The Watchmaker’s Circle
Benjamin Huntsman wanted to make better watch springs. He went to great lengths to do it, supposedly burying his failed experiments so no one else would find them.
Pins: surprisingly complicated
Most of the historical washers or collars were made of multiple parts of very thin metal stock. Each layer was punched out of a sheet of rolled metal (brass, bronze, nickel, silver, copper, sometimes even gold).
Looking for J. Bement
Jared and his father Reuben were both staunch members of the Ashfield Temperance society. This, likely, put them in direct opposition to Jasper Bement, one of the wealthiest men in Ashfield and owner of the tavern. My main candidate and first cousin to Jared.
A durable mystery
The canonical story is that William & Samuel Butcher were brothers apprenticed to their father in Sheffield, when he died in 1806 they were apprenticed to another cutler. After they were freed they set up their own business and hired Robert Wade, a New York businessman, to handle their trade with America.
One of many beginnings
I hate disposable razors.
Enough so that after years of sort-of shaving I let my beard grow out. Oh my did it grow out. Did you know that with a 2 foot long beard you can wake yourself up tangled in hair? I didn’t either, at least for most of my life.