COOPER, PETER

(1791 - 1883), manufacturer, inventor and philanthropist; b. New York City. His education was scanty, and his family’s circumstances early required him to help his father in the latter’s various callings pied learned the trade of a carriage builder, invented a cloth machine, manufactured cabinet ware, became a grocer, and finally found a stable busine in a glue and isingla factory that he founded on Long Island. The manufacture of glue occupied him for more than half a century and procured him great wealth. Meantime he became an ironmaster, opening, 1830, large works at Baltimore, a rolling and wire mill in New York, and blast furnaces in Pennsylvania. In 1845 he removed his New York plant to Trenton, N. J. He built the first American locomotive, rolled the first wrought iron beams for fire-proof structures, and devised a method of propelling canal boats by an endle chain. Was an active promoter of the laying of the Atlantic cable. He established the well known Cooper Union, New York City, in 1857. He was a candidate for President in 1876, being nominated by the independent party.