1825: Asbestos and Talc Were Well Known in the United States

I didn’t know much about 1825, so I looked it up. On February 9, 1825, John Quincy Adams was elected President of the United States without getting the majority of the electoral vote, the popular vote, or any shots being fired. Hand it to Henry Clay for doing the honorable thing.

A great deal is written which discusses that asbestos did not come into commercial use until the 1870s, but you shouldn’t take that for meaning it was an unknown mineral or wasn’t important other than for parlor tricks before that. A friend of mine identified the 1825 Catalogue of American Minerals by Samuel Robinson, M.D. This book indexes the major minerals by all states and territories then part of the United States and by British Provinces. You can check it out by location:

Or by Mineral. I have marked the two references to asbestus:

In addition to asbestos using some old style names, they also show Tremolite:

And Talc:

One of the curiosities is that the index lists two types of “asbestus”, while within the body of the document it is sometimes referred to as “asbestos”. This is from the New Hampshire discussion:

The book is almost 200 years old and is a pretty good baseline as to where particular minerals are located. Dr. Robinson was no rookie.

Let me know if you would like an electronic copy of this book for your library. Lots of good stuff, although certainly ancient history. I can be reached, as always, at TheAsbestosBlog@gmail.com or by your leaving a comment on this blog. My best wishes to all of you and your loved ones during this holiday season. Marty