NORTHUMBERLAND — It was barely 25 degrees outside and almost as cold inside Joseph Priestley’s laboratory Sunday, but about 40 people sat in the frigid air to watch the discovery of oxygen.
Children remained bundled on laps and couples put their heads together, but all eyes were on retired high school chemistry teacher Ronald Blatchley as he re-enacted Priestley’s seminal work in chemistry.
That included the discovery that air is comprised of various gases and that carbon dioxide can be used to suffuse water with a sparkling effervescence — jump-starting the modern soft-drink industry. It included discovery that oxygen is necessary for things to burn and that plants restore to the air whatever breathing animals and burning candles remove.
Priestley can even be credited with the eraser, Blatchley said, after his discovery that a particular kind of rubber was good at “rubbing” things out.
Wearing a costume authentic to 1774, complete with sleeve protectors and lab apron, Blatchley concocted mixtures that, when lit, went “pop” and saved a big “bang” for last.
Mix of history, chemistry
He also mixed history with his chemistry.
When Priestley was born in 1733, he said, alchemists were still trying to make gold out of base metals. Blatchley, of New Berlin, wowed the kids by showing them how he could turn a penny into silver, then gold. He gave each a gold penny to take home, but warned them not to rub it too often. It was, after all, not really gold, but chemically coated in brass.
Priestley was the British clergyman and scientist who dissented from the prevailing view in his native country that the church and the government were best united and the French Revolution a bad idea. For espousing the separation of church and state and support of French liberty, Priestley’s home and laboratory in Britain were burned to the ground by a royalist mob in 1791.
He fled to America, where he eventually settled in Northumberland and built a home along the banks of the Susquehanna River.
That home, completed in 1794, has been a historic landmark for more than 100 years, but recently lost state funding for its director. Sunday’s event was an effort of the new all-volunteer staff to stimulate interest in the site and donations for its operation and upkeep.
It began with cake and beverages in the back kitchen, singing traditional holiday songs and a Twelve Days of Christmas scavenger hunt for kids. Re-enactors and volunteers were found in almost every room of the house.
Among them was tour guide Susan Brook, of Bloomsburg. Ruth Eleanor McCorkill, of Lewisburg, portrayed maidservant Hannah Woodcock, and Esther Walter, of Northumberland, took on the persona of Priestley’s wife, Mary, who, although she designed most of the house, died of tuberculosis before it was completed. McCorkill has been volunteering at the house for more than 18 years, Walter more than a dozen.
A good friend
John L. Moore, of Northumberland, portrayed Priestley’s friend, Thomas Cooper. Also born in England, Cooper was a barrister who wrote many articles criticizing President John Adams that found wide distribution.
When Adams sued him for libel, he tried to get the president subpeonaed as a witness, to prove his allegations were true, truth being the established defense for libel. But Adams wouldn’t be subpeonaed, and Cooper was found guilty. He was fined $400 and sent to jail for six months.
When released, Cooper found himself a widower with four children. Priestley invited them all to live in his house. Cooper’s account of his trial was published in time to help Thomas Jefferson wrest the presidency from Adams.
Jefferson ally
Jefferson was a friend of Priestley’s and liberally used Priestley’s ideas in the Declaration of Independence — such as the insistence that governments must be susceptible to reform without violence.
Priestley was also a friend of Ben Franklin, and considered him his mentor in science.
As Blatchley told his audiences in the lab, in two separate sessions, Priestley is considered the father of modern chemistry.
Although his Aunt Sarah, who raised him, determined he would become a clergyman, and he did so, and even founded the Unitarian faith, he is better known today as a scientist.
The house was made to made to accommodate his scientific pursuits, and yet in those days he had to lift items from the kitchen to serve as his scientific tools.
“You see this pneumatic trough?” he said. “It’s just a mixing bowl from the kitchen.”
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