HARDSOCG MARTIN

THORNTON, EDWARDS

Posted By: Tim S. Dupy (email)
Date: 11/9/2001 at 17:21:31

MARTIN HARDSOCG

Inventor and Manufacturer

"If you've read the story of Jacob, you've read my story," Martin Hardsocg inventor and manufacturer declared in relating how he left home as a blacksmith with $2 in his pocket to seek his fortune at the age of 18 years. Martin Hardsocg was born in Germany, April 20, 1852 and was brought to America by his parents who located at Agency, Iowa, when he was six years of age. There young Hardsocg's advantages were but few but he availed himself of them. At the age of 15 he was apprenticed to a blacksmith and after three years started out for himself.

At Ottumwa where he first came he was unsuccessful in his rounds of the blacksmith shops in an attempt to obtain employment and so tramped to Happy Hollow, a rugged coal mining camp, five miles west of Ottumwa. There he secured work at his trade from George THORNTON. The latter became indebted to him and paid him off with a set of tools and a bellows with which he started in business in a little hovel made with waste strips from the saw mill. Shortly after he married Mrs. Malinda EDWARDS, a widow and one of the seven daughters of Mr. THORNTON. He was at that time nineteen years of age. They have been the parents of four children, Dolce, Lester who is manager of the Hardsocg Mfg. Co., Bane superintendent of the plant, and Fred, Manager of the Nicholls Mfg. Co.

The next several years of Mr. Hardscog's life were passed in mining towns. He worked for a mine and was later employed in a rock quarry where he gathered much of the knowledge which helped him later in his invention of the Little Wonder Drill. When he left the employ of the last mine it was with a firm resolve never to work for anyone else again. "That meant to stick there and make tools for miners," he says in reviewing those early days. He acquired great skill in this work and was soon making improvements. In 1880 he was convinced of the greater opportunities offered his industry in Ottumwa and located here.

"You've got to rough it to get on top," Martin Hardsocg declares as he relates how he carreid his first rock drill through the snowbanks of Colorado and lived among the rough miners while he was personally demonstrating his invention. When he told one mine superintendent that he could drill a hole in solid rock six inches deep in one minute the engineer thought he was crazy and asked to be shown. After his demonstration, he was convinced. Although many improvements have been made on the Little Wonder Drill, including an automatic revolving device, the original drill is still the favorite of the inventor.

His interests are now divided among three successful companies, the Hardsocg Mfg. Co., the Hardsocg Little Wonder Drill Co. and the Nicholls Mfg. Co. Though advanced in years Mr. Hardscog is till active and looking into the future.

[Published in Ottumwa Yesterday and Today 1848-1923, page 81, Published by Glenn B. Meagher and Harry B. Munsell in Commemoration of Ottumwa's Diamond Jubilee and Homecoming, August 7-11, 1923.]