Joseph Dart

Joseph Dart (April 30, 1799 – September 28, 1879) was an American businessman and entrepreneur associated with the grain industry. Following construction of the Erie Canal, he is credited with conceiving the machine-powered grain elevator that is used worldwide, having financed construction of the first one in the world in 1842, known as Dart's Elevator. His invention was followed later by other grain elevators that helped make Buffalo, New York a major port city, becoming the largest grain shipping port in the world within fifteen years.

Dart also had a trading business in Buffalo of selling hats, leather, and fur. He traded with Native Americans from Canada and learned the various Iroquoian languages so he could communicate with them. The panic of 1837 and resulting recession led to Dart's store collapsing. He shortly after turned his attention towards the more lucrative grain elevation.

Dart was married in 1830 and had seven children, although several died before reaching adulthood. He lived in prestige areas of Buffalo in elegant homes during the latter half of his eighty year life.

Early life

Dart was born April 30, 1799, at the Middle Haddam Historic District in the town of East Hampton, Connecticut. He was the third son to Joseph and Sarah Dart. Dart received a good education and moved to Woodbury, Connecticut when he was 17 years old, starting his business education as an apprentice in a hat factory. He moved in 1819 and worked in the hat business for two years at Utica, New York.

Career

Merchandising

Dart moved to Buffalo in 1821, then a village of about 1,800 residents and went into the hat, leather, and fur business with Joseph Stocking. Their firm name was Stocking & Dart and the store was at the corner of Main Street and Swan Street in downtown Buffalo. His store was strategically located and usually the first place a Native American would visit when they came to Buffalo from Canada. Dart learned to speak the Iroquois language to be able to trade with the local Native Americans. He learned various dialects of the members of the Canadian Six Nations of the Grand River (Iroquois Confederacy), consisting of the Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Seneca and Tuscarora tribes. Chief Red Jacket, Seneca orator of the Wolf clan, visited their store frequently. Dart became known as a trusted businessman and a popular biographical note on him is that Native Americans visiting Buffalo would often hand over their valuables into his care for safekeeping.

Dart remained in the hat and fur trading business until the panic of 1837 hit America, causing a deep recession that resulted in banks failing and unemployment to reach 25%. Dart's business suffered as part of this financial downturn and ultimately his store failed.

Grain Elevators

The Erie Canal opened soon after Dart arrived in Buffalo which helped develop grain trading from local dealings into a multi-state industry. Since this was more lucrative than Dart's previous merchandise business, it appealed to him as a businessman. In 1841, he first conceived the idea of applying mechanized conveying to transfer grain from freight ships and then financed the building of the first steam-powered grain elevator in the world in 1842. His grain elevator was designed by thirty-year-old Scottish mechanical engineer Robert Dunbar, known as Dart's Elevator. Dart's experimental grain elevator was built on the bank of the Buffalo River where it meets the Evans Ship Canal. In contrast to contemporary grain elevators which use concrete in their construction, Dart's first elevator was made using wood. It applied the well-known elevator and conveyor principle invented by Oliver Evans fifty years before. He faced numerous obstacles and failures during construction, but overcame them to get his mechanical apparatus operational.

He was the first person to make the application of elevating grain out of transporting ships using mechanical power and has since become the system for unloading freighters throughout the world. Up to this time, grains were in barrels or sacks that were moved by hand labor, a time-consuming process.

Benefits

Dart’s concept saved time and money for the freighters of grain. An example given by one report is of the schooner ''John B Skinner'', loaded with 4,000 bushels of wheat, which came into the Buffalo port early one afternoon soon after Dart’s elevator was put in operation. Its wheat load was emptied using the elevator and then received a full load of salt. The vessel left the same evening, making a trip to Milan, Ohio, bringing back a second load of grain to be unloaded using Dart’s elevator. Dart’s enterprise was so lucrative that a month from the time his grain hoist was put in operation, a leading port merchant offered him double his regular charge for accommodation in prioritizing an emergency situation where a freighter had to be unloaded immediately.

Legacy

The Bennett elevator was built at this property site in 1864 as Dart's grain elevator had burned down the year before. The invention of the grain elevator had a profound effect on the city of Buffalo and the movement of grains on the Great Lakes. It developed as an efficient time-saving powered mechanical solution to the inefficient manual labor needed for raising grain by hand out of bulk carrier freighters to storage bins where the grain remained until being shipped out again onto canal boats or railroad cars. The city of Buffalo had become the world's largest grain shipping port in under fifteen years from when Dart invented his grain elevator. The city surpassed Odessa in Russia, London in England, and Rotterdam in Holland in volume of grain transferred and processed.

By 1887, Buffalo had 43 grain elevators costing $8,000,000 () that could transfer 4,000,000 bushels of grain in a 24-hour period using Dart's concept. Dart's grain elevator invention was considered state of the art by ''The Buffalo Commercial'' newspaper at the end of the nineteenth century, second in importance to commerce only to the steamboat and locomotive.

Businesses and societies

Dart was a lumber dealer with his brother in the Buffalo area. He was a pioneer developer of the Buffalo Water Works, a founder of the Buffalo Seminary, and a member of the Buffalo Historical Society. He was a merchant and a director of a bank in Conneaut, Ohio, of whom his brother, a judge, was the president.

Personal life

Dart married Dotha Dennison (b. July 31, 1809) of Norfolk, Connecticut in 1830. They had seven children, however several died before reaching adulthood. They had successive residences on Swan Street, South Division Street and Erie Street when each was a high-prestige area. Dart bought a larger than normal house on the northeast corner of Niagara Street and Georgia Street in 1858 to raise his large family.

Death and legacy

Dart died at the age of eighty on September 28, 1879. His remains are buried in Buffalo's Forest Lawn Cemetery and has a stone marker.

The grain elevator is Dart's legacy that goes into the twenty-first century. His innovations, according to historian Jerry M. Malloy, revolutionized the grain management industry worldwide.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Dart, Joseph
1799 births
1879 deaths
People from East Hampton, Connecticut
Lawyers from Buffalo, New York
Businesspeople from Buffalo, New York
19th-century American businesspeople
19th-century American lawyers