Augustus Allen Hayes

Background

Augustus Allen Hayes was born on February 28, 1806 in Windsor, Vermont, United States. He was the son of Thomas Allen and Sophia (West) Hayes.

Education

Hayes attended the military academy at Norwich, Vermont, where he graduated in 1823.

Immediately afterward he began to study chemistry in the medical school at Dartmouth College under James Freeman Dana. Here he started a laborious investigation of the proximate constituents of American medicinal plants, and in 1825 published, among other results, an account of the isolation of an alkaloidal compound which he called sanguinaria. It attracted attention more from the brilliant colors of its derivatives than from its medicinal properties. For the next two years, 1826-1828, he investigated certain compounds of chromium, and the paper containing his results was commended by the eminent Swedish chemist Berzelius.

Career

In 1828 Hayes moved to Boston, Massachussets, and devoted the rest of his life to chemical research in that city or its vicinity. He became successively the director of a large plant in Roxbury, Massachussets, which manufactured colors and other chemicals, the consulting chemist of several of the most important dyeing, bleaching, gas-making, and smelting establishments in New England, and the assayer of the state of Massachusetts. He discovered a process for making chloroform by alcohol and chlorin, but this process was not utilized to any extent.

On the other hand, the methods he devised for shortening the time needed in smelting iron and refining copper were widely used. The oxidÏs of iron were added to the mixture in the puddling furnace and a better quality of malleable iron was obtained. Scales of copper oxide, added at the proper point, made the operation of refining more certain. He investigated the formation of guano and studied the composition and specific differences of numerous varieties of this fertilizer.

In 1837 he started an intensive investigation of methods of economizing fuel in generating steam, and his results soon led to fundamental improvements in the construction of furnaces and the arrangement of steam boilers. While acting under a commission from the United States Navy Department, his investigations on the use of copper and copper sheathing in the construction of national vessels led to an extended study of the composition of sea water and its action below the surface and at the mouths of rivers.

In 1859-1860 Hayes conducted an investigation of the water supply of Charlestown, Massachussets, and devised and used a simple electrical method of detecting the limits of slight impurities in drinking water. He proved that a copper strip or wire, if placed vertically into two layers of water, slightly different in composition, would exhibit electrolytic action. By applying this method, he showed that a sulfur compound, when decomposed, could be detected by the formation of black copper sulfide, and the limits of the compound could be read on the strip.

At the beginning of the Civil War he pointed out the uncertainty of the foreign, as well as domestic, supply of saltpeter needed for gunpowder, and the urgent necessity for increasing domestic production. Through his researches an excellent quality of potassium nitrate was manufactured for the Navy Department from sodium nitrate and potassium hydroxide.

His scientific papers, which numbered about sixty, covered a wide range, and were published for the most part in the Proceedings of the Academy and the American Journal of Science.

The last thirteen years of his life were hampered by invalidism, which was borne with the same cheerfulness and fortitude that characterized his active life. He died on June 21, 1882.

Achievements

• Augustus Allen Hayes is remembered as a prominent chemist and scientist, whose opinions as a consulting chemist were highly valued. His work led to fundamental improvements in the construction of furnaces and the arrangement of steam boilers. He received the honorary degree of Doctor of medicine from Dartmouth College in 1846.

Membership

Hayes was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and other learned societies.

Connections

July 13, 1836, Hayes married Henrietta Bridge Dana, the daughter of Reverend Samuel Dana of Marblehead.

Father:

Thomas Allen Hayes

Mother:

Sophia (West) Hayes

Spouse:

Henrietta Bridge (Dana) Hayes

References

• Memoranda of Some of the Descendants of Richard Dana
• Norwich University, 1819-1911: Her History, Her Graduates, Her Roll of Honor, Vol. 1 of 3 (Classic Reprint)