Zinc and nickel manufacturing
In 1853, Wharton joined the Pennsylvania and Lehigh Zinc Company near Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He first managed the mining operation and then the zinc oxide works. Wharton negotiated a new charter for the works, and in the difficult financial environment of 1857–1858, he took over control of the zinc works, and managed it carefully so that it turned a profit. In 1859, he developed the first production of metallic zinc, or spelter, in the United States. He brought in experienced workers from the Vieille Montagne works in Belgium, built sixteen furnaces and by 1863 had produced nine million pounds of spelter.
Wharton was asked by James Pollock, the Director of the United States Mint, to secure an American source of nickel to provide raw material for the minting of one-cent coins. In 1863, he sold his interest in zinc and started the manufacture of nickel at Camden, New Jersey. He took a controlling interest in the Gap Mining Company, a nickel mine and refining works in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. In 1866, Congress passed a law authorizing the creation of a 3-cent coin consisting of 75% copper and 25% nickel, and the nickel, as it became known, was created.
He partnered with Theodor Fleitmann for several years to improve the manufacturing process. The Camden plant was located on the east side of 10th Street, adjacent to Cooper Creek, and had several large brick buildings and smokestacks. Wharton renamed the Camden plant the American Nickel Works, and his office there became his center of operations. In July 1868, the plant burned down but was quickly rebuilt with brick and stone replacing the original wood structure. Wharton had success due to his production of the first in the world malleable nickel. He also created nickel magnets, and received a gold medal at the Paris Exposition of 1878 for his inventions.
For the next 25 years, Wharton's operations were the largest nickel manufacturer in the United States and produced 17% of the world's supply. The surface deposits at the Gap mine were eventually depleted, and Wharton began to purchase nickel ore from mines in the Sudbury Basin.
After the American Civil War, demand for coinage declined and the amount of nickel purchased from Wharton by the United States Mint decreased. Wharton became frustrated with the Mint since they had requested that he enter the nickel industry. He did not sell any nickel to the mint in 1870 and 1871 and temporarily closed the plant in 1870. He threatened to completely close the only nickel manufacturer in the United States.
By the 1870s, Wharton had made several million dollars in profit from his nickel business. He made huge profits from 1873 to 1876 by supplying Prussia with nickel to mint their coins. In 1877, the price of nickel plummeted due to new reserves discovered in New Caledonia and the formation of the French conglomerate Société Le Nickel. By 1900, the nickel industry outlook was fading and Wharton and a group of other American and Canadian nickel enterprises formed the International Nickel Company in 1902. In 1905, Wharton's American Nickel Works were merged with the Orford Copper Company which ended Wharton's involvement in nickel manufacturing.
