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Bio by: Tracy
Inventor. Invented and built the first planetarium with the assistance of his father, Thomas, which they sold in 1944 to Girard College. In 1851, the father/son team built a planetarium that was exhibited at the New York World's Fair. He also served in the Confederate Army as Captain of Ordinance under Generals John H. Morgan and Abraham Buford. Inscription: CSA. Son of Thos. and Kezia West Barlow. Kentucky's two greatest inventors. Click thumbnail to enlarge>> |
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Kentucky: A History of
the State, Battle, Perrin, & Kniffin Madison County, Kentucky 4th Edition - 1887 MILTON BARLOW was born at Flemingsburg, Fleming County Kentucky February 6, 1818. The family to which he belongs is of French origin having left France with the Huguenots, after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and settled first in England, coming thence to America at an early period. His grandfather, William Henry Harris Barlow, resided at Lynchburg Virginia, and immigrated to Kentucky from that State with the earliest settlers. He located near Millersburg, in Nicholas County where he took up a large tract of land, and erected a block-house. He was surrounded by hostile savages, and his primitive dwelling was often used as a citadel of defense against their attacks. He married Elizabeth Kimbrough, daughter of another early settler in that locality, and had a family of seven children, of whom the sons were Samuel, William, James, Thomas H., John and Harrison. Betsey became the wife of Lawson Bell, and Sarah of his brother, Hosea Bell. Thomas H. Barlow was the father of Milton, and was born in the year 1787. He was reared upon his father's farm, and in early life enlisted in Johnson's Regiment during the War of 1812-15 being present at the battle of the Thames.
He subsequently engaged in farming and being possessed of great mechanical ingenuity and skill turned his attention to the building of steam mills and at Augusta, Kentucky, built a steamboat. He erected a steam mill at Cynthiana, Kentucky and later established a foundry and machine shop at Lexington where he chiefly manu- factured saw mill machinery and steam engines. He made the machinery for the Red River furnace, and in May 1826, exhibited at Lexington a small locomotive which he had designed and made from his own model without having seen one. About the year 1838 he built a steam mill in Lincoln County, which he operated for a time in conjunction with his son Milton, and later returned to Lexington where he engaged successfully in the preparation of hemp for naval rope making purposes, his son being also associated in this enterprise. Soon after he began work upon an instrument, afterward called a planetarium, which was an ingenious mechanical device, designed to illustrate, in a practical way, the motions of the heavenly bodies and showing the relation which they sustained to each other at different seasons of the year, as well as to the sun and moon. After three years of study and experiment assisted by Mr. Van Dalsem Professor Dodd, president of the University, and his son, to whom its mechanical construction and perfection was assigned, the instrument was completed, and pronounced a wonderful invention by those public educators of the country to whom it was shown. It was adopted by the United States Congress for West Point and Annapolis Academies for which a complimentary prize of $4,000 was paid. New Orleans, Mississippi University, St. Louis and Washington Lee Universities and many other leading institutions of learning of this country were supplied with fine planetariums prior to the late war which suspended the manufactory. In 1843, father and son conceived the idea of building a rifle cannon, and after careful experiments completed it, and procured a patent on it in January, 1855. On August 30, 1856, an appropriation of $3,000 was made by Congress to furnish a gun to the Government which was tested, accepted, and the patent adopted for general use. Thomas H. Barlow died in Cincinnati near the close of the late Civil War. He was pre-eminently a man of genius and great usefulness, and left the impress of his intellectual strength upon the men and institutions of his time. His wife was Keziah West, and his children, Milton, Samuel and Elizabeth. Milton Barlow at the age of twelve years was set to work in his father's shop. When about fourteen years of age he manufactured a low pressure steam engine with glass air pump and condenser for Reverend Benjamin O. Pears, who was the head of an excellent private school in Lexington, and by way of payment received $150 and three sessions of schooling. Upon the breaking out of the war between Texas and Mexico, he enlisted under General Gaines in Captain Carter's Company at Lexington, Kentucky -for Fort Sabine-, the expedition for the protection of our southwestern frontier; and upon the disbandment of his regiment returned home by way of New Orleans as a river engineer. >He subsequently worked in the machine shop of Bridgeford & Hanson at Louisville, then engaged in milling in Lincoln County with his father, and finally manufactured silver-ware in Lexington for several years. He was the operative constructor of the planetarium, to which reference has been made, and prior to the opening of the war engaged in its manufacture at Lexington, disposing of readily of eighty-two of them in the United States. He exhibited it at the great Crystal Palace exhibition in New York in 1855. The breaking out of the Civil War sadly disarranged all of his plans. Being opposed to both secession and coercion it was his intention to remain neutral, but having been placed under arrest by the Federal authorities in Lexington, and subjected to indignities, he espoused the cause of the South, and served in the Confederate Army, first under General Abe Beauford, and later as captain of ordinance under Morgan. After the close of the war he resumed his residence in Kentucky.
The planetarium was selected
by the Kentucky Legislature as Kentuckys most suitable contribution
to the International Exhibition at Paris, France in 1867
contributing $1500 to defray expenses, etc.. During the exposition,
Mr. Barlow visited France, patented the planetarium and caused
a manufactury to be established in Paris. At the close of
the exhibition the planetarium was awarded the highest premium
given to any illustrative apparatus. Thus Kentucky has furnished
the world with the best illustrative astronomical apparatus.
Returning to the United States, Mr. Barlow located at Richmond,
Kentucky, where he built a residence and a large flouring
mill, which he is now successfully operating.
He inherited his father's inventive genius, and has always been engaged in the conception or manufacture of some mechanical contrivance. He recently petitioned Congress to allow him to make a large gun for the Government coast-defense, to demonstrate the advantages of a new improvement he has designed, and which he thinks will prove efficacious against any ship that can be sent against us. Mr. Barlow was married on May 20, 1845, to Anastasia C. Thompson, daughter of Lewis A. Thompson, of Lexington, Kentucky, and has had nine children, of whom seven are living, viz: Margaret, Virginia, Carrie, Milton V., Richard A., Robert E. Lee, and Florence Barlow. See also: |