Background
Early in life he was apprenticed to a goldsmith, and became interested in the production of alloys. He experimented with the manufacture of britannia ware, and in 1824 successfully cast the alloy and commenced marketing the first britannia ware ever produced in the United States. In partnership with William Crossman he built a factory in Taunton, Mass., in 1827, but when business declined a few years later they sold out to their apprentices and Babbitt went to work in Boston as superintendent of the South Boston Iron Works, also known as Cyrus Alger's Foundry. There he produced the first brass cannon ever cast in the United States, and in 1839 obtained a patent on a journal box of his design, which included the formula for a soft alloy to be used as a bearing metal for lining the boxes of axles. This latter relatively incidental detail proved to be the most valuable element of his invention, and is still used and referred to as Babbitt's metal.