George L. Damon

[wylk]

I've been studying bank vaults for several years, specifically the styles of boltwork on large round doors roughly from 1890 to 1950. I think it's an interesting combination of ingenuity, artistry, and brute strength.

I though I'd share some of my research. The good news is that you can learn quite a bit just using the internet including others' contributions here on antique-locks; the bad news is I live in a small town well removed from most major cities which limits hands-on observations.

My first topic is George L. Damon. He's an easy choice because there isn't much to say, though for a time his work was fairly common in New England and many examples still survive. First some biographical information, then examples of his work in later posts.

If anybody has additions/corrections, feel free to say something.



A detailed biography (up to 1892) of George Damon with a photo: http://books.google.com/books?id=quE...0vault&f=false (page 142 of the book which is page 149 of the PDF file). The book is “Massachusetts Of To-Day, A Memorial of the State, Historical and Biographical, Issued for the World’s Columbian Exposition at Chicago, 1892” (the exposition was dedicated on October 21, 1892 but actually ran from May 1 to October 30 of 1893). A transcript of the text follows –

To the mechanical genius and business enterprise of George Leonard Damon, president of the Damon Safe and Iron Works Company, is largely due to the high stage of development which the safe industry has attained in America. He was born in Stoughton, Mass., July 15, 1843, the son of Leonard and Elizabeth P. (Linfield) Damon. His early education was obtained in the public schools of Stoughton and of East Boston, whither his parents removed when he was twelve years old. After graduating from the Adams School, in 1861, he went to the Harrison Loring Works in South Boston as apprentice, his special aim being to qualify himself as a mechanical engineer for the construction of marine engines, the building of vessels, and all kinds of iron steamship work. His progress was so marked that on the completion of his apprenticeship he received a responsible position from Charles Staples & Son, of Portland, Me., who had obtained a contract for the construction of a light-draught monitor. In 1866, with others, he bought out the safe manufacturing business in Boston of the Tremont Safe Company. After conducting that business two years and a half the firm sold out to the American Steam Safe Company, and Mr. Damon returned to Portland and was made a partner with C. Staples & Son, where he did a large amount of special designing of stationary and marine engine work and added to his reputation as a mechanical engineer. In 1870 he was induced to return to Boston to take charge of the manufacturing department of the American Steam Safe Company, successors of the old firm of Denio & Roberts, and four years later bought out the entire plant. Since then his business has steadily increased, until now he has the manufactory in Cambridgeport, and has also established a large plant in Philadelphia, giving constant employment to two hundred men. Mr. Damon has constructed vaults for most of the banks and safe deposit companies in New England, and for several years furnished all the work of this class ordered by the United States Treasury Department. The large vaults in use by the Treasury Department at Washington and every sub-treasury vault in the country, including those in San Francisco, have been constructed by Mr. Damon. In the seventies, at the request of Secretary of the Treasury Bristow, he remodelled the United States Treasury vaults at New York. All the labor, requiring a number of workmen, had to be performed outside of business hours, and during the whole time of reconstruction nearly two hundred million dollars were stored in the vaults constantly within arms’ reach of the workmen. Mr. Damon safely accomplished the task without a cent of loss and to the great satisfaction of the government officials. The numerous safes and vaults in the great Exchange Building, the Boston Safe Deposit Company, Old Colony Trust Company, and Bay State Trust Company, were of his construction. A consolidation of all the safe manufacturing interests of the country has just been effected, with a capital of five million dollars, and Mr. Damon has been elected its treasurer.

The “consolidation” mentioned at the end was an attempted joining of safe and vault companies to eliminate competition. This was attempted several times over several years but did not in fact occur. There is a discussion on antique-locks with a thread entitled “The Unbelievable Safe Combine of 1899 That Almost Happened” which includes many references.

