Obed Hussey Part 2

"I have been your Agent from the time the claim was first presented to Congress, and know that the Charge is entirely unfounded.

"The facts according to the best of my recollection and belief, are as follows: Your Claim for a renewal was presented to Congress at the very first Session, after you ascertained that your application to the Commissioner could not be acted upon under the rules of the Patent Office. Every paper and proof necessary to establish your right to a renewal of your patent, under the existing laws, was procured, and promptly placed with your memorial, before Congress. No further proof was required by the Committee on Patents, in the Senate, and your right to a renewal was fully established by an able and unanswerable report of that Committee, accompanied by a bill for a renewal. This report and bill were printed by order of the Senate, and were noticed as a part of the proceedings of Congress, by the press throughout the United States, and every body thus notified of your application.

[Sidenote: Mr. Hussey's Methods]

"From that period to the present time, I do not think there has been a single Congress at which all proper efforts were not made to obtain the action of that Body. Members were not annoyed with indecent importunity; nor were any powerful combinations of interested individuals resorted to, to force your Claim upon the consideration of Congress. This was not in accordance with your taste, or your means. I well remember, however, that you frequently visited this City on that business; and that at almost every session, you either brought or sent to me, to be laid before Congress, some new evidence of the triumph of your great invention.

These doc.u.ments were faithfully laid before that body, or sent to the senators from Maryland for that purpose. On one occasion, as your agent, I addressed a somewhat extended communication to the Senators from Maryland, attempting to show the vast importance of your invention to the Agricultural interests of the United States, and the strong claims you had to a renewal of your patent, and requested them as the Representatives of your State in the Senate, to give their attention and influence to accomplish that end.

"At a subsequent Session, this request was repeated, to one or both of the Senators from that State.

"I can also state with certainty that hardly a Session of Congress has pa.s.sed since your memorial was first presented, at which prominent and Scientific Agriculturalists, in different parts of the Country, who were acquainted with the merits of your invention, have not used their influence with Members of Congress to obtain a renewal of your patent. Any pretense, therefore, that your Claim has not been duly presented, notified to the public, and urged with all proper care and diligence upon the attention of Congress, I repeat is totally unfounded.

"It will be a stain upon the justice of the Country, if one whom truth and time must rank among its greatest Benefactors, shall be stricken down and permitted to die in indigence by the interested and unworthy efforts thus made to defeat you.

"You are at liberty to use this statement in any manner you may desire.

"Very truly and respectfully,

"Your Ob't Ser'vt,

"CHA'S E. SHERMAN."

Although not coming in the natural order of events, I quote from an enclosure found in a letter written to Hon. H. May, evidently a member of Congress. Mr. Hussey having failed to apply for an extension of his 1833 patent early enough, a bill was introduced in Congress with an extension in view. In some correspondence between Mr. Hussey and the Hon. H. May an enclosure is found reading as follows:

[Sidenote: Mr. Hussey's Defense]

"During the examination of my case in the Committee-room on the 21st inst. you asked me a question, and accompanied it with a remark to the effect 'Why could I not raise a company in Baltimore with sufficient capital and make as many machines as Howard & Co. and compete with them on equal ground? The excitement of the occasion disqualified me for giving a full reply to your question and remarks. I was at the time so impressed with the injustice and the great hards.h.i.+p of being compelled to compete with the world for what of right belonged to myself exclusively that I had not the words to express my feelings. Could any gentleman look back twenty-one years and see me combating the prejudices of the farmers, and exerting the most intense labor of body and mind, and continuing to do so from year to year, at the very door of poverty, and also look back on those New York parties through the same period, acc.u.mulating wealth by the usual course of business, and perhaps watching my progress, and waiting for the proper moment to step in with their money power and grasp the lion's share of the prize which justly belongs to myself. If they could look back on the circ.u.mstances and comprehend the case in all its reality and truth I should have no fear of a just decision by the Committee in the House of Representatives. The Government which can tolerate and uphold such a state of things would appear to me to be a hard Government.

"The end and design of the Patent Laws was to reward the inventor for a valuable invention by giving him the exclusive right to make and vend the article which he had invented and fourteen years was deemed a sufficient time in which to secure that reward. The telegraph was perfect on its first trial. It required no improvement. On the contrary, half the wire was dispensed with. The Government was at the cost of trying the experiment and has since heaped wealth on the inventor. My fourteen years were required in perfecting my invention without any return for time and labor. (The finis.h.i.+ng touch to his cutting apparatus is, no doubt here referred to, and shown in his patent of 1847.)

