The Man (Washburn Biography)
Biography of Ichabod Washburn
On Aug. 11, 1798, in Kingston, Mass., Ichabod Washburn and his twin brother, Charles, were born to Sylvia Bradford, a descendent of Gov. William Bradford of the Mayflower, and Ichabod Washburn, a sea captain and descendant of a Mayflower passenger. The father died of yellow fever when the boys were less than a year old, leaving his wife with the twins and an older sister to raise.
At age nine, young Ichabod Washburn was apprenticed first to a harness maker and later to a blacksmith. In between the apprenticeships, he worked for a year in a cotton mill. While working in the mill, he became interested in machinery and wanted to work in a machine shop, but his guardian discouraged him, saying that the country would soon be so full of factories there would be no more need for machinery to be made. At age 15 he was sent to a blacksmith in Leicester, Mass., 80 miles from home.
After Washburn’s apprenticeship ended at age 20, he worked at several blacksmith jobs for about a year before moving to Worcester, Mass., where he eventually went to work for a producer of lead pipes and machinery for woolen mills. He soon bought out the owner, the company expanded rapidly and he acquired a business partner and they established the firm of Washburn and Goddard. He began experimenting with making wire. Not much was being manufactured in the U.S. and the machines were slow and crude. He made improvements and soon invented a new machine, thus becoming the Father of the Wire Industry.
Washburn and Goddard had an amicable parting of the ways, and Washburn joined with his twin brother Charles in business. Several years later he added his son-in-law, P.L. Moen.Piano wire, which previously had to be imported from Britain and Europe, was now supplied solely by the Washburn and Moen factory. They also made needles for the new sewing machines and it was Washburn's idea to use wire instead of expensive whalebone for the hoop skirt fad in the 1850s and 1860s.
The invention of the telegraph promoted a need for galvanized wire, a process which Washburn also perfected. By 1865, Washburn and Moen Manufacturing Company was the largest wire mill in the world, employing nearly 3,000 men. This company later became part of U.S. Steel Corp.
Washburn was a faithful churchgoer and served as a Congregationalist deacon. He contributed money for the building of churches, a hospital and a technical school in his hometown (Worcester Technical Institute).
Washburn was somewhat conservative but he believed in reform and progress. He was a member of the Anti-Slavery Society, supported advanced education and privileges for women, legal prohibition and anti-tobacco reform.
It was because of Washburn’s generosity, his membership in the Congregational Church and his interest in education that Horatio Q. Buttefield, fundraiser for Lincoln College, approached him in October 1868. Washburn agreed to give the struggling college, which admitted both blacks and women, in addition to men, the sum of $25,000. In gratitude for his generous donation, the Lincoln College Board of Trustees changed the name of the school to Washburn College the next month.
Washburn died Dec. 30, 1868 from complications of a stroke. His widow, however, continued to make smaller donations to Washburn College until her death in 1875.
In 1938, alumnus Bradbury Thompson brought this “heroic” figure to life in the graphical symbol of a man with a top hat and tails carrying a book. In the 1938 Kaw yearbook, Thompson wrote, “It is not intended that only one picture should represent Ichabod, for he adapts himself to any situation . . . but if he is to live, he must keep his essential characteristics of courageous spirit, democratic courtesy, kindness and the studious love of truth.”
By Martha Imparato, Washburn Alumni magazine, summer 1998, p. 31.