A few other short references include http://en.allexperts.com/q/Antique-S...ld-safe-36.htm, http://en.allexperts.com/q/Antique-S...andad-Safe.htm, and http://en.allexperts.com/q/Antique-S...damon-safe.htm. A very short biography/obituary at http://records.ancestry.com/George_L...x?pid=72451297 which claims he was born in 1842 instead of 1843:

Born in Stoughton, No Kids, Massachusetts, USA on 15 Jul 1842 to Leonard Damon and Elizabeth Porter Linfield. George Leonard married Aralyn P Leavitt. He passed away on 31 Jul 1915 in Hull, Vault, Massachusetts, USA.

His wife’s name is sometimes spelled Aralyn (as above), or Arolyne; Arolyn P. Damon is the assignee of US patent 666,185.
He is also discussed in American Genius on pages 220-221 (Damon’s Bank Lock Company, roughly 1870-1895) and page 254 (Damon purchased almost all of S&G’s Triple C time locks through 1914).

Not much is known beyond about 1892. Per American Genius the company was still buying time locks through 1914. Doug MacQueen states the company was still listed in 1918. I would assume the company was eventually absorbed by one of the other companies (Diebold, Mosler, Herring-Hall-Marvin, York, etc.) but I don’t know this.

Interesting patents include 609,416 for gravity/cam operated boltwork (as we'll see in Burlington, VT), 635,668 for a round double door (as seen at SpringHill Suites in Baltimore), 901,425 for a spring-loaded adjustable hinge, and 952,981 for a link-arm locking mechanism seen on round doors.

A more complete list of patents (not including those pertaining to other subjects e.g. 251,528):
102,780 “Improvements in Bolts for Safes &c.” (disconnects bolt handle when locked)
200,823 “Improvement in Burglar-Proof Safes” (adjustment for wear of hinges)
252,435 “Burglar-Proof Safe” (construction methods) 270,114 “Permutation Lock” by O. E. Pillard. Though there is no direct connection with Damon, this patent date is reportedly found on a Damon lock ("Geo L Damon, patented Jan 2 83", http://en.allexperts.com/q/Antique-S...Damon-Safe.htm) and Pillard lived in the same area (Cambridge) as Damon (Boston/Cambridge) so perhaps Damon used Pillard’s patent.
311,419 ”Means for Locking and Unlocking the Doors of Safes, &c.”
437,682 “Electric Safe Lock”
440,695 “Safe Door” (improved construction)
470,818 “Safe” (door/frame construction)
522,153 “Safe Lock” (solid seating of doors and jambs)
575,705 “Closure for Safes or Vaults” (a cylindrical door roughly like the NY Fed’s)
593,200 “Safe or Vault” (wedge-sealed door)
609,416 “Safe Boltwork” (independent bolt-throwing)
614,421 “Safe” (safe/vault construction to foil burglars)
635,668 “Safe” (round, double door)
666,185 “Thermostatic Appliance for Boltwork” (thermal relocker)
901,425 “Mounting for Heavy Vault Doors” (adjustable spring-loaded hinges)
901,710 “Movable Ventilator for Vaults” (not an emergency ventilator)
908,448 “Mounting Heavy Doors of Safes and Vaults” (adjustable spring-loaded hinges)
918,952 “Vault or Safe” (method to join plates)
918,953 “Vault or Safe” (method to join plates)
952,980 “Door for Safes and Vaults” (vestibule and door to allow repair from inside)
952,981 “Locking Mechanism for Safes” (link-arm boltwork)
954,670 “Construction of Vestibules of Armor-Plate Vaults”
956,889 “Controlling Device for Bolt Operating Mechanisms” (motor triggered by time & locks)
The earliest patent indicates residence in Portland, Maine (120,780 granted 5/10/1870), later Boston and nearby Cambridge (200,823 filed 1/22/1878 thru 666,185 filed 2/9/1898), and later Pittsburgh (901,425 filed 9/16/1907 through 956,889 filed 8/24/1908).

[Adrian Weber]

Man wylk you are a genius!

