Hidden Treasures Part 29

Being then dependent on my daily labor for the support of myself and my family I could not devote my attention to the subject during the working hours of the day, but I thought on it when I could, day and night. It grew on until 1844; I felt impelled to yield my whole time to it. During this period I worked on my invention mentally as much as I could, having only the aid of needles and such other small devices as I could carry in my pockets, and use at irregular intervals of daily labor at my trade. I was poor, but with promises of aid from a friend, I thereafter devoted myself exclusively to the construction and practical completion of my machine. I worked alone in an upper room in my friend's house, and finished my first machine by the middle of May, 1845.

"This was a period of intense and persistent application, of all the powers I possessed, to the practical embodiment of my mechanical ideas into a successful sewing-machine. I soon tested the practical success of my first machine by sewing with it all the princ.i.p.al seams in two suits of clothes, one for myself, and one for my friend. Our clothes were as well made as any made by hand-sewing. I still have my first machine; and it will now sew as good a seam as any sewing-machine known to me. My first machine was described in the specification of my patent, and I then made a second machine, to be deposited in the patent office as a model."

"I then conveyed one-half of my invention and patent to my friend, for five hundred dollars; in fact, though a much larger sum (ten thousand dollars) was named in the deed at his suggestion. My patent was issued on the 10th of September, 1846. I made a third machine, which I tried to get into use on terms satisfactory to myself and friend. For this purpose I endeavored to attract notice to it by working with it in tailor shops, and exhibited it to all who desired to become acquainted with it. After my patent was obtained, my friend declined to aid me further. I then owed him about two thousand dollars, and I was also in debt to my father, to whom I conveyed the remaining half of my patent for two thousand dollars. Having parted with my whole t.i.tle, and having no means for manufacturing machines, I was much embarra.s.sed, and did not know what to do."

"My brother, Amasa B. Howe, suggested that my invention might succeed in England, when, if patented, it would be wholly under my control; and on my behalf, with means borrowed of my father, my brother took my third machine to England, to do the best he could with it. He succeeded in selling my machine and invention for two hundred pounds in cash, and a verbal agreement that the purchaser should patent my invention in Great Britain, in his own name; and if it should prove successful, to pay me three pounds royalty on each machine he made or sold under the patent.

He also agreed to employ me in adapting my machine to his own kind of work at three pounds a week wages."

"The purchaser obtained a patent for my machine in England, and I went to London to enter his employment. I then made several machines with various modifications and improvements, to suit his peculiar kind of work, and they were put to immediate use; but afterwards we ceased to be friendly, and I was discharged from his employment. In the meantime my wife and three children had joined me in London. I had also, at the suggestion of another person, endorsed a hundred pound note, on which I was afterwards sued and arrested; but I was finally released on taking the 'poor debtor's oath.' By small loans from fellow mechanics, and by p.a.w.ning a few articles, I managed to live with my family in London, until, from friendly representations from some American acquaintances, the captain of an American packet was induced to take my wife and children home to the United States on credit. I was then alone, and extremely poor, in a foreign land."

"My invention was patented, and in successful use in England, but without any profit to me, and wholly out of my control. In the spring of 1849 I was indebted to a Scottish mechanic for a steerage pa.s.sage, and I returned to the United States, poorer, if possible, than when I left. On my return I found my wife and children very dest.i.tute; all other personal effects, save what they had on, being still detained to secure payment for their pa.s.sage home. My wife was sick, and died within ten days after my arrival. During my absence in England a considerable number of sewing-machines had been made, and put in operation in different parts of the United States; some of these by the procurement of the friend to whom I had sold half of my American patent but most of them infringements on my patent."

"Having obtained from my father, in the summer of 1849, an agreement to re-convey to me his half of my patent; I tried to induce the friend who held the other half to join me in prosecuting our rights against infringers, but he declined to do so. After failing to make any satisfactory settlement with the infringers, who well knew my poverty and embarra.s.sments, I filed a bill in equity against one of such persons, and made my friend a party defendant also, in order to bring him into court as co-owner of my machine. After this he joined me in a suit at law against another infringer. In this case the validity of my patent was fully established by a verdict and judgment at law. After several transfers of the half share sold my friend, I purchased it back, about five years ago, and I am now sole owner of the American patent."

