Morris Burke Belknap (the elder)
{{Notability|1=Biographies|date=September 2023}}
Morris Burke Belknap (June 25, 1780 -July 26, 1877) was an early iron foundry owner and American industrialist{{cite web|title=Belknap, William B.|url=http://www.usbiographies.org/biographies/read.php?416,4644|website=www.usbiographies.org|accessdate=3 October 2016}} and "one of the pioneers in development of the iron industry west of the Allegheny Mountains." His son, W. B. Belknap, was founder of the Belknap Hardware and Manufacturing Company, having learned about the business from his father.
Early life
Belknap was born in South Brimfield, Massachusetts on June 25, 1780, the only son of William Belknap.{{cite book|last1=Johnson|first1=E. Polk|title=History of Kentucky and Kentuckians|date=1912|publisher=Lewis Publishing Company|location=New York and Chicago|pages=1151–53|edition=Volume III}}
Business activities
Belknap moved in 1807 to a colony in Marietta, Ohio where he started an iron industry. In 1810 or 1811 he moved back East to Worcester, Massachusetts.{{cite web|title=Richardson Memorial|url=http://freepages.books.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~billie0w/richardson_memorial//associated.htm|website=freepages.books.rootsweb.ancestry.com|accessdate=3 October 2016}} In 1816 he moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he helped to build some of the first rolling mills and iron casting and iron forging companies. He traveled on horseback and by river boats, exploring the ore fields of the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers.{{cite web|title=Belknap, William B.|url=http://www.usbiographies.org/biographies/read.php?416,4644|website=www.usbiographies.org|accessdate=3 October 2016}} and subsequently established iron furnaces in Stewart County, Tennessee and Nashville, Tennessee.{{cite web|last1=Sturgeon|first1=Bob|title=Belknap Hardware & Mfg. Co. - Louisville, KY: Company History|url=http://www.wkfinetools.com/hUS/hardw_Belknap/hist/bHistory1.asp|website=W. K. Fine Tools magazine|accessdate=7 February 2016}}
Personal life
In 1824 Belknap married Phoebe Locke Thompson (1788-1873).{{citation needed|date=February 2021}} W. B. Belknap, the oldest of Morris and Phoebe's six children, by following his father's chosen industrial manufacturing and retail career became the founder of Belknap Hardware and Manufacturing Company.{{cite web|title=Belknap Hardware and Manf. Co. Bldg. (Louisville, Ky.) - UrbanUp|url=http://urbanup.net/cities/kentucky/louisville-kentucky/downtown/belknap-hardware-and-manufacturing-company/|website=UrbanUp|accessdate=10 June 2016|date=6 September 2012}}{{cite web|title=Belknap History|url=http://www.hangoutstorage.com/banjohangout.org/storage/attachments/archived/files/belknap-history-54179132014.pdf|website=Hangout Storage|accessdate=10 June 2016}} in Louisville, Kentucky.File:Belknap-ad.jpg
Phoebe Belknap died February 5, 1873, in DeWitt, Arkansas, and Morris died at Smithland, Livingston County, Kentucky on July 26, 1877.{{cite web|title=Belknap, William B.|url=http://www.usbiographies.org/biographies/read.php?416,4644|website=www.usbiographies.org|accessdate=10 June 2016}} Kentucky historian E. Polk Johnson observed that Morris Burke Belknap's name "merits special prominence on the roster of those through whose constructive and initiative abilities encompassed the development of the great iron industry of the United States."{{cite book|last1=Johnson|first1=E. Polk|title=History of Kentucky and Kentuckians|date=1912|publisher=Lewis Publishing Company|location=New York & Chicago|page=52|edition=Common version, Vol. III|quote=In 1827 he made an extended trip through the ore fields of the Cumberland and Tennessee river district, and on horseback he made a careful exploration of this region. He appreciated the advantages here offered and, after enlisting requisite capital, he erected furnaces in Stewart County, Tennessee, and later at Nashville . . . .}}
References
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Category:People from Brimfield, Massachusetts
Category:American industrialists