Thanks for sharing I did just skip through it very fast and have to read it again in detail later :)

[wylk]

George L. Damon was, among other things, an inventor with many patents. But like many patents and inventors some of his ideas seem more like solutions in search of a problem. His US patent 609,416 (filed December 15, 1896, granted August 23, 1898) is one of these. The patent describes boltwork for rectangular vault doors in which the bolts are thrown independently by either gravity or springs so that if any bolt(s) cannot be thrown because of some misadjustment or other fault, all the other bolts will still be thrown and the door can still be locked. The more conventional alternative is that the boltwork will not operate and the door cannot be locked until it receives repairs. But the downside to this approach is that the operator may have no idea that any bolts have malfunctioned. When opening the door you'd want a more positive approach that would withdraw the bolts by whatever force necessary but this design relies on dropping a heavy central bar (with such force that he needed to add a dashpot to manage the terminal energy). Damon's mechanism was not used by any other manufacturer. Damon himself had two advantages here: first, though it addressed a questionable "problem" it was in fact reasonably practical, and secondly he owned the company. Below is one of the patent drawings along with two known examples.



The first example is in Burlington, Vermont. The Merchants Bank at 164 College Street (http://www.mbvt.com) celebrates its past with a Damon door from a prior location that they have placed on display. The photo is courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/donshall/7804550864. The second example is from the former New Bedford Institution for Savings in New Bedford, Massachusetts, which is now the Ocean Explorium (see http://oceanexplorium.org/the-building) at 174 Union Street. The first image is from their web site, the second image is from http://www.flickr.com/photos/absolut...in/photostream.

[Adrian Weber]

Are both locks retrofitted like that also the one beneath the one on top?

That really looks out of place what a shame the poor antique lock

[Yankee]

Yes, both locks were reworked the same way...I'm guessing this was done long before the understanding of the value of these locks. Unfortunately this serves as a reminder to all who work on such things...preserve and do no harm to antiques. We are all just caretakers for these works of art, help preserve them for future generations to enjoy and marvel at.

[wylk]

I recently ran across an interesting panoramic view of the George Damon vault at SpringHill Suites in Baltimore (which was discussed earlier):



I see they have re-carpeted the area. Many more images are at http://www.open.tours/single-post/20...ult-Board-Room including a Google virtual tour.

[wylk]

My mistake, in my previous post about the Cipriani door, the first URL should read:

http://machareimages.wordpress.com/

[wylk]

George L. Damon also created an interesting two-part round door. His US patent 635,668 describes a door such that by using two semi-circular halves with a removable mullion in the center, less swing space is required when opening the door and the hinges need only support half the weight (though there are twice as many hinges). Most interestingly each side has its own combination lock and either side can be opened independently and result in the complete opening of the door. So it's like having two doors, and a malfunction of one will not prevent complete opening for normal business. A minor inconvenience is that the central mullion should be removed and set aside to completely clear the opening.



The only example I know of is currently SpringHill Suites in Baltimore at 120 East Redwood Street (12 and 16 South Calvert Street), http://www.marriott.com/hotels/trave...n-inner-harbor and http://www.emporis.com/building/spri...ltimore-md-usa. The original bank entrance appears to have been 16 Calvert Street; the building is marked 1900 and 1905 on the east side, though there is a claim of 1898 and “survived the great fire of 1904” on flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/monumentcity/4592415380). A short history is at http://archive.mdhs.org/library/baltarch/Page14.html -- opened 1899 as Guardian Trust and Deposit Company; 1901 absorbed by Maryland Trust Company; burned 1904, refurbished 1905; after 1984 a couple of other banks took over the building before finally becoming a hotel. See http://1800recycling.com/2011/08/repurposed-bank-vaults for more images. The second image above is from http://www.stvinc.com/project.aspx?id=84. The vault is small, 247 square feet (about 15.7 feet per side if square) and is shown with a table and eight or nine chairs. It also has a vestibule, a second set of rectangular doors, and a day gate. Unfortunately the locks are missing; they appear to have been automatic. This door was also briefly discussed here in a thread "Two-Part Tound Door".

[wylk]

Oops, that very last part should have read "Two-Part Round Door" and not "Two-Part Tound Door"!

[wylk]

Can you tell us where this safe is?

You mentioned it was "opened" recently; was there a malfunction?