Thus did Howe modestly tell the story of his terrible trials and suffering. After long litigation Mr. Howe's claim to have been the original inventor was legally and irreversibly established, the judge deciding, "that there was no evidence which left a shadow of doubt that for all the benefit conferred upon the public by the introduction of the sewing-machine the public are indebted to Mr. Howe." Therefore to him all inventors or improvers had to pay a royalty on each machine they made. From being a poor man, living in a garret, Howe became one of the most noted millionaires in America.

Doubtless many of our readers would be interested in the principles involved in Mr. Howe's machine; which seem to be essential in all two-threaded machines. We find that two threads are employed, one of which is carried through the cloth by means of a curved pointed needle; the needle used has the eye that is to receive the thread, about an eighth of an inch from the pointed end. When the thread is carried through the cloth, which may be done to the distance of about three-fourths of an inch the thread will be stretched above the curved needle, something like a bowstring, leaving a small open s.p.a.ce between the two. A small shuttle, carrying a bobbin, filled with thread, is then made to pa.s.s entirely through this open s.p.a.ce, between the needle and the thread which it carries; and when the shuttle is returned the thread which was carried in by the needle is surrounded by that received from the shuttle; as the needle is drawn out, it forces that which was received from the shuttle into the body of the cloth giving the seam formed the same appearance on each side of the cloth.

Thus, according to this arrangement, a st.i.tch is made at every back and forth movement of the shuttle. The two thicknesses of cloth that are to be sewed, are held upon pointed wires which project out from a metallic plate, like the teeth of a comb, but at a considerable distance from each other, these pointed wires sustaining the cloth, and answering the purpose of ordinary basting. The metallic plate, from which these wires project, has numerous holes through it, which answer the purpose of rack teeth in enabling the plate to move forward, by means of a pinion, as the st.i.tches are taken. The distance to which the plate is moved, and, consequently, the length of the st.i.tches may be regulated at pleasure.

He opened a manufactory for his machines where he could carry on the business in a small way. From this small beginning his business grew until, with the royalties he received, his income reached $200,000 annually. Notwithstanding his wealth, he enlisted in the war as a private, and his principles and sympathy were displayed at one time when, seeing the men needy, the government having been unable to pay promptly, he himself advanced enough money to pay the entire regiment.

In the month of October, 1867, at the early age of forty-eight he died.

But he had lived long enough to see his machine adopted and appreciated as one of the greatest labor-saving devices in the world. It is estimated that to-day the sewing-machine saves annually the enormous sum of $500,000,000. It has been truly said that had it not been for the sewing-machine it would have been impossible to have clothed and kept clothed the vast armies employed on both sides during the late war.

Great, indeed, is a world's benefactor; such is Elias Howe.

ISAAC M. SINGER.

The greatest compet.i.tor of Mr. Howe was I. M. Singer. In 1850 there appeared in a shop in Boston, a man who exhibited a carving machine as his invention.

Mr. Parton, in the _Atlantic Monthly_, said: "Singer was a poor, baffled adventurer. He had been an actor and a manager of a theatre, and had tried his hand at various enterprises, none of which had been successful." The proprietor of the shop, who had some sewing-machines there on exhibition, speaking of them, said: "These machines are an excellent invention, but have some serious defects. Now if you could make the desired improvement, there would be more money in it than in making these carving machines." This seemed to gently impress Singer, and the friend advancing $40, he at once began work. According to Singer's testimony in the Howe _vs._ Singer suits, the story of this wonderful man runs something like this:

"I worked day and night, sleeping but three or four hours out of the twenty-four, and eating generally but once a day, as I knew I must get a machine made for forty dollars or not get it at all. The machine was completed the night of the eleventh day from the day it was commenced.

About nine o'clock that evening we got the parts of the machine together, and commenced trying it. The first attempt to sew was unsuccessful, and the workmen, who were tired out with almost unremitting work, left me, one by one, intimating that it was a failure.

