"is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. Some of his important inventions are shown here with drawings from the patent. Walter Hunt (inventor) Walter Hunt (July 29, 1796 – June 8, 1859) was an American mechanic. He was born in Martinsburg, New York. Through the course of his work he became renowned for being a prolific inventor, notably of the lockstitch sewing machine (1833), safety pin (1849), a forerunner of the Winchester repeating rifle, a successful flax spinner, knife sharpener, streetcar bell, hard-coal-burning stove, artificial stone, street sweeping machinery, and the ice plough. Walter Hunt did not realize"
"(Birmingham, England) independently patented a similar safety pin in October 1849, although the company no longer makes these. Hunt made the invention in order to pay off a $15 debt to a friend. He used a piece of brass wire that was about 8 inches long and made a coil in the center of the wire so it would open up when released. The clasp at one end was devised in order to shield the sharp edge from the user. After being issued U.S. patent #6,281 on April 10, 1849, Hunt sold the patent to W. R. Grace and Company"
"the next loop. The first American lockstitch sewing machine was invented by Walter Hunt in 1832. His machine used an eye-pointed needle (with the eye and the point on the same end) carrying the upper thread and a falling shuttle carrying the lower thread. The curved needle moved through the fabric horizontally, leaving the loop as it withdrew. The shuttle passed through the loop, interlocking the thread. The feed let the machine down, requiring the machine to be stopped frequently and reset up. Hunt eventually lost interest in his machine and sold individual machines without bothering to patent his invention,"
"trials. It incorporated a thicker, stronger blade, higher lift for extra knuckle clearance, and a flattened tang to prevent handle rotation. William Hunt and Sons William Hunt and Sons or WHS is a British brand of masonry tools and other types of edge tools. The WHS 4"" pointing trowel is well known as a standard excavation implement in British archaeology. The founder of the company, William Hunt, was an edge tool maker at Rowley Regis, near Dudley, Worcestershire, in the late 18th century. In 1782 he purchased the Brades Estate at Oldbury, near Birmingham, and established a new works there"
"Howe truss 1842 Inhalational anaesthetic 1842 Grain elevator 1843 Ice cream maker (hand-cranked) 1843 Multiple-effect evaporator 1843 Rotary printing press 1844 Pratt truss 1845 Pressure-sensitive tape 1845 Maynard tape primer 1845 Baseball 1846 Transverse shuttle 1846 Printing telegraph 1847 Gas mask 1847 Doughnut (ring-shaped) 1848 Pin tumbler lock 1849 Jackhammer 1849 Safety pin 1850 Dishwasher 1850 Feed dogs 1850 Vibrating shuttle 1850 Inverted microscope 1851 Rotary hook 1851 Fire alarm box 1852 Elevator brake 1853 Burglar alarm 1853 Potato chips 1853 spring Clothespin 1854 Breast pump 1855 Calliope 1856 Egg beater 1856 Condensed milk 1856 Equatorial sextant 1857 Toilet paper"
"Howe invented a pin-making machine in 1832, and an improved machine in 1841; his Howe Manufacturing Company of Derby, Connecticut, used three machines to produce 72,000 pins per day in 1839. Walter Hunt invented the safety pin by forming an eight-inch brass pin into a bent pin with a spring and guard. He sold the rights to his invention to pay a debt to a friend, not knowing that he could have made millions of dollars. The push pin was invented in 1900 by Edwin Moore and quickly became a success. These pins are also called ""thumbtacks"". There is also"
"William Hunt and Sons William Hunt and Sons or WHS is a British brand of masonry tools and other types of edge tools. The WHS 4"" pointing trowel is well known as a standard excavation implement in British archaeology. The founder of the company, William Hunt, was an edge tool maker at Rowley Regis, near Dudley, Worcestershire, in the late 18th century. In 1782 he purchased the Brades Estate at Oldbury, near Birmingham, and established a new works there known as Brades Forge, or simply as The Brades. By 1805 they were also manufacturing steel on the site, which was"
"James William Hunter James William Hunter of Thurston FRSE (May 1783 - 3 December 1844) was a Scottish landowner, inventor and agricultural improver. His main claim to fame is the improvement to the mechanical Odometer in 1827, creating a single-handed and single-wheeled device, setting a series of three 100 tooth cogs against 101 tooth cogs, attached to a wheel of circumference either 6 or 10 feet. This created a very convenient apparatus for land measurement, and is still the basis for modern day mechanical surveying odometers. The larger version was attached to the rear of a carriage and was the"
