admin MAURICE BYRON PATCH, superintendent of the Buffalo Smelting Works, is one of the foremost metallurgists of the country and also holds a high rank as an industrial executive. Mr. Patch is by profession a mining engineer, but his activities have covered too wide a range to be adequately characterized by reference to a single pursuit. He has made applied science a life study, is an expert chemist, mine surveyor and practical operator in mining and smelting, and is particularly well-known in the department of copper metallurgy, to which he has devoted years of special research. He is a typical representative of science in the modern and American acceptation of the word – namely, science which proceeds directly from theory to practice and which finds its province in the development of the natural resources of the country and in the creation of industries.
Maurice B. Patch comes from one of the old and distinguished families of New England, being descended from the Patches of Salem and Beverly, Mass., the earliest homes of the family, who were pioneers of those places, where they were located as early as 1700. Benjamin Patch, born 1673, was a descendant of the Patches of Salem and Beverly. His son, Jonathan Patch, of Concord, served as a Minute Man in the Revolutionary War and was the first settler at Otisfield, Me. Jonathan’s son, Tarbell, grandfather of Maurice B. Patch of Buffalo, was born at Otisfield in 1791 and was a farmer. He married Eliza Shedd, a descendant of an old family of Braintree, Mass., by whom he had six children. His son, Benjamin, father of the subject of this sketch, was born at Otisfield, Me., in 1821, resided in Lowell, Mass., and fifteen years ago came to Buffalo, where he now resides. He married Harriet Elizabeth Knight, a descendant of John Knight who came over in the ship “James” in 1635 and settled in Newbury, Mass. Mark Knight, one of his descendants, served in the War of the Revolution, and Samuel Knight, maternal grandfather of Maurice B. Patch, was a soldier in the War of 1832. Col. Nathaniel Jordan, one of Mr. Patch’s ancestors in the direct line, was a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Revolution. The family was distinguished for its piety and uprightness of living.
Mr. Patch was born at Otisfield, Me., June 8, 1852. After receiving the elementary part of his education in the public schools of Lowell, Mass., he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he pursued a course in mining and engineering, being graduated in 1872 with the degree of Bachelor of Sciences. The same year he went to Georgetown, Col., where he began the practice of his profession as a mining engineer, being engaged there two years in the survey of mining properties and in kindred work. He then removed to Houghton, Mich., where he became the chemist of the Detroit & Lake Superior Copper Smelting Company. This position offered Mr. Patch peculiar advantages for making an exhaustive study of copper metallurgy, a line of research which had always been congenial to him. During this period he also won a wide reputation as a mine surveyor and chemist, as well as in other branches of his profession, with the result that he was presently offered by the Calumet & Hecla Mining Company the position of designer and superintendent of its proposed new smelting plant at Lake Linden, Mich. He accordingly removed to Lake Linden, where he remained for five years, carrying out his contracts with the company and occupying himself in general professional work. His successful services for the Calumet & Hecla Mining Company led that corporation to offer him the place of Superintendent of its works in Buffalo, where he came in January, 1891, and he has ever since been the executive head of the Buffalo Smelting Works, which were organized under his supervision. The enterprise with which Mr. Patch has now been for so many years identified, is one of Buffalo’s most important industries. Its plant is located on the Niagara River at the foot of Austin street, and is one of the most thoroughly equipped of its kind in the world. The copper ore used in the works at Buffalo is shipped at Lake Linden on Lake Superior in an especially chartered fleet of steamers, and on its arrival at Buffalo is unloaded by ingeniously devised machinery at the company’s docks. The copper produced is shipped to all parts of the world. The plant has a capacity of 6,500,000 pounds of copper a month. Electricity is largely employed in the manufacturing processes, which require nine furnaces and the labor of 250 men. Sound business management and scientific methods are apparent in every detail of the industry.
As a scientist, Mr. Patch has done much original work and has made several valuable discoveries. For market conditions he has the eye of a practical industrialist, and through Lake Superior ore constitutes the raw material which is worked up in his plant, he is a keen observer of copper-ore developments in the Far West, in Mexico, Central and South America, Australia and South Africa. He is interested in several mining companies, and in addition to his mining operations, he has on different occasions shown himself a financier of sound ability. While in Michigan he assisted in the organization of the First National Bank, at Lake Linden, and the Superior Savings Bank, at Hancock, and was a Director in both institutions so long as he continued to reside in the State.
Mr. Patch is a member of the American Institute of Mining Engineers. He is a citizen of marked public spirit, and from the time of his arrival in Buffalo has taken an active interest in movements for the general welfare of the city. In 1907 he was appointed a member of the Grade Crossing Commission.
July 6, 1875, Mr. Patch married Emily Isabella White, a daughter of Rollin White of Lowell, Mass., noted as an inventor of firearms, including the celebrated Smith & Wesson revolver. The White family were prominent residents of Vermont, and furnished many soldiers and officers in the Revolutionary War. Mrs. Patch is a descendant of the famous Peregrine White of Puritan times. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Patch are as follows: Emily H., wife of William Henry Barr, general manager of the Lumen Bearing Company; Nathaniel Knight Bailey, manager of a branch plant of the Lumen Bearing Company at Toronto, Canada; Ethel A., wife of Dr. Walter G. Phippen, a practicing physician at Salem, Mass., and Maurice B., Jr., and Howard R., who are students at Hobart College.
SOURCE: Memorial and Family History of Erie County New York; Volume I