I continued trying the machine, with Zieber, who furnished the forty dollars, to hold the lamp for me; but in the nervous condition to which I had been reduced, by incessant work and anxiety, was unsuccessful in getting the machine to sew light st.i.tches.

"About midnight I started with Zieber to the hotel, where I boarded.

Upon the way we sat down on a pile of boards, and Zieber asked me if I had not noticed that the loose loops of thread on the upper side of the cloth came from the needle? It then flashed upon me that I had forgotten to adjust the tension upon the needle thread. Zieber and I went back to the shop. I adjusted the tension, tried the machine, and sewed five st.i.tches perfectly, when the thread broke. The perfection of those st.i.tches satisfied me that the machine was a success, and I stopped work, went to the hotel, and had a sound sleep. By three o'clock the next day I had the machine finished, and started with it to New York, where I employed Mr. Charles M. Keller to get out a patent for it."

The trial resulted in favor of Howe, but of the two men Singer was in every way the superior in business capacity. In fact; there never has been a sewing-machine manufacturer that could compare with I. M. Singer.

"Great and manifold were the difficulties which arose in his path, but one by one he overcame them all. He advertised, he traveled, he sent out agents, he procured the insertion of articles in newspapers, he exhibited the machines at fairs in town or country. Several times he was on the point of failure, but in the nick of time something always happened to save him, and year after year he advanced toward an a.s.sured success.

"We well remember his early efforts, when he only had the back part of a small store on Broadway, and a little shop over a railroad depot; and we remember also the general incredulity with regard to the value of the machine with which his name was identified. Even after hearing him explain it at great length, we were very far from expecting to see him one day riding to the Central Park in a French diligence, drawn by five horses paid for by the sewing-machine. Still less did we antic.i.p.ate that within twelve years the Singer company would be selling a thousand sewing-machines a week, at a profit of a thousand dollars a day. He was the true pioneer of the mere business of selling machines, and made it easier for all his subsequent compet.i.tors."

The peculiarity of the Singer machine is the chain st.i.tch or single thread device, but with the employment of an eye-pointed needle, and other appliances, so as to make it admirably adopted for the general purposes of sewing. At Mr. Singer's death it was found that his estate amounted to about $19,000,000.

RICHARD M. HOE.

The recent death of Richard March Hoe, in Florence, Italy, closes the career of one whose name is known wherever the newspaper is used to spread intelligence.

He was the senior member of the firm of printing-press makers, and one of the leading inventors and developers of that great lever of public opinion. Mr. Hoe's father was the founder of the firm. He came to this country from England in 1803, and worked at his trade of carpentry.

Through his skill as a workman he was sought out by a man named Smith, a maker of printer's material. He married Smith's sister, and went into partners.h.i.+p with Smith and brother. The printing-presses of those days were made chiefly of wood, and Hoe's skill as a wood-worker was valuable to the firm.

In 1822 Peter Smith invented a hand-press. This press was finally supplanted by the Was.h.i.+ngton press, invented by Samuel Rust in 1829. Mr.

Smith died a year after securing his patent, and the firm-name was changed to R. Hoe & Co., but from the manufacture of the Smith press the company made a fortune. The demand for hand presses increased so rapidly that ten years later it was suggested that steam power might be utilized in some way to do the pulling and tugging necessary in getting an impression. At this time Richard M., one of the sons of the founder of the house, was an attentive listener to the discussions.

Young Richard M. Hoe was born in 1812. He had the advantage of an excellent education, but his father's business possessed such a fascination for him that it was with difficulty he was kept in school.

He was a young man of twenty before his father allowed him to work regularly in his shop; but he had already become an expert in handling tools, and soon became one of the best workmen. He joined with his father in the belief that steam would yet be applied to the printing-press, and the numerous models and experiments they made to that end would, in the light of the present day, appear extremely ridiculous.

