Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/536

 520 PINANG PINCKNEY volving file wheel. A second carrier takes it to a finer file wheel for finishing. A third car- rier takes the pin to the first heading die, where a steel punch forces one end into a recess and partially forms the head. A fourth carrier takes the pin to a second die, where the head- ing is completed. A forked lever then draws it from the die and drops it, the work of the machine being done. The pins are afterward whitened, polished, sorted, and stuck into pa- pers. The whitening is done by first polishing in rotating barrels with sawdust, then placing them in kettles between perforated plates of tin in alternate layers, and boiling them in very dilute nitric acid for about three hours. This covers them with a thin coating of tin, when they are again rolled in a barrel with hot saw- dust to smooth and polish them. Some of the pins are imperfect from roughness, and these are separated by a series of belts having an os- cillating motion which discharges the smooth pins the fastest. They are sorted by means of a horizontally revolving wheel having different sets of steel fingers, each adapted to particular lengths of the pins. Among the most impor- tant improvements in the manufacture are the machines for sticking the pins in papers. Un- til their introduction the pins were taken by the families living in the neighborhood, and fixed in the papers by the women and children at their houses. This was an inconvenient and wasteful method, and not easily carried out upon a large scale. The first improvement over the old English " hand bar " was the in- vention of Samuel Slocum, and consisted in a hand machine patented in 1840, and used at Poughkeepsie. Various improvements were made upon this by different inventors, and for 16 years or more the machine was in operation in the factory at Waterbury, and also at Bir- mingham, Conn. It is now superseded at both places by an improvement on a patent granted to Thaddeus Fowler of Connecticut. The pins are fed into a hollow cylinder which revolves on rollers, and are taken up in the compart- ments into which this cylinder is divided by means of longitudinal ribs extending along its inner surface. From these they drop upon an inclined plate, and sliding down this are caught in the links of an endless chain which passes along the lower edge of the plate. Each link is notched for as many pins as make a row, and each notch receives its pin hanging in it by the head. The whole row is then left together in the paper, when the link is carried forward to the proper position. The only attention the machine requires is to supply it with paper and pins. Pins are also now made of iron and steel wire. To protect the metal from rusting it is lubricated with oil as it passes the last time from the draw plate. The manufac- ture is then conducted as with pins of brass wire. A factory in Connecticut produces them. Black pins for use with black dresses are pre- pared by japanning the common brass pins. PINANG. See PEXANG. PINCKNEY, the name of a family of South Carolina. Thomas Pinckney, its founder, emi- grated from Lincolnshire, England, in 1687, and settled at Charleston. He was wealthy, and had three sons, Thomas, Charles, and William, of whom the first named, an ensign in the 17th regiment, royal Americans, died young. Charles, commonly known as Chief Justice Pinckney, was educated in England, practised law in South Carolina, and in 1752 was made chief justice of the province and king's councillor. His wife was the first to attempt the cultivation of rice in the Caroli- nas. Chief Justice Pinckney went to Eng- land in 1753 to superintend the education of his children, remaining there five years, and died in Carolina about 1759. His remaining brother, William, born in Charleston in 1703, was master in chancery and commissary gen- eral of the. province, and died in December, 1766. Of 'the descendants of Charles and William the following were the most distin- guished. I. Charles Cotesworth, born in Charles- ton, Feb. 25, 1746, died there, Aug. 16, 1825. He was the eldest son of the chief justice, and at the age of seven was taken to England to be educated. He graduated at Christ Church college, Oxford, and studied law in the Mid- dle Temple. He subsequently passed nearly a year in the royal military academy at Caen, France, and in 1769 returned to Charleston and commenced practice as a barrister. Al- most immediately he became a participator in the preliminary conflicts of the revolution. He was a member of the first provincial con- gress of South Carolina, and in 1775 was elect- ed colonel of one of the two regiments raised by the province. He served at the capture of Fort Johnson in Charleston harbor, and par- ticipated in the movements resulting in the defeat of the British fleet before Fort Moul- trie. The war languishing in the south after this, he joined the American forces at the north as a volunteer, and as aide-de-camp to Gen. Washington was present at Brandy wine and Germantown. He returned in the spring of 1778 to Carolina, and participated in the unsuccessful expedition to Florida. In Janu- ary, 1779, he presided over the senate of South Carolina; soon after aided Moultrie in pro- tecting Charleston against a greatly superior force of British regulars under Gen. Prevost ; and in October, 1779, fought with great intre- pidity in the disastrous assault upon Savannah. At the commencement of the siege of Charles- ton he held command of Fort Moultrie, which inflicted severe injury upon the British fleet. After the surrender of the city, which to the last he had opposed, he remained a prisoner, though part of the time on parole, until he was exchanged in February, 1782. After the evacu- ation of Charleston, Dec. 14, 1782, he returned there and resumed his practice at the bar. In 1787 he was a member of the convention which framed the constitution of the United States, and subsequently of that of South Carolina