"Jefferson Hunt wagon train that pioneered the Mormon Road from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles. Roadometer (odometer) The roadometer was a 19th-century device like an odometer for measuring mileage, towed by a wagon, invented in 1847 by William Clayton and Orson Pratt, Mormon pioneers. The roadometer invented by William Clayton and Orson Pratt had cogs and gears made of wood. It recorded wheel revolutions by the mile and quarter-mile. They used their invention to provide an estimate of the distance their party traveled each day between Omaha, Nebraska, and Salt Lake City, Utah. Subsequently in 1849, it was attached"
"Frederick Vinton Hunt Frederick Vinton Hunt (February 15, 1905 – April 21, 1972) was an inventor, a scientist and a professor at Harvard University who worked in the field of acoustic engineering. He made significant contributions to room acoustics, regulated power supply, lightweight phonograph pickups and electronic reproduction equipment, and notably, during World War II, invented new techniques for sonar (an acronym that he invented, though the gloss was changed by others). He developed the first efficient and modern sonar system, for this work received the Medal for Merit from President Truman (1947), and the Navy Distinguished Service Medal by"
"cousin to Very Rev Andrew Hunter FRSE. James William Hunter James William Hunter of Thurston FRSE (May 1783 - 3 December 1844) was a Scottish landowner, inventor and agricultural improver. His main claim to fame is the improvement to the mechanical Odometer in 1827, creating a single-handed and single-wheeled device, setting a series of three 100 tooth cogs against 101 tooth cogs, attached to a wheel of circumference either 6 or 10 feet. This created a very convenient apparatus for land measurement, and is still the basis for modern day mechanical surveying odometers. The larger version was attached to the"
"additional data."" A reporter for The Times wrote, ""The doyen of trivialists, factualists and know-it-alls. Kane regarded himself as a debunker, a campaigner against myth and historical complacency."" Kane spent his last years in West Palm Beach, Florida, near his sister, Ann Madier. He suffered a broken hip at age 97, however he continued his work gathering facts. His last project was ""Necessity's Child: The Story of Walter Hunt, America's Forgotten Inventor"". Kane figured Walter Hunt was really the true inventor of the sewing machine, the fountain pen, and the American safety pin. Kane told Myrna Olive, a reporter for"
"in alarm clocks, kitchen timers, mantel clocks and, until the late 1970s, cheap watches, called the ""Roskopf"", ""pin-lever"", or ""pin-pallet escapement"" after Georges Frederic Roskopf, who invented it in 1867. It functions similarly to the lever, except that the lever pallet jewels are replaced by vertical metal pins. In a lever escapement, the pallets have two angled faces, the locking face and the impulse face, which must be carefully adjusted to the correct angles. In the pin pallet escapement, these two faces are designed into the shape of the escape wheel teeth instead, eliminating complicated adjustments. The pins are located"
"novelty today. Hand boilers date back at least as early as 1767, when the American polymath Benjamin Franklin encountered them in Germany. He developed an improved version in 1768, after which they were called Franklin's pulse glass or palm glass or pulse hammer (German: ""Pulshammer"") or water hammer (German: ""Wasserhammer""). Hand boiler A hand boiler or (less commonly) love meter is a glass sculpture used as an experimental tool to demonstrate vapour-liquid equilibrium, or as a collector's item to whimsically ""measure love."" It consists of a lower bulb containing a volatile liquid and a mixture of gases that is connected"
"up to the saw by means of a pair of rollers. This predates William Bell's straw cutting machine. 1821: Emanuel Heaton, gun finisher, takes out a patent for a watertight pan for gun locks. 1823: Francis Deakin improves a method of stringing the piano by employing the screw and nut as opposed to the previously used wooden peg, thus allowing a greater tension and strength of wire. 1824: American inventor William Church patents a printing machine in his Birmingham works, which positions the paper sheets more accurately. He is a prolific inventor, taking out numerous patents for methods of button"
"material. It was originally invented in 1939 by the combined effort of Bell Labs and broadcasters CBS and NBC for measuring and standardizing the levels of telephone lines. The instrument used to measure VU is called the volume indicator (VI) instrument. Most users ignore this and call it a VU meter. 1939 Starting gate 1939 Twist tie 1939 Automated teller machine An automated teller machine (ATM) is a computerized telecommunications device that provides the clients of a financial institution with access to financial transactions in a public space without the need for a cashier, human clerk or bank teller. ATMs"
"repeating mechanism and the tubular magazine still common today. However, Hunt's design was far from perfect, and only a couple of prototypes were developed; the only one known is currently in the Firearms Museum in Cody, Wyoming. Lewis Jennings patented an improved version of Hunt's design in 1849, and versions of the Jenning's patent design were built by Robbins & Lawrence Co. (under the direction of shop foreman Benjamin Tyler Henry) and sold by C. P. Dixon. Horace Smith was also hired by Courtlandt Palmer to improve the Jennings Rifle, patenting the Smith-Jennings in 1851. It is estimated that fewer"