In 1825-30 Napier had constructed a steam printing-press, and in 1830 Isaac Adams, of Boston, secured a patent for a power press. These inventions were kept very secret; the factories in which they were made being guarded jealously. In 1830 a Napier press was imported into this country for use on the _National Intelligencer_. Mordecai Noah, editor of Noah's _Sunday Times and Messenger_, was collector of the port of New York at that time, and being desirous of seeing how the Napier press would work, sent for Mr. Hoe to put it up. He and Richard succeeded in setting up the press, and worked it successfully.

The success of Napier's press set the Hoes to thinking. They made models of its peculiar parts and studied them carefully. Then, in pursuance of a plan suggested by Richard, his father sent his partner, Mr. Newton, to England, for the purpose of examining new machinery there, and to secure models for future use. On his return with ideas, Mr. Newton and the Hoes projected and turned out for sale a novel two-cylinder press, which became universally popular and soon superseded all others, the Napier included.

Thus was steam at last harnessed to the press, but the demand of the daily papers for their increasing editions spurred the press makers to devise machines that could be worked at higher speed than was found possible with the presses, in which the type was secured to a flat bed, which was moved backward and forward under a revolving cylinder. It was seen, then, that if type could be secured to the surface of a cylinder, great speed could be attained. In Sir Rowland Hill's device the type was cast wedge-shape; that is, narrower at the bottom. A broad "nick" was cut into its side, into which a "lead" fitted. The ends of the "lead" in turn fitted into a slot in the column rules, and these latter were bolted into the cylinder. The inventor, Sir Rowland Hill, the father of penny postage in England, sunk, it is said, 80,000 in the endeavor to introduce this method.

In the meantime Richard M. had succeeded to his father's business, and was giving his attention largely to solving this problem of holding type on a revolving cylinder. It was not until 1846 that he hit on the method of doing it. After a dozen years of thought the idea came upon him unexpectedly, and was startling in its simplicity. It was to make the column rules wedge-shape instead of the type. It was this simple device, by the introduction of the "lightning press," that revolutionized the newspaper business of the world, and made the press the power it is. It brought Hoe fame and put him at the head of press makers. His business grew to such dimensions that he has in his employ in his New York factory from 800 to 1,500 hands, varying with the state of trade. His London factory employes from 150 to 250 hands.

Yet the great daily cravings demanded still faster presses. The result was the development of the Web press, in which the paper is drawn into the press from a continuous roll, at a speed of twelve miles an hour.

The very latest is a machine called the supplement press, capable of printing complete a paper of from eight to twelve pages, depending on the demand of the day, so that the papers slide out of the machine with the supplements gummed in and the paper folded ready for delivery. Of late years many other remarkably ingenious presses of other makers have come into the market, but still the genius of R. M. Hoe has left an indelible mark in the development of the printing-press. He died June 6th, 1886.

CHARLES GOODYEAR.

About the year 1800 was born in New Haven, Connecticut, Charles Goodyear. He received only a public school education, and when twenty-one years of age joined his father in the hardware trade in the city of Philadelphia; but in the financial troubles of 1830, the firm went under, and the next three years was spent in looking for a life-work.

Pa.s.sing a store in the city of New York, his eye was attracted by the words "INDIA RUBBER FOR SALE." Having heard much of this new article of late, he purchased a life-preserver which he carried home and so materially improved, in conception, that he was induced to return to the store for the purpose of explaining his ideas. At the store he was now told of the great discouragements with which the rubber trade was contending, the merchants giving this as a reason for not taking to his improvement. The rubber, as then made, would become as hard as flint during cold weather, and if exposed to heat would melt and decay.

Returning to Philadelphia, Goodyear commenced experiments, trying to discover the secret of how to remedy this trouble. He was very poor, and to support his family he 'cobbled' for his neighbors. He tried every experiment within his grasp of intellect, but met only with failure. His friends, who had helped him, left him one by one; his failures continued, but he would not give up. The last piece of furniture was sold, and his family moved into the country, taking up cheap lodgings.

