Henry Burden (1791-1871)

He grew up on a farm in Scotland where he began making farm equipment, including a threshing machine. In 1819, he emigrated to Albany, New York, with a letter of introduction to Governor Stephen Van Rensselaer courtesy of the American Minister in London. He established the Burden Iron Works at Troy where he manufactured agricultural machinery including an improved plow, the country's first cultivator, a machine for making hook-headed spikes for railroads, a self-acting machine for making iron into bars, the cruise liner, the largest water wheel in the world, the first iron-clad warship, and a machine for making horseshoes at a rate of 60-per-minute. Winning the Union Army's contract he made a fortune supplying iron for railroads. In 1821, at Montreal, he married Helen McOuat who he'd known back in Scotland. They were the parents of eight children (listed above) including Townsend (Member of Mrs Astor's Four Hundred) and Jessie, daughter-in-law of Maj.-Gen. James S. Wadsworth.