved bodily a large block of brick buildings, and, to the won der and astonishment of the world, con structed a mile and a half of Erie Cana through a bed of rock, and who also built, per contract, those first low bridge over the same, ríe aiso aiueu in ine oonstruction of the first ten miles of railroad built in the United States, and founded both the villages of Esperence and Burtonville, on the old Schoharie, near Amsterdam. The study and aim of this man's life appeared to be to aooomplish that which none others could accemplish and when the object sought was secured or overeóme, he passed it as quietly by a he would the pebbles on the sea shore.