"of wood or precious metals. The ancient Syrians created catheters from reeds. ""Catheter"" (from Greek καθετήρ ""kathetḗr"") originally referred to any instrument that was inserted, such as a plug. It comes from the Greek verb καθίεμαι ""kathíemai"", meaning ""let down"", because the catheter was 'let down' into the body. The earliest invention of the flexible catheter was during the 18th century. Extending his inventiveness to his family's medical problems, Benjamin Franklin invented the flexible catheter in 1752 when his brother John suffered from bladder stones. Franklin's catheter was made of metal with segments hinged together with a wire enclosed to"
"for $400 (roughly $,000 in dollars). Using that money, Hunt then paid the $15 owed to a friend and kept the remaining amount of $385 for himself. What Hunt failed to realize is that in the years to follow, W.R. Grace and Company would make millions of dollars in profits from his invention. The sharpened pin, that is attached to a coiled wire is connected with a cap that is hooked at the end of the wire. Pushing the pin into the opening of the cap secures the safety of the pin, and the clasp is the closed. Whilst the"
"manufacturers of chocolate and cocoa to Queen Victoria. In the 1850s the industry receives a much needed boost, with the reduction in the high import taxes on cocoa, allowing chocolate to be more affordable to everybody. Cadbury's later becomes one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the world and is still in production across the world today with a major production plant in Bournville. 1828: Josiah Mason improves a cheap, efficient slip-in nib that can be added to a fountain pen. 1830: With the invention of a new machine, William Joseph Gillott, John Mitchell and James Stephen Perry devise a"
"pin, selling the patent for $400 to the company W R Grace and Company, to pay a man to whom he owed $15. He is said to have failed to patent his sewing machine at all because he feared it would create unemployment among seamstresses. (This led to an 1854 court case when the machine was re-invented by Elias Howe; Hunt's machine shown to have design flaws limiting its practical use). In seeking patents for his inventions, Hunt used the services of Charles Grafton Page, a patent solicitor who had previously worked at the US Patent Office. Like Howe, Hunt"
"contained in the bullet's hollow base. Hunt's design was fragile and unworkable, but in 1849 Lewis Jennings purchased the Hunt patents and developed a functioning, if still complex, version which was produced in small numbers by Robbins & Lawrence of Windsor, Vermont until 1852. Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson of Norwich, Connecticut, acquired the Jennings patent from Robbins & Lawrence, as well as shop foreman Benjamin Tyler Henry. Smith made several improvements to the Jennings design, and in 1855 Smith and Wesson together with several investors formed a corporation, the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company, to manufacture Smith's modification of the"
"a whale or other similar marine creatures. Patented on May 6, 1851, by Charles Burt of Belfast, Maine (U.S Patent No. 8,073), this was the second harpoon of its kind. The explosive was used as a propellant for the harpoon to enter the whale with great velocity. An alternative version of the explosive harpoon, known as the power spear, was only designed for the purpose of spearing. That claim could lead to multiple interpretations of its true purpose. If it was only needed for fishing, then it could have been called a variant of the harpoon. However, because the official"
"or weak gas liquor, trickled over these trays, thereby keeping the exposed surfaces thoroughly wetted. The gas to be purified was run through the tower to be contacted with the liquid. In 1846 George Lowe patented a device with revolving perforated pipes for supplying water or purifying liquor. At a later date, the Rotary Washer Scrubber was introduced by Paddon, who used it at Brighton about 1870. This prototype machine was followed by others of improved construction ; notably by Kirkham, Hulett, and Chandler, who introduced the well-known Standard Washer Scrubber, Holmes, of Huddersfield, and others. The Tower Scrubber and"
"— it uses the standing water to seal the outlet of the bowl, preventing the escape of foul air from the sewer. In 1824 Charles Macintosh invented the waterproof raincoat; the Mackintosh (mac) is named after him. William Sturgeon invented the electromagnet in 1824. The first commercial electrical telegraph was co-invented by Sir William Fothergill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone. They patented it in May 1837 as an alarm system, and it was first successfully demonstrated on 25 July 1837 between Euston and Camden Town in London. Postal reformer Sir Rowland Hill is regarded as the creator of the modern postal"
