Samuel Wetherill

Background

Samuel Wetherill was born in Philadelphia, the son of John Price and Maria Kane (Lawrence) Wetherill, and a great-grandson of Samuel Wetherill.

Education

He received his early education in the schools of Philadelphia and was graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in the class of 1845.

Career

He then entered the white lead and chemical works of Wetherill & Brother, an organization which claims to be the oldest business in Philadelphia to continue under one family ownership and name. Here he became a skillful chemist. At the age of twenty-nine he was employed by the New Jersey Zinc Company, and by persistent research invented in 1852 a process for deriving the white oxide of zinc direct from the ore. To exploit this invention the Lehigh Zinc Company was organized and a manufacturing plant erected in 1853 in what is now a part of Bethlehem but was then named Wetherill in honor of the founder. The production of zinc oxide flourished, and further development by Wetherill resulted in the production, also, of metallic zinc and of rolled zinc sheets (1857). The process employed was later perfected by the importation of Belgian labor - three men in 1859, fifteen in 1860, nine in 1861, six in 1863, and twenty-seven in 1864 - and paved the way for the erection of the great pumping engine at Friedensville, Pa. (1872) - the largest in the world. In the meantime the Civil War broke out. Wetherill recruited two companies of cavalry in Bethlehem, was commissioned captain of the 11th Pennsylvania Cavalry, August 19, 1861, was promoted to the rank of major, October 1, served throughout a period of three years, and on October 1, 1864, was honorably discharged. The next year, March 13, he was brevetted lieutenant-colonel, United States Volunteers, "for gallant and meritorious services throughout the campaign of 1864, against Richmond, Virginia. " Following his military service, Wetherill returned to his manufacturing and commercial interests. He lived to see, in 1881, two of his sons joint purchasers with Richard and August Heckscher of the Lehigh Zinc Works which he had founded in 1853. After the consolidation of this concern with the New Jersey Zinc Company in 1897, the eldest son, John Price Wetherill (1844 - 1906), invented the Wetherill furnace and the Wetherill magnetic concentrating process for the treatment of refractory ores - developments as notable in metallurgical science as the achievements of his distinguished father. Samuel Wetherill died in Oxford, Md. , where he went to reside after retiring from business.

Achievements

• He founded the Lehigh Zinc Works.

Works

More photos

• book

  • An apology for the religious society, called Free Quakers, in the city of Philadelphia: shewing that all churches who excommunicate, act inconsistently with the gospel of Jesus.

    ( Title: An apology for the religious society, called Fre...)

  • A Confutation of the Doctrines of Antinomianism; Delivered in the College Hall, in the City of Philadelphia, on the Seventh-Day Evening, June 17, 1790. Together with Some Observations on the Reply Made by John Murray, on the Second-Day Evening Following.

Connections

On January 1, 1844, he had married Sarah Maria Chattin; she died in 1869, and on October 19, 1870, he married Thyrza A. James. He was the father of ten children, seven by the first marriage, three by the second.

Father:

John Price Wetherill

Mother:

Maria Kane (Lawrence) Wetherill

Spouse:

Thyrza A. James

Spouse:

Sarah Maria Chattin

child:

John Price Wetherill