Inventor Samuel H. Blosser

Inventor Samuel H. Blosser. . , Innovator and Entrepreneur, This plaque is in honor of Samuel H. Blosser, whose innovation and ingenuity contributed not only to the history of the Town of Dayton, but to the entire poultry industry in Rockingham County and Virginia., In 1884, Samuel H. Blosser hatched out the first chicken eggs without the help of a hen. His incubator, the first in Virginia and perhaps the first in the United States, gave rise to the modern hatchery. It was a modest contraption, built after the elder Blosser had observed and studied the natural incubation process. He placed the eggs in a wooden box packed with sawdust and kept them warm with water heated in a teakettle on the kitchen stove., From his observation of a hen's nesting habits, he knew how often to turn the eggs to assure a proper hatch. And, three weeks later, the chicks hatched. By 1911, Blosser and his young son, Fred, were ready to go big time in hatching. The senior Blosser built a hatchery in 1910 with a capacity of 35,000 eggs. The late Charles W. Wampler, Sr., one of the pioneers in the modern poultry industry, wrote in his autobiography that "some folks began to wonder if he [Mr. Blosser] wasn't a little off in the upper story because there was certainly no need for having a hatchery that could hatch 35,000 chickens at one time.", Mayor and Council , Town of Dayton, 2016, (Captions):, (LEFT) No longer standing, the original building for Samuel Blosser's research was west of Dayton. By 1939, Rockingham County boasted 34 commercial hatcheries with 1,427,318 eggs, according to the 1939 Showalter Atlas. , (From the 1939 Showalter Atlas, courtesy Joey Meyerhoeffer), (ABOVE) The old Blosser Hatchery building in Dayton is shown here before it was razed in 2006. It was constructed in 1910 or 1911 by Sam Blosser to house the Blosser Hatchery. Blosser and his son Fred equipped the building to hatch 35,000 chicks - an unbelievable number at the time. , (photograph courtesy James Shull), (ABOVE) Sam Blosser's sons Fred and Jonas demonstrate how the incubator worked, using this scale model of the original. Hot water from the tea kettle supplied the heat. Eggs were in the drawer in front. , (photograph courtesy Harrisonburg-Rockingham Historical Society), (LEFT) The only known photograph of Samuel Blosser was taken in the 1940s. It shows the elderly gentleman cracking walnuts behind the hatchery building. , (photograph courtesy James Shull)