Alexander Lyman Holley
Alexander Lyman Holley (1832-1882)
1882 Obituary [1]
1884 Obituary [2]
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY was born at Lakeville, in Salisbury, Connecticut, on the 20th of July, 1832. His father, Alexander H. Holley, subsequently Governor of that State, was a native of the same village.
He attended various schools in early boyhood, where his healthy physical activity and the overflow of mirth and high spirits made him a leader in sports and adventures. His light-hearted gaiety was the early form of that courage which carried him afterwards through many struggles and even . . . .
From 1876 onwards a series of Articles entitled "American Iron and Steel Works," from his pen, appeared in "Engineering," which illustrated and described nearly all the Bessemer works in the United States with which he was connected.
In 1877 he became Consulting Engineer to the Bessemer Association, the chief object of the Association being to secure certain advantages in common, among others a knowledge of what was going on in similar, industries in Europe. This led to an annual visit of several months’ duration to England and Europe, during which he acquired the Thomas-Gilchrist basic process for the Association which he represented.
He was largely instrumental in the introduction of the open-hearth process for making steel, and one of his last utterances was, in effect, "I should like to live ten or fifteen years longer to aid in realizing the possibilities of the open-hearth process. This would have rounded and completed my professional career; but I am satisfied."
It was about 1875 that his strength began to fail. In that year he wrote- "I am going in a week to one of the Elizabeth Islands, off New Bedford, where there is neither mail nor telegraph, to lie on the sea-shore for a week, and try to get strong and sleepy."
In the summer of 1880, while on the Continent of Europe, he was taken seriously ill; returning with difficulty to England, he slowly recovered, after many weeks of sickness, from a disorder of the liver.
In August, 1881, he was again in England, apparently in better health than he had long enjoyed; but during his visit to the Continent he was overtaken by symptoms similar to those that characterised his illness of the previous year. He returned to England, but did not leave for New York till the 28th of December.
The voyage somewhat restored him, but he continued to fail, and expired at his home in Brooklyn on the evening of Sunday, the 29th of January, 1882.