Robert M Dalzell was an American millwright and inventor whose mechanical ingenuity combined with his skill in mill construction was quickly recognized and for the succeeding twenty-five years or more his services were in great demand.
Background
Robert Dalzell was born in 1793 in County Down, near Belfast, Ireland. He was the son of John Dalzell, the last of an old family of Scotch Covenanters that had established itself in Ireland and become a family of influence and character, with large property. When Robert was five years old the Rebellion of 1798 began and his father, one of the recognized leaders, was sought for by British soldiers. He escaped to sea in an open boat and was picked up by the crew of a passing ship and carried to New York. Three years later his wife and children came to New York as immigrants to join him. They established themselves on a small farm at Vernon, Oneida County, New York, United States and began life anew under the most adverse, poverty-stricken conditions.
Education
Young Dalzell was given all of the educational advantages that the local country school afforded, after which he was apprenticed to a millwright from whom he learned his trade.
Career
Dalzell worked locally as a millwright until he was thirty-three years of age, when he moved to Rochester to engage in his chosen occupation. It was about this time that the potential water power of the Genesee River and its falls at Rochester began to be recognized.
Among the first enterprises utilizing this power were flour-mills, and in their construction Dalzell, as a millwright, found immediate employment. In the course of this work he perfected and introduced the elevator system for storing grain and meal which is now universally used in all large ocean and inland ports, but he never patented the system.
His refusal to do so was probably due to his conscientious scruples against the accumulation of wealth by an individual; it is said that in all of his private transactions, both when he was in active work and after his retirement, he could never under any form or guise be persuaded to take more than seven per cent interest or discount.
For the last twenty-five years of his life he lived more or less in retirement, his activities centering about his church.
Achievements
Practically all of the flour-mills in Rochester, which came to be known as the “Flour City, ” were designed by Dalzell and built under his supervision.
He perfected and introduced the elevator system for storing grain and meal which is now universally used in all large ocean and inland ports.
Connections
Dalzell married Lucy S. Dalzell, and they had two children.
