SAFETY FIRST

 



The name Walter Hunt has been lost to history but he invented three important and useful things in use even today. Yet he never achieved credit or reaped the millions of dollars these items could have earned him. Walter Hunt was born in upstate New York and became a Mason by trade. He had a knack for creating and invented several useful items - including a prototype fountain pen. He attained patents for his inventions, but often sold them when he needed money. He innovated the repeating rifle but lacked the means to mass produce them so he sold the patent to Winchester and Hunt's repeating format revolutionized rifles, but Winchester earned the fame and money.

Hunt then transformed sewing pins. He added a spring to the end of a pin, then connected a second metal piece with a cap. The coil help the pin move into the cap. Hunt patented the device, but sold the patent to WR Grace and Company for $400 - to pay off a $15 debt. Safety pins netted the WR Grace Company millions of dollars and are in every home today.


He next developed the sewing machine. Other inventors had been working on sewing machines including Isaac Singer and Elias Howe. Hunt's version used a lock stitch method and was made of iron instead of wood. Elias Howe won the claim of inventing the sewing machine because Hunt never filed paperwork to make the patent official. Isaac Singer bought Hunt's version for $50,000, but Hunt died before the deal was complete.


Hunts other inventions include: paper shirt collars, a nail making machine, A self closing ink stand, a streetcar gong, the first home knife sharpener, and a restaurant steam table apparatus. Hunt died of pneumonia in 1859. If only Hunt had kept patents on at least one of his three most important inventions, he could have paid his debts, and earned millions of dollars. The necessity of paying what you owe really was the mother of Hunt's inventions.

SOURCES :

Walter Hunt. National Inventors Hall of Fame.

Walter Hunt. Wikipedia.


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