Walter Hunt (inventor)

Walter Hunt
Walter Hunt
Born	July 29, 1796 Martinsburg, New York
Died	June 8, 1859 (aged 62)
Nationality	United States
Occupation	inventor
Known for	fountain pen sewing machine safety pin flax streetcar bell hard-coal-burning stove street sweeping machinery, velocipede ice plough

Walter Hunt (July 29, 1796 – June 8, 1859) was an American mechanic. He was born in Martinsburg, New York.^[1] Through the course of his work he became renowned for being a prolific inventor, notably of the lockstitch sewing machine (1833), safety pin (1849),^[2] 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.^[3]

Walter Hunt did not realize the significance of many of these when he invented them; today, many are widely used products. He thought little of the safety pin, selling the patent for $400^[4] to the company W R Grace and Company, to pay a man to whom he owed $15. He 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).^[5] 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 is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

Some of his important inventions are shown here with drawings from the patent.

• 
  Fountain pen
  Patent 4927
• 
  Safety pin
  Patent 6281
• 
  Nail making machine
  Patent 3305
• 
  Sewing machine
  Patent 11,161
• 
  Swivel-Cap Stopper
  Patent 9,527
• 
  Inkstand
  Patent 4221
• 
  Firing cock repeating gun Patent 6663
• 
  Ice Boat
  Patent 958

Notes

1. Advameg - Walter Hunt Biography
2. "Safety Pin patent - US Patent and Trademark Office". April 9, 2002. Retrieved October 28, 2011.
3. Marshall Cavendish, p. 845.
4. Discoveries
5. O'Dwyer, Davin (April 29, 2011). "Inspiring innovators: Walter Hunt". Irish Times. Ireland. Retrieved October 28, 2011.

References

• Marshall Cavendish Corporation, Inventors and inventions. New York : Marshall Cavendish, 2007. ISBN 978-0-7614-7761-7, p. 845 ff.
• Hunt, Clinton N. Walter Hunt, American inventor. New York: C. N. Hunt, 1935. OCLC 250585694
• Kane, Joseph Nathan. Necessity's child : the story of Walter Hunt, Americaʼs forgotten inventor, Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland, 1997. ISBN 978-0-7864-0279-3
• Post, Robert C. 1976. Physics, Patents, and Politics: A Biography of Charles Grafton Page. Science History Publications: New York.

External links

• Walter Hunt at Find a Grave