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Shelby County |
Home 1915 History Index |
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Shelby County |
Home 1915 History Index |
CHAPTER XXXI -- INVENTIONS, INVENTORS AND PATENTS.But few of the pioneers had enjoyed the advantages of scientific or mechanical training. That “necessity is the mother of invention” was well exemplified in their clever, original and useful devices which the needs of the hour evoked. Their minds were capable of doing a great deal of clear thinking. They were able to improvise on the spur of the moment in many ways that entitle them to our admiration. Lack of means, distance from mechanics and other forms of stimulus made the pioneer farmer his own mechanic. He was a wizard with smooth wire when accident threw him suddenly upon his own resources, and the repairing that he could do with this material was truly marvelous. Of course when the sickle driver snapped in two in the tall tough slough grass, he had a job of welding for the blacksmith, who, in the early days, found work enough to justify him in maintaining a shop in the rural communities. But at first the pioneer farmer did in a very satisfactory way many of the things that now, under our complicated division of labor, are performed by a half dozen special mechanics. This genius for invention was, at least in Shelby county, not confined to the farmers, who, of course, had the greatest need for it, but it seems to have been in the air. Even the men in the towns “dreamed dreams and saw visions” of devices for doing things in a better way, and perhaps more than incidentally dreamed some dreams of personal wealth achieved by the happy stroke of a great idea. And one generation did not wholly usurp the field or close the avenue of invention or the need of it. Today the second generation is also at it. It has been very difficult to secure information with reference to patents and inventions. The United States bureau of patents at Washington does not keep a geographical index of the names of patentees. I have, however, secured the following information from various files of Shelby county newspapers and from other sources of information. Although he never applied for any patents, Thomas Leytham, a well-known pioneer of Cass township, is inclined to believe that as a boy he was probably the first person to invent a metal husking peg of the type which was in general use for very many years, and which is yet much the same. When a small boy in 1866 he observed that the husking pegs of that time made of buckhorn or hickory wood soon became dull and soon blistered the hand. He took a large mixing spoon handle and concluded that he could make a husking peg that would lie flat in the hand and that, once sharpened, would remain sharp, and that might be fastened to two fingers instead of one, as was the early custom. He found a small punch, belonging to his father, and kept working with this until he made a hole large enough for a good strap. He kept the shaft of the husking peg flat and then bent the point to face his thumb, afterwards sharpening the point as he preferred to have it. Being of an inventive turn of mind, he also made from clam shells, which were then thick in Mosquito creek, a row of buttons for his jacket, his mother at that time having no buttons. He also devised very early in his career, as a boy on his father’s farm, an evener to be used with three horses and he believes that he was one of the first men to use three horses on farm implements in Shelby county. This evener was made of ash or hickory dressed down and, of course, was so constructed that the two horses had the shorter length of the double tree and the third horse the longer length. By means of this device he worked three horses on a plow in 1875 in Cass township. Afterwards finding that his evener caused the plow to work too much sideways, he made an upright evener to proportion the draft. In 1877, during the grasshopper days, a patent was granted to T. B. Burr, who had invented a device for destroying grasshoppers. In that year Mr. Burr was at Council Bluffs making arrangements for the manufacture of several thousand of these machines. In the same year R. M. Maxwell, of Douglas township, had sent to the patent office a model of a grasshopper catcher somewhat similar to the Burr machine. The “hoppers,” however, quit coming, and the inventors made no money from the sale of their machines. In 1886 William Scarborough, a grain dealer of Irwin, patented a wagon box elevator and dump to be used for unloading grain, etc., from farm wagons. It was portable and could also be used for the purpose of putting on and removing a wagon box. In the same year, Messrs. George and Horney, of Harlan, received a patent for their combined end-gate and chute for loading hogs, calves, or sheep into wagons, together with a rack for carrying the animals to market or elsewhere. L. W. Osborne, in 1877, had invented a corn husker and was ready to secure a patent. In 1885 T. B. Kail a shoe dealer of Harlan, and John Dierks were allowed a patent on a paper cane. In 1884 Mr. Kail had also applied for a patent on an automatic whistle attachment for railway engines, on which he had been working for several years. In 1884 W. M. Jenkins received a patent on a railway joint and nut lock for a railway rail. In 1884 Robert Ford, of Earling, was granted a patent on his weed cutter attachment for cultivators. In 1888 a patent was granted to W. E. George and John Coenen, of Harlan, for a convertible stock wagon, consisting of a device easily converted from a stock wagon into a hay rack, or manure wagon. In 1886 Dr. B. F. Eshelman, a Harlan dentist, patented a pencil holder which was intended to fit inside the vest pocket and to secure pen, pencil or tooth brush without danger of loss. In 1892 Doctor Eshelman again secured a patent on a spring appliance to be fastened on the inside of a rubber shoe which, by engaging the heel of the leather shoe, held the rubber securely in place. In 1888 George F. Colby, of Shelby, received a patent for a tongue and wagon pole attachment. This was a device for fitting on the end of the tongue to keep the neck yoke from coming off in case the tugs came loose. One of the early and most successful inventors of Shelby county was James M. Deen, of Harlan, who invented a loom for weaving carpet. This loom is manufactured in Harlan and shipped all over the United States and to some foreign countries and is highly successful. Another young man with a genius for invention is H. G. Baker, of Harlan, a son of J. K. P. Baker, a Shelby county pioneer. Mr. Baker has invented a number of devices, among them a pipe pusher for pushing water pipes and other like pipes through the ground by means of powerful levers; a husking peg; a carpet loom; a flying machine, etc. He has applications pending for patents on other inventions. On May 23, 1911, Robert Campbell, son of Editor W. C. Campbell, of the Harlan Tribune, was granted a patent on a substitute for the inner air tube of auto tires and on the same date granted a patent on a machine for winding any number of strands, one over another, upon a circular core. J. E. Beebe, of Harlan, secured a patent on a garden weeder. Jerry Robertson, of Shelby, received a patent on a device for watering hogs. T. K. Nelson, of Harlan, has patented a very successful gas engine which is manufactured in Harlan and is widely used. R. R. Sandham, of Harlan, has received four patents, covering two different forms of shower-bath attachments which he has invested, and an automobile tire and rim, these patents having been issued during the years 1909 and 1910. He also has received, on the shower bath attachment, three Canadian patents during the same years. Dr. F. R. Lintleman, formerly a Harlan physician and surgeon, has received United States and foreign patents on an obstetrical pan. N. Nielson, a Harlan jeweler, was granted a patent on a folding display case for the use of merchants. Otto R. Hammer, of Peter Hammer & Company, of Harlan, received a patent on a holder for paper bags used by merchants. C. C. Rasmussen, of the Harlan Roller Mills, invented an electrical device to be attached to elevator belts for the purpose of warning an operator when a belt has slipped at some distance.
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