Harvey Freeman Gaskill

Background

Harvey Freeman Gaskill was the only child of Benjamin F. and Olive Gaskill and was born on January 19, 1845, on his father’s farm on the Slayton Settlement Road in Royalton, New York.

Education

Until Gaskill was sixteen years old, he attended the local district schools and did what work he could about the farm.

In 1861, Gaskill moved with his parents to Lockport, New York. Here he was a student in the Lockport Union School for a year or two and then entered the Poughkeepsie Commercial College, from which he graduated in 1866.

Career

Farming, however, never appealed to Gaskill, possibly because he was rather frail. Invention, on the other hand, early seemed to be his forte, as evidenced by the fact that when he was thirteen years old, he devised a revolving hay-rake which proved to be a very practical farm implement.

Gaskill’s father at the time was in no position to commercialize his son’s invention, which was not patented, but it is said that the idea was subsequently developed with considerable financial success.

Returning to Lockport, fully intent upon a business career, he first entered his uncle’s law office and devoted considerable time to the study of business law, then was made a member of the firm of Penfield, Martin & Gaskill whose business was the manufacture of a patent clock.

Later, he was actively interested in a planing-mill combined with a sash-and-blind factory. In both of these industrial undertakings he applied his inventive genius mainly to the improvement of the mechanical equipment. He also devised a clothespin and a horse-drawn hay-rake, but brought neither of them to a manufacturing stage.

On July 16, 1873, he joined the Holly Manufacturing Company in Lockport as a draftsman. This firm was engaged in the manufacture of pumping machinery for waterworks, and immediately upon entering its employ Gaskill turned his attention to the improvement of steam-pumps.

His talent quickly brought him to the attention of the company’s officers and he was given every opportunity to apply his genius. At that time, waterworks pumping machinery was made in the United States principally by two concerns - the Holly Manufacturing Company and the Worthington Pump & Machinery Company.

Competition between these two for supremacy and business was keen. Both concerns, however, were aware of the growing demand for higher steam economy and larger pumping capacity and in the Holly Company the task for designing equipment to meet this demand fell to Gaskill.

This he accomplished in 1882, when the Gaskill pumping engine appeared. It was the first crank and fly-wheel high duty pumping engine built as a standard for waterworks service. It gave a fairly high steam economy, had larger pumping units, was extremely compact and convenient, and was lower in cost than the preceding types.

The Gaskill engine was quickly accepted nationally and gave the Holly Company advantage over its competitor, until the Worthington high duty engine appeared.

Meanwhile Gaskill was made in turn engineer and superintendent of his company in 1877, a member of the board of directors and vice-president in 1885, and would eventually have become president but for his untimely death.

In addition to his connections with the Holly Company, he was active as a director or an officer of several other manufacturing concerns, public utilities, and banks.

Achievements

• Gaskill was made engineer and superintendent of his company, a member of the board of directors and vice-president. He was active as a director or an officer of several other manufacturing concerns, public utilities, and banks.

Membership

Gaskill was a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Connections

Gaskill was married, on December 25, 1873, to Mary Elizabeth Moore of Lockport, who survived him.

Father:

Benjamin F. Gaskill

Mother:

Olive Gaskill

Wife:

Mary Elizabeth Moore