[Sidenote: Mr. Hussey's Protest]

"Public opinion on the subject of valuable inventions is liberal until an obscure individual appears in the community claiming the reward for a valuable invention; the disposition then seems to be to let him shrink into a corner. The world has got the advantage of his labors and has no further use for him; every unreasonable man in the community will at once claim an equal right with the inventor of the device and one not content to urge their claims by misrepresentation but must heap abuses on the poor inventor who they have in a great measure pushed out of their way. The idea that a wise Government, of an enlightened country, can not only look on and suffer such injustice but will actually encourage it by disregarding the prayers of the poor inventor is a mystery to those who build their hopes on the dogma that '_Truth is mighty and will prevail_.' I hope the Committee will not pa.s.s lightly over my case but duly consider, as I believe they will, to whom the advantages of this invention belongs, whether to me or to the parties in New York. My chief aim in addressing this to you is to endeavor to draw a parallel between myself and the parties in New York, and thereby secure your good opinion in my favor."

[Sidenote: Farmers Using Hussey Reaper]

Edward Stabler, on January 11, 1854, wrote to Hon. Henry May as follows:

"As requested I have examined the pet.i.tions of the 450 farmers who advocate the extension of Hussey's patent and from a personal acquaintance or by character with much larger portion in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, and on reliable information of those from New York--234 in number--I am satisfied that they are wheat-growers to an amount of not less than from four to 500,000 bushels annually. * * * They used Hussey's reaper, and some of them three and four, or more of these great labor-saving implements."

Mr. Edward Stabler writes to Henry May, under date March 19, 1854:

"The most that I fear is that Hussey's interests (which all appear willing to admit is a meritorious case) may suffer in the contests that I am satisfied will take place with regard to Moore & Haskell's and McCormick's extensions. I should be greatly pleased, and have stronger hopes if Hussey's case could be acted on promptly and before that contest begins.

"On the ground of its having been so long and so favorably reported on, by the Senate's Committee in '48--six years next May, possibly it could be called up at an earlier date,--the sooner the better, to avoid compet.i.tion from interested parties, and which I certainly antic.i.p.ate if long delayed in either House of Congress. Honestly believing the cause just and right, for no fee, however large, could tempt me to advocate what I thought unjust or wrong, I shall persevere as long as there is ground for hope. If we fail I shall have pleasing reflections, doing unto others as you would that they under similar circ.u.mstances should do unto you."

Mr. Edward Stabler, on February 5, 1854, wrote to J. A. Pierce, member of one of the Committees, a letter from which the following is extracted:

[Sidenote: Mr. Hussey's Character and Service]

"I will, however, preface my remarks by saying that I have no connection whatever with his business operations nor pecuniary interest in his affairs, but being well acquainted with him I am free to say, that I have known no man on whose word I have placed more implicit reliance, no one more honestly ent.i.tled to what he asks for.

"He has faithfully devoted the prime of his life, and no small portion of it either, in the invention and the perfecting of the reaping and mowing machine; and his untiring perseverance has certainly been crowned with success so far as to confer a signal and lasting benefit on his country; but unfortunately he has derived no corresponding advantage for himself, and from no fault on his part.

[Sidenote: Opinion of an Able Mechanic]

[Sidenote: Mr. Stabler's Testimony]

"While C. H. McCormick has literally fattened on the agricultural public by the sale of his inferior and cheaply made machines--for such I do consider them, both from my own observations and the report to me by those who have been induced to purchase them--Hussey has been pirated on from all quarters, and others reaping the reward of his labors. And I perceive by the papers on file, and accompanying the printed report (No.

16) that this same C. H. McCormick has actually pet.i.tioned against the renewal of Hussey's patent. It is really a very hard case, that a poor man and one of the most deserving in the community in every sense of the term, should thus fail of a just reward when he has done so much for the benefit of others. * * * Believing as I do that the extension is no more than sheer justice to Obed Hussey,--quite equal in merit to any that has been granted,--as one of the _most meritorious_ in the language of the Committee, I do most earnestly solicit thy kind aid and influence to get it through the Senate. * * * He was then (and still is) a comparatively poor man; without the means from his limited sales to extend his business in a profitable manner or to protect his known and acknowledged rights from the depredations of others. His shops--and I speak from personal knowledge--are for the most part dilapidated sheds--too confined and cramped up to do any part of his work to the best advantage, and from a personal knowledge speaking as a practical machinist of some 25 years experience, I do know that his profits are far less than some other machine makers--not the half of what is usually supposed.