"Gunter's chain Gunter's chain (also known as Gunter’s measurement) is a distance measuring device used for surveying. It was designed and introduced in 1620 by English clergyman and mathematician Edmund Gunter (1581–1626). It enabled plots of land to be accurately surveyed and plotted, for legal and commercial purposes. Gunter developed an actual measuring chain of 100 links. These, the chain and the link, became statutory measures in England and subsequently the British Empire. The chain is divided into 100 links, usually marked off into groups of 10 by brass rings or tags which simplify intermediate measurement. Each link is thus"
"In 1948 Harry Partch, an American composer, developed a microtonal system of music that depended on custom-built, specialized instruments of various and exotic designs, which could play non-tempered scales, for its performance. Buckwheat (the name Wheat used in later life) and his Sausalito, California roommate Bill Loughborough, a musician and electronic engineer, built instruments for Partch, such as a marimba played with a large soft mallet over the resonator, delivering barely audible, low-Hertz tones. Loughborough borrowed diagnostic and metric instruments from the Mare Island Navy Yard; using an oscilloscope and audio oscillator, they were able to work at a technical"
"toy, sometimes while connected to a violet wand electrical device. Clothing pattern-making can use a version of the Wartenberg wheel, called a pounce wheel, to transfer markings from fabric to paper. Pounce wheels resemble standard Wartenberg wheels in shape but have wooden handles. Wartenberg wheel A Wartenberg wheel, also called a Wartenberg pinwheel or Wartenberg neurowheel, is a medical device for neurological use. Robert Wartenberg (1887–1956) designed the wheel to test nerve reactions (sensitivity) as it rolled systematically across the skin. A Wartenberg wheel is generally made of stainless steel with a handle of approximately in length. The wheel, which"
"Savart wheel The Savart wheel is an acoustical device named after the French physicist Félix Savart (1791–1841), which was originally conceived and developed by the English scientist Robert Hooke (1635–1703). A card held to the edge of a spinning toothed wheel will produce a tone whose pitch varies with the speed of the wheel. A mechanism of this sort, made using brass wheels, allowed Hooke to produce sound waves of a known frequency, and to demonstrate to the Royal Society in 1681 how pitch relates to frequency. For practical purposes Hooke's device was soon supplanted by the invention of the"
"Kater's pendulum A Kater's pendulum is a reversible free swinging pendulum invented by British physicist and army captain Henry Kater in 1817 for use as a gravimeter instrument to measure the local acceleration of gravity. Its advantage is that, unlike previous pendulum gravimeters, the pendulum's centre of gravity and center of oscillation do not have to be determined, allowing greater accuracy. For about a century, until the 1930s, Kater's pendulum and its various refinements remained the standard method for measuring the strength of the Earth's gravity during geodetic surveys. It is now used only for demonstrating pendulum principles. A pendulum"
"between the balance wheel and the escape wheel; this is the form used in modern watches. In 1867 Georges Frederic Roskopf invented an inexpensive, less accurate form called the Roskopf or pin-pallet escapement, which was used in cheap ""dollar watches"" in the early 20th century and is still used in cheap alarm clocks and kitchen timers. A rare but interesting mechanical escapement is John Harrison's grasshopper escapement invented in 1722. In this escapement, the pendulum is driven by two hinged arms (pallets). As the pendulum swings, the end of one arm catches on the escape wheel and drives it slightly"
"his wife, Howe returned nearly penniless to the United States. His wife Elizabeth, who preceded Elias back to the United States, died in Cambridge, Massachusetts shortly after his return in 1849. Despite his efforts to sell his machine, other entrepreneurs began manufacturing sewing machines. Howe was forced to defend his patent in a court case that lasted from 1849 to 1854 because he found that Isaac Singer with cooperation from Walter Hunt had perfected a facsimile of his machine and was selling it with the same lockstitch that Howe had invented and patented. He won the dispute and earned considerable"
"Octant (instrument) The octant, also called reflecting quadrant, is a measuring instrument used primarily in navigation. It is a type of reflecting instrument. The name ""octant"" derives from the Latin ""octans"" meaning ""eighth part of a circle"", because the instrument's arc is one eighth of a circle. ""Reflecting quadrant"" derives from the instrument using mirrors to reflect the path of light to the observer and, in doing so, doubles the angle measured. This allows the instrument to use a one-eighth of a turn to measure a quarter-turn or quadrant. Isaac Newton's reflecting quadrant was invented around 1699. A detailed description"