California Biographies, San Bernardino County and Riverside County History of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties By: John Brown, Jr., Editor for San Bernardino County And James Boyd, Editor for Riverside County With selected biography of actors and witnesses of the period of growth and achievement. Volume III, the Western Historical Association, 1922, The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, ILL This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for non-commercial purposes, MUST obtain the written consent of the contributor, OR the legal representative of the submitter. HENRY B. SLATER Riverside for a number of years has been the chosen home of a scientist and inventor whose name and work are known to practically every student of metallurgy and the chemistry of metals. The career of Henry B. Slater has been unlike that of most men who has attained distinction in the field of scholarship. The zest for adventure which impelled him as a youth to sail to all ports and quarters of the civilized globe no doubt has been a factor in the pursuit of knowledge which has characterized his later years. He was born at Birmingham, England, January 16, 1850, son of Frederick and Ann (Stokes) Slater, both of old English families. The Slater family runs back in Derbyshire for many generations. His grandfather was a member of Wellington's staff. Frederick Slater was a carter in England, an occupation better described in this country as that of a transfer man. Henry B. Slater had three brothers and two sisters living: James, a retired business man at Birmingham; Fred, a gentleman farmer, now practically retired, of Knowle and Birmingham; George, a Birmingham business man; Mrs. Marie Fisher, wife of a business man at Irvington, New Jersey; and Sarah Jane, of Birmingham. Intellectual curiosity and the faculty of enterprise early matured in the character of Henry B. Slater, and he was a mere child when he made up his mind to see what the world was like outside of his local environment. At the age of ten he ran away and tramped to London, the romance of the sea appealing to him and he secured a berth aboard the steamship "Pilot" of the General Steam Navigation Company's line. He went on board as "call boy" at a time when no ships were equipped with electric bells or telephones, and when verbal messages had to be communicated from one part of the ship to another by messenger boys. On the Pilot he made several trips between London and Hamburg. He next joined the Sarah Scott, a full rigged ship bound for the East Indies. On his eleventh birthday, in 1861, he was going through the Mozambique Channel. The cruise continued to the East Indies, Australia, the Philippine Islands, for London by way of Honolulu, San Francisco, and the Horn. The boat discharged part of its cargo in San Francisco, thence departing, December 16, 1863, around the Horn and arriving in London in May, 1864. Young Slater was afterward on different vessels on the French, German, and Danish coasts and in the White Sea at Archangel. While at Jaffa in the Mediterranean he and three other shipmates took A. W. O. L. and visited in Jerusalem a week. Returning to Jaffa they found their vessel waiting for them. Still another trip around the world was made by way of Cape Good Hope to the East Indies and back around the Horn. In 1868 he sailed from Newport, Wales, for Halifax, Nova Scotia, to the West Indies and South American ports. Wednesday, January 25, 1870, Mr. Slater sailed from New York to Liverpool, Nova Scotia. The vessel encountered a heavy blow from the northwest, and the ship was lost. The crew took to the ship's long boat and were exposed twenty-one days before being rescued. There were eleven in the boat but all came through. That voyage of hardship coincided with the storm when the City of Boston of the Inman line disappeared. This boat left Halifax the last Saturday in January, 1870, and was never heard from again. Mr. Slater made one more trip from Liverpool, Nova Scotia, to the West Indies, with the understanding that he was to receive his discharge in the United States. On arrival in New York in September, 1870, he was given his discharge and went to Cambridge, Massachusetts. He remained there until 1874, by which time he had completed his apprenticeship as a machinist with J. J. Walworth & Company, now the Walworth Manufacturing Company. He then revisited England , returning to the United States late in the fall, and spent the time until the spring of 1875 in and around Liverpool, Rhode Island , where he worked for a time in the tool department of the Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing Company and also in the Corliss Engine Works. Mr. Slater set out for California in 1876. Circumstances caused him to abandon his journey and remain in Missouri, where he enrolled as a student in Drury College in Springfield. He pursued his studies there until July, 1879, and then returned east and for a year was in Brown University at Providence, Rhode Island. At Brown he studied Greek under Benjamin Ide Wheeler, whose name is familiarly linked with the University of California. While in Missouri, Mr. Slater contracted malaria, and this, together with pecuniary embarrassment, caused him to give up the intention of completing his university career. About that time he became associated with others in the business of electro-plating, and that was his specialty for some time. Nickel plating was then in its infancy, and having made some improvements in the process he was employed by the Providence Tool Company of Rhode Island to set up its plant to do its own plating. In 1882 he was employed by the Singer Manufacturing Company of Elizabeth, New Jersey, to install the plating process there. During 1882-83-84-85, while with the Singer Company, Mr. Slater became interested in chlorine, with special reference to its action upon mineral contents of ores. His continued studies and experiments of nearly forty years make him probably the foremost authority on the use of chlorine in economic metallurgy. In 1889 he obtained a patent for the process of extracting zinc from low grade ores, such as those found in the Leadville District of Colorado, whither he had removed in 1888. About that time he was also experimenting in electrical generators and motors, and was granted several patents for improvements on such machinery. Mr. Slater was in Colorado until 1902 when he removed to California. For the past twenty years his time has been devoted principally to the research along metallur-gical lines. He has been associated for the last sixteen years with R. B. Sheldon, a prominent Riverside business man, whose career is elsewhere sketched in this publication. In the past eight years Mr. Slater has been granted ten different patents on improvements in metallurgical processes. The underlying principles in these processes involve the use of chlorine generated electrolitically in combination with other substances in the formation of a leeching solution with which to extract the metallic values from ores. Copper ores have been the chief subject of his experimental work. Recently he has been engaged in the problem of simplifying a process for making of what is known as Dakin's solution, a chemical and medicinal preparation so successfully used in surgery during the late war by Alexis Carrel. His aim is to arrange for production of this solution by those without technical training through the simple application of an electric current that will prepare it in the proper strength for immediate use. Mr. Slater has received many recognitions of his scientific attainments. Drury College conferred upon him the honorary degree of Master of Science in 1889. He was one of the founders of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1884. He is a member of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurical Engineers, a member of the American Chemical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Geographic Society, the Joint Technical Societies of Los Angeles. He is a member, of the Gamut Club of Los Angeles, Present Day Club of Riverside, and Riverside Lodge No. 643, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Many years ago he was member for three years of Company K, Fifth Regiment, of the Massachusetts State Militia. He votes as a republican. September 19, 1889, at Cincinnati, Ohio, Mr. Slater married Miss Minnie Osmond, a native of that city. Her father was an Englishman by birth and a prominent physician at Cincinnati. Mrs. Slater died in March, 1893, and is survived by one son, Edwin Osmond Slater. He had been a student for three years in the University of California when he was called to the army, entered the Officers Training School at the Presidio, San Francisco, was commissioned a second lieutenant in Company K, 363rd Infantry, at Camp Lewis, and afterwards assigned to Company M, and went to France with the Ninety-first Division. While overseas he was promoted to first lieutenant, and saw active service through the San Mihiel and Argonne campaigns and in Flanders. After the signing of the Armistice he was detailed for other duties and returned to this country in the fall of 1919, and received an honorable discharge. Pages 1065 to 1068. Transcribed and submitted by Sally Kaleta, January 2010.