Isaac Reese

Background

Isaac Reese, the eldest son of William and Elizabeth (Joseph) Reese, brother of Jacob and Abram Reese, was born on April 29, 1821 in Llanelly, Southern Wales.

Career

When he was ten years old he began working in the iron works in Wales where his father was likewise employed, and at the age of eleven emigrated with his parents to the United States. For the next sixteen years he worked in iron mills with his father in Phoenixville, Bellefonte, and after 1837 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, becoming an expert hammerer by the time he was seventeen.

Then, in 1848, he began a blast-furnace operation of his own in Clarion County, Pennsylvania, but the depression of 1849 put a stop to the enterprise and he returned to his trade in Pittsburgh. Eight years later, with the money he had saved, he engaged in coal mining in western Pennsylvania in association with his brother Abram, but this venture was soon given up as unprofitable.

Reese again returned to Pittsburgh and this time, because of his large acquaintance and experience in iron manufacturing, became a salesman for Johnston, Taylor & Company, manufacturers of firebrick. He took up this new work vigorously and at the same time directed his attention toward perfecting a better brick, for his experience in the iron industry had shown him that the available firebrick was hardly satisfactory.

In 1860, three years after entering the brick industry, he bought out his employers' business, which he operated until, in the panic of 1873, he lost every cent he had made. Just prior to this disaster he had begun experimenting in an effort to perfect a firebrick capable of withstanding the higher furnace temperatures occasioned by the new processes then coming into use. Although he had not completed this work at the time he failed in business, the results attained were so encouraging that he was able to borrow sufficient capital in 1878 to resume his experiments at his brick plant in Manorville, Pennsylvania.

Four years later, with the help of his eldest son, he produced the "Reese Silica Brick, " capable of withstanding a temperature of 5000 degrees Fahrenheit with practically no shrinkage or expansion. It was thus suitable for glass, open-hearth steel, copper, and other metallurgical furnaces, and soon found a market in practically every manufacturing state of the Union. To meet the demand for his product Reese enlarged his plant at Manorville and later erected another at Cowanshannock, Pennsylvania.

These plants were called the Phoenix Firebrick Works, of which Reese was the sole owner. Still later two other plants were built at Retort, Pennsylvania, and continued under the sole ownership of Reese until 1896, when he took his three sons into the business, the firm name being changed to Isaac Reese & Sons. In 1900 the business was incorporated and two years later it was sold in its entirety to the Harbison Walker Refractories Company. Reese then retired and lived in Pittsburgh for the rest of his life.

Achievements

• In due time, therefore, Reese invented a new process of manufacturing firebrick, and, using a new clay which he had discovered, made and placed on the market the "Woodland" brick. This was far superior, especially for crucible furnaces, to any brick then made. It found a waiting market and for years Reese controlled its sale in the Pittsburgh area.

Connections

He married Elizabeth Bebb Jones in Pittsburgh on May 24, 1844, three years after she had come to America from Wales, and at the time of his death he was survived by four of his eleven children.

Father:

William Reese

Mother:

Elizabeth (Joseph) Reese

Spouse:

Elizabeth Bebb Jones

sibling:

Jacob Reese

sibling:

Abram Reese