Stephen Paschall (186)

Stephen Paschall (14 October 1714–18 December 1800) was an artisan, manufacturer, and experimental chemist, and a member of the American Philosophical Society via his 1768 election to the American Society. Born west of Philadelphia but soon apprenticing in the city as an ironmonger, Paschall set into business for himself in 1747 and was in constant demand thereafter, producing fine blades and cutlery but also elements of Howitzers and farm implements. The production of war materiel during the Seven Years’ War (1754–63) established him as a leading manufacturer—to the point that counterfeiters bothered themselves to stamp his mark on their imported wares. He became something of a manufacturing engineer, consulting on others’ projects and developing efficient solutions to commercial problems: when Franklin inquired whether Paschall could devise a hay scale capable of weighting more than 200 pounds at a time, Paschall quipped he could “build scales to weigh all Philadelphia” (only the hay scale, Philadelphia’s first, was completed). As Paschall entered partial retirement he indulged his interests in natural philosophy, both as a subscriber to the Silk Society but also as an experimental chemist. He and his family rightly understood chemistry as a dangerous hobby, both to his heirs’ patrimony and to his own person. Consequently, Paschall placed his trust in the same hands which so long served him, vowing to spend only what he could earn, to construct as much as he could on his own. Although little more than a nominal Quaker (he held an enslaved person in the 1760s), he was buried in an ornate coffin in Friends’ ground at the end of a long and well-wrought life. (PI)