THOMAS MORRIN

 

 

Thomas Morrin.  A consulting engineer with offices in the Phelan Block, Thomas Morrin has been on the Pacific coast for half a century, and as a machinist and mechanical engineer, his work has brought him in touch with many constructive developments, and with many of the prominent men of California.

 

     He was born at Waterloo, New York, August 6, 1853. 

 

     Thomas Morrin acquired a public school education in New York State, and for two terms attended the academy at Seneca Falls, New York.  The war having broken up the family and home, Thomas, then ten years of age, was farmed out for board and clothes only to a man named Caleb Barnum for three years.  Barnum was an interesting character, being a veteran of the War of 1812 and eighty-six years of age when Thomas Morrin went to him.  Barnum was a deacon in the Presbyterian church in Junius, New York, and in 1834 was elected a member of the New York Legislature.  Though he lived 180 miles from Albany, he walked both ways, and collected his mileage.  Through the assistance of his brother, William, Thomas Morrin was apprenticed in the spring of 1866 to a factory manufacturing woolen cloth.  He put in an eleven-hour day at wages of 70 cents, paying $4 a week for board and lodging.  In about a year the mill closed down, and he was then apprenticed as a machinist at the Island Works at Seneca Falls.  This plant manufactured rotary steam fire engines.  It was under the management of H. C. Silsby.  In May, 1871, Thomas Morrin entered the employ of the Judson Governor Works at Rochester, New York, remaining there until March, 1872, when he was invited by the Smalley Brothers to become a machinist in their plant at Bay City, Michigan. Mr. William Smalley had been superintendent and consulting engineer at the island Works under H. V. Silsby.  During the winter of 1872-73, while in the employ of the Bay City Iron Works,Mr. Morrin built the first forged steel sash used in gang saws, the first used in this country and probably in the world.

 

     In May, 1873, Mr. Morrin arrived in California.  His first employment was with the Risdon Iron Works then at Beale and Howard streets in San Francisco. While there he was drafted with a force of men to the Pacific mail docks.  While there he worked on repairs of the old side-wheeled steamships, Montana, Constitution, Ancon and Nevada.  October 3, 1873, he entered the service of the Empire Foundry Company at Marysville.  This company manufactured hydraulic giants used in hydraulic mining, the giants being made under the Hoskins patent.  These giants were shipped to Formosa, New Zealand, Australia, India, Russia and other countries, as well as to all the California and other United States placer mines.  Two and one-half years later Mr. Morrin became an employe of the Marysville Foundry, managed and operated by the firm of Prescott, Scott and Eckart.  His next employment was with John C. Fall, James Gould and James O'Donnell at Mill City, Nevada, where they owned a foundry and machine shop that made a specialty of mining machinery.  At that time Governor Fall was operating the mines at Unionville and Star Peak, and he and his associates had other mines in operation north of Mill City, and the Rye Patch group.  The principal production of these mines was silver.

 

     From Mill City Mr. Morrin returned to Marysville, and while there he worked on the first combined header and thresher designed by Mr. John Driver of Marysville.  It was so bulky and cumbersome that the farmers thought it impracticable, and after one year's operation the manufacture was discontinued until the gas motor came into general use, making it possible to dispense with the heavy steam boiler, fuel storage and water tank.  The Marysville Foundry, it may be noted, built much of the machinery used in sinking the deep mining shafts on the Comstock lode and the mills for gold and silver recovery in California and Nevada.  In the spring of 1877, Mr. Morrin entered the service of Rusby and Merry at Chico, and in June, 1878, went to Glenbrook, Nevada, as an employee of the Carson and Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company, of which D.O. Mills was principal owner, while D. L.Bliss was president and general manager.  Mr. Morrin was with the lumber company three and one-half years, and then became toolmaker and general mechanical expert for the San Leandro Agricultural Works at San Leandro.  Later he went to Newark, California, as general foreman of the machine shops of the Pacific Coast Railway Company, operated by James G. Fair and A. L.Davis.

 

     In the fall of 1883, at the solicitation of Mr. Bliss, Mr. Morrin again entered the employ of the Carson and Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company as master mechanic of the railroad, steamboats and saw mills. In July, 1888, his two children having reached an age when they required schools and settled social conditions, Mr. Morrin went to work for the Western Beet Sugar Company at Watsonville, California.  This was the first successful sugar beet factory on the coast.  He remained with Spreckels two years as machinist, general foreman and operating engineer of the plant.

 

     On July 20, 1890, he returned to San Francisco and entered the employe of the Atlas Iron Works as machinist foreman in one of the departments.  After a short time he was transferred to the Pacific Rolling Mills.  In January, 1892, he again became an employ of D. O. Mills, as chief engineer of the Mills Building at Bush and Montgomery streets.  This building was then in course of construction. Resigning, he opened offices in San Francisco, December 1, 1906, as a mechanical engineer, making a specialty of mechanical equipment of buildings.  Mr. Morrin, on July 1, 1920, withdrew from active participation in the engineering field, and now confines his work exclusively to consultation work, valuations, appraisements, inspections and reports and is still engaged in this work.

 

     Mr. Morrin married at Sacramento July 15, 1877, Miss Irene Hoyt Brown.  She was born in New York City, daughter of Kenneth and Sarah (Scriver) Brown.  Three children were born to their marriage, the only son dying in infancy; Miss Mary Irene Morrin and Katherine Hortense Morrin.  Katherine Hortense married Dr. John T. Kergan, practicing physician of Oakland.

 

     During his long residence and professional work in California, Mr. Morrin has acquired a number of business interests.  He was one of the first depositors and stockholders in the Banca Popolare Fugazi, which was established in San Francisco in 1907, and is the only member on its board of directors not an Italian.  He is also financially interested in the California Wine Association, the Honolulu Plantation, the First National Bank of Suisun, the Solano County Savings Bank of Suisun and the Mission Savings Bank.

 

     Mr. Morrin is a republican, has been active in party politics.  He is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Institute of Heating and Ventilating Engineers of Great Britain, the Engineers Club of San Francisco.  He is a Catholic and was a charter member of Council No. 615 of the Knights of Columbus.