Henry Troemner (1809–1873) was a German-American entrepreneur. He started the Henry Troemner Company, known today as Troemner Inc. The company produced balances and scales. Troemner immigrated to the United States in 1832 and settled initially in New York City, then, by 1843,

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

. He began making scales and weights in a partnership in 1840, and then established his own company in 1844. He was commissioned by the

United States Mint The United States Mint is a bureau of the United States Department of the Treasury, Department of the Treasury responsible for producing coinage for the United States to conduct its trade and commerce, as well as controlling the movement of bull ...

in Philadelphia to make their balances, which he did so well that he was invited to make the bullion balances for the Department of Treasury. He later made scales for the

Mexican Mint The Casa de Moneda de México is the national mint of Mexico and is the oldest mint in the Americas. History The ''Casa de Moneda'' was established on 11 May 1535 by the Spanish viceroy Antonio de Mendoza by a decree from the Spanish Crown to cr ...

Assay Office Assay offices are institutions set up to assay (test the purity of) precious metals. This is often done to protect consumers from buying fake items. Upon successful completion of an assay (i.e. if the metallurgical content is found be equal or bette ...

in New York, and the

San Francisco Mint The San Francisco Mint is a branch of the United States Mint. Opened in 1854 to serve the gold mines of the California gold rush, in twenty years its operations exceeded the capacity of the first building. It moved into a new one in 1874, now kn ...

. According to Ernest Child, Troemner was probably the first American manufacturer to follow the French mathematician

Gilles Personne de Roberval Gilles Personne de Roberval (August 10, 1602 – October 27, 1675) was a French mathematician born at Roberval near Beauvais, France. His name was originally Gilles Personne or Gilles Personier, with Roberval the place of his birth. Biography L ...

's balance design. This is distinguished by the load being superimposed on the beam, rather than suspended from the beam, and allowed faster weighings.Child, Ernest. ''The Tools of the Chemist''. New York: Reinhold Publishing Corporation (1940), p. 88. Cited in Shannon and Shannon. After his death in 1873 his wife Catherine inherited the business, which was kept in the family until incorporating in 1955.

Notes

References

* John Meeks Shannon and Geraldine Collins Shannon
The Henry Troemner Company
. Robert A. Paselk Scientific Instrument Museum at

Humboldt State University California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt (Cal Poly Humboldt or Humboldt) is a public university in Arcata, California. It is one of Cal Poly (disambiguation), three polytechnic universities in the California State University (CSU) sys ...

External links

Troemner history
at Troemner Inc. site {{DEFAULTSORT:Troemner, Henry Businesspeople from Philadelphia Emigrants from the German Confederation to the United States American scientific instrument makers 1809 births 1873 deaths 19th-century American businesspeople