Finally he found a druggist who agreed to furnish him what he needed from his store to use in his investigations and purchasing small quant.i.ties of rubber at a time he continued his experiments. At length, after three years he discovered that the adhesiveness of the rubber could be obviated by dipping it in a preparation of nitric acid. But this only affected the exterior, and he was once more plunged into the worst of poverty. It was generally agreed that the man who would proceed further, in a cause of this sort, was fairly deserving of all the distress brought on himself, and justly debarred the sympathy of others. His suffering during the years that followed is simply incredible. The prejudice against him was intense. Everybody characterized him as a fool, and no one would help him. A witness afterwards testified in a trial: "They had sickness in the family; I was often in and found them very poor and dest.i.tute, for both food and fuel.

They had none, nor had they anything to buy any with. This was before they boarded with us, and while they were keeping house. They told me they had no money with which to buy bread from one day to another. They did not know how they should get it. The children said they did not know what they should do for food. They dug their potatoes before they were half-grown, for the sake of having something to eat. Their son Charles, eight years old, used to say that they ought to be thankful for the potatoes, for they did not know what they should do without them. We used to furnish them with milk, and they wished us to take furniture and bed-clothes in payment, rather than not pay for it. At one time they had nothing to eat, and a barrel of flour was unexpectedly sent them."

It is a record of dest.i.tution, imprisonment for debt, and suffering from this time until 1841, when he began to see day-light. By accident he one day allowed a piece of rubber to drop on the stove, when, lo! he had found the secret, heat was the thing needed. Six years had he struggled on through untold hards.h.i.+ps, and now he seemed crowned with success. He had found the desired solution of the problem, but he made a fatal mistake here. Instead of settling down and manufacturing his discovery, which would have brought him a fortune, he sold rights and kept on experimenting. By certain legal informalities he secured no benefit whatever from his patent in France and he was cheated entirely out of it in England. Although he lived to see large factories for its manufacture spring up in both America and Europe, employing 60,000 operatives, still he died in 1860 at the age of seventy-one, leaving his family unprovided for. The cause was not lack of perseverance nor energy, but the sole cause was lack of judgment in business matters.

The vulcanized rubber trade is one of the greatest industries of the world to-day, amounting to millions of dollars annually. The usefulness of India rubber is thus described in the _North American Review_: "Some of our readers have been out on the picket-line during the war. They know what it is to stand motionless in a wet and miry rifle-pit in the chilly rain of a southern winter's night. Protected by India rubber boots, blanket and cap, the picket-man is in comparative comfort; a duty which, without that protection, would make him a cowering and s.h.i.+vering wretch, and plant in his bones a latent rheumatism, to be the torment of his old age. Goodyear's India rubber enables him to come in from his pit as dry as when he went into it, and he comes in to lie down with an India rubber blanket between him and the damp earth. If he is wounded it is an India-rubber stretcher or an ambulance, provided with India-rubber springs, that gives him least pain on his way to the hospital, where, if his wound is serious, a water-bed of India rubber gives ease to his mangled frame, and enables him to endure the wearing tedium of an unchanged posture. Bandages and supporters of India rubber avail him much when first he begins to hobble about his ward. A piece of India rubber at the end of his crutch lessens the jar and the noise of his motions, and a cus.h.i.+on of India rubber is comfortable to his arm-pit.

The springs which close the hospital door, the bands which excludes the drafts from doors and windows, his pocket-comb and cup and thimble are of the same material. From jars hermetically closed with India rubber he receives the fresh fruit that is so exquisitely delicious to a fevered mouth. The instrument case of his surgeon, and the store-room of his matron contains many articles whose utility is increased by the use of it, and some that could be made of nothing else. In a small rubber case the physician carries with him and preserves his lunar caustic, which would corrode any metallic surface. His s.h.i.+rts and sheets pa.s.s through an India rubber clothes-wringer, which saves the strength of the washer-woman and the fibre of the fabric. When the government presents him with an artificial leg, a thick heel and elastic sole of India rubber give him comfort every time he puts it on the ground. In the field this material is not less strikingly useful. During the late war armies have marched through ten days of rain and slept through as many nights, and come out dry into the returning suns.h.i.+ne with their artillery untarnished and their ammunition not injured, because men and munitions were all under India rubber."

Ought we soon to forget him to whom we are indebted, in a large measure, for all this? The American people will long remember Charles Goodyear when others have faded from memory.