Joseph Dart

Dart moved to Buffalo in 1821, then a village of about 1,800 residents.[1] In 1822, he went into the hat, leather and fur business with a man named Joseph Stocking and opened a store at the corner of Main Street and Swan Street in downtown Buffalo. To assist trading with the Native Americans living in the area, Dart learned to speak the Iroquois dialects of the local tribes. He learned to converse with members of the Canadian Six Nations of the Grand River (Iroquois Confederacy), consisting of the Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Seneca and Tuscarora tribes. A biographical note on him is that Native Americans visiting Buffalo were known to entrust their valuables into his care for safekeeping.[2] Someone who did visit his store was Red Jacket, who traded his furs and used the store's iron safe to hold his wampum belt, as it was the strongest safe in the village.[3]

Dart remained in the hat and fur trading business until 1836, the year following the death of Stocking in 1835,[3] although other sources indicate he stayed in the industry until 1837.[2] He sold the business to Stocking's son, Thomas R. Stocking.[3] During the panic of 1837 which caused a deep recession and high rates of unemployment, Dart's former store was affected and ultimately closed. By this time, Dart had turned his focus to the trade of grain through the city's harbour.[4]

Around four years after Dart arrived in Buffalo, the Erie Canal was fully completed in 1825 at 353 miles (568 km) long.[6] Dart, who was considered to be "a methodical and industrious man", turned his attention to the grain trading industry, identifying Buffalo's favourable position as a grain trading port on the canal.[5] Since the 1830s, he observed how the trading of grain had increased and considered that the volume of grain moving through Buffalo towards the east could reach unimaginable levels. He believed that the increase in trade required facilities capable of meeting the demand.[3] Buffalo was well positioned, with its location on the Great Lakes as the furthest east affording it a geographical advantage.[7] In 1841, he came up with the idea of using machinery to transfer grain from ships and in the following year, a steam-powered grain elevator was built.[8]

Drawing of the original Dart Elevator

Alongside Scottish mechanical engineer Robert Dunbar,[5] Dart oversaw construction of a steam-powered grain elevator, the first in America,[9][10] dedicating around 10 years of his life to the business.[11] Dunbar had moved to Buffalo in 1834 following a period of mechanical engineering study in Canada.[5] Up to this time, grains were in barrels or sacks and moved by hand.[12] The elevator was built on the bank of the Buffalo River where it meets the Evans Ship Canal[13] and constructed with wood, in contrast to contemporary concrete elevators.[14] The principles used by Dart were not dissimilar to those used by Delaware's flour mills, utilizing conveyor belts powered by a steam engine, which Dart described as being "a simple apparatus".[7]

Dart attributed credit to inventor Oliver Evans, who conceived the original idea of an elevator[3] fifty years before. Dart faced numerous challenges during construction, with some predictions it would not succeed.[15] Among those believing his elevator would not be viable was Mahlon Kingman, a forwarding merchant, who took pity at Dart's efforts while expressing his opinion that there was no cheaper alternative to manual labour, although later admitted that he "did not know it all". Dart's elevator opened in June 1843[3] and in its first year of operation, 229,260 bushels of grain were unloaded.[16] In contrast, by 1888, the amount of grain handled by the Western Elevating Company exceeded 85 million bushels.[17]

Grain elevators in Buffalo during early 20th century

In 1863, Dart's grain elevator burned down and was replaced by what became known as "The Bennett Elevator", built on the same site.[18] The conception of the grain elevator in Buffalo made it what was believed to be the largest grain trading port in the world,[19] a feat it achieved prior to the American Civil War.[10] The grain elevator Dart introduced to Buffalo helped it progress from a small village to among the most prosperous during the 19th century.[20] Within fifteen years of construction, Buffalo had ten elevators, making it the world's largest grain shipping port, overtaking cities such as London in England and Rotterdam in Holland.[13]

By 1887, Buffalo had 43 grain elevators worth around $8,000,000 (equivalent to $216,200,913 in 2021) that could transfer 4,000,000 grain bushels daily.[21] Dart's grain elevator invention was considered state of the art by The Buffalo Commercial newspaper at the end of the nineteenth century, which it regarded "second in importance [to commerce] only to the steamboat and the locomotive".[22]

In 1852, Dart became a lumber dealer with his brother Erastus and brother-in-law William H. Ovington. Dart's son Joseph joined his father in the lumber industry after graduating from Yale University in 1874.[3] Ovington withdrew in 1861, after which the business was known as Dart & Bro.[11] He helped establish the Buffalo Water Works and was a founding member of the Buffalo Seminary, as well as a member of the Buffalo Historical Society.[8] A reader of The Buffalo Commercial wrote in 1879 that Dart was a director of a bank in Conneaut, Ohio, of whom his brother, a judge, was the president.[23]