Elias Howe

Whatever credit may be due to the early machines above mentioned, and to the later experiments of Hunt, the fact remains that Elias Howe did independently invent a practical sewing machine, which contained the three essential features of a needle with the eye at the point, a shuttle operating beneath the cloth to form the lock stitch, and an automatic feed ; that he had sufficient faith in his machine to cover it with a patent; and that his unconquerable perseverance enabled him to convince the world of its commercial utility and establish its reputation as one of the most beneficial inventions of the age. From this time on the tide of fortune sets steadily in his favor. He discovers that in his absence his shuttle machine has been built and sold freely in America and that the mechanical world is waking up to its great possibilities. With the assistance of his father he commenced an infringement suit against those parties who were making his machine, or machines embodying his claims, and after a bitter fight he came off completely victorious. A vigorous attempt was made by I. M. Singer & Company to break the Howe patent, on the ground that an earlier machine (as already mentioned) had been made by Walter Hunt ; but while the parts of the Hunt machine of 1834, which were recovered and produced in court, showed that he was " upon the track of the invention," the evidence showed that he had finally given up in despair of any practical results. In 1854, Judge Sprague, of Massachusetts, in giving a verdict for Howe, observed that "there is no evidence in this ease that leaves a shadow of doubt that, for all the benefit conferred upon the public by the introduction of a sewing machine, the public are indebted to Mr. Howe," His success in the Singer suit was followed by a verdict against other infringers, and they were obliged to pay royalties, (at first $25 on each machine), which in themselves ultimately gave him a princely income. He also established a factory in New York, and, having bought up the remainder of his patent, he commenced to manufacture his own machine. His patent was extended for seven years, in 1860; but another application, in 1867, was denied. He was decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honor by France, in 1867, and died on October 3 in the same year. Next to Howe, the name of Allen B. Wilson claims notice as the inventor who has done the most to give us the present perfected sewing machine. To him we are indebted for those two most ingenious and beautiful pieces of mechanism: the rotating hook and the four-motion feed. He claims to have conceived the idea of a sewing machine in 1847. His first machine was built during the spring of 1849, while he was in the employ of a Mr. Barnes, of Pittsfield, Mass., a cabinet maker. In the same year he built a second and better machine, and "up to this time," says, "I had never seen or heard of a sewing machine other than my own." He sells a one-half interest in the invention to Joseph N. Chapin, of North Adams, and with the proceeds takes out his first patent, which bears date November 12, 1850. The model of this machine, now in the Patent Office, is shown in the accompanying illustration. It formed a lock stitch by means of a curved needle on a vibrating arm above the cloth plate, and a reciprocating two-pointed shuttle traveling in a curved race below the plate. The feed motion was obtained by the two metal bars which are seen intersecting above the shuttle race. The lower bar, called the feed bar, had teeth on its upper face, and by means of a transverse sliding motion it moved the cloth, which was placed between the two bars, the desired distance, as each stitch was made. In 1851 Wilson patented his famous rotating hook, which performs the functions of a shuttle by seizing the upper thread and throwing its loop over a circular bobbin containing the under thread. 'This simplified he construction of the machine by getting rid of the reciprocation motion of the ordina