[Sidenote: The Two Machines Compared]

"Take, for example, the machines as usually made by Obed Hussey and C. H.

McCormick--for I am familiar with both; owing to the quality of the work, costs of material and arrangement of the mechanism, _two_ of McCormick's can be made by him for little or no more than the cost to Hussey of _one_ of his. Such, too, is the statement on oath of competent men employed by both manufacturers. McCormick's foreman and clerk have sworn (see pet.i.tion from New York against his extension) that his machines are made for some $35 to $40 each. Any man who will undertake to make and sell Hussey machines as he makes them for much less than double this sum, will soon beg his bread if he depends on his profits to buy it, unless he _cheats_ his hands out of _their_ part."

A postscript is added, which reads:

"I should have made no allusion to C. H. McCormick or to his machines, had he not volunteered by pet.i.tion to injure his rival--in my opinion a most worthy, reliable and deserving man--and I would add that in my estimation the two machines differ just about as widely as the two men."

We may a.s.sume that Mr. Hussey must have begun on his large machine late in 1832, or early in 1833, at latest. During the early part of the harvest of 1833 he was in the field. "The machine was started," Stabler tells us, "but owing to some part giving way, or some slight defect not apparent until then, it at first failed to work satisfactorily. One burly fellow present picked up a reaping cradle and, swinging it with an air of great exultation, exclaimed, 'This is the machine to cut the wheat!'" Another account charges the breakage to a fractious team.

[Sidenote: Mr. Hussey's Triumph]

"After the jeers and merriment of the crowd had somewhat subsided, the inventor remedied the defect, and a.s.sisted by the laborers present--the horses having been removed--pulled the machine to the top of an adjacent hill; when, alone, he drew the machine down the hill and through the standing grain, when it cut every head clean in its track. The same machine was directly afterwards exhibited before the Hamilton County Agricultural Society near Carthage, on the 2nd day of July, 1833."

The secretary of the Society wrote an exceedingly favorable report. The group of spectators present at this trial drew up a testimonial that was very favorable indeed. On July 2, 1833, then, we are warranted in saying, the problem that had so long exercised the minds of inventors was solved.

[Sidenote: The Hussey Reaper in the Field]

[Sidenote: Public Tests]

Fortunately Mr. Hussey was not as easily discouraged as many. He, no doubt, felt chagrined that his machine had broken down, but had the pluck then and there to make an effort to close the hooting mouths, and fully succeeded. In 1834 other machines were put out. We learn from the Genesee Farmer, dated December 6, 1834, that Mr. Hussey, the inventor of a machine for harvesting wheat, had left in the village one of his machines for the purpose of giving the farmers an opportunity to test its value. During the harvest of 1834 it was operated in the presence of hundreds of farmers with most satisfactory results. We next find Mr.

Hussey at Palmyra, Mo., on July 6, 1835, with two of his machines, at the farm of his old friend, Edwin G. Pratt. The machine "excited much attention, and its performance was highly satisfactory." The results of the trials were published in the "Missouri Courrier" in August or September of 1835. The machines were sold for $150 each. A Mr. Muldrow bought another kind of machine, however, in which the cutting was done by a "whirling wheel" and paid $500 for it. In 1836 Mr. Hussey was in Maryland, at the written solicitation of the Board of Trustees of the Maryland Agricultural Society. The fame of his reaping machines in the state of New York, and the far West, had spread, "though with something like a snail's pace," as new things did two-thirds of a century ago. The machine was operated at Oxford, Talbot County, on the 1st of July, in the presence of the Board and a considerable number of other gentlemen.

Its performance was perfect, as it cut every spear of grain, collected it in bunches of the proper size for sheaves and laid it straight and even for the binder. On the 12th of July a public exhibition was made at Easton, under the direction of the Board; several hundred persons, princ.i.p.ally farmers, being present. This same machine was sold to Mr.

Tench Tilghman, for whom it cut 180 acres of wheat, oats and barley during that season. The report of the Board of Trustees of the Maryland Agricultural Society stated that "three mules of medium size worked in it constantly with as much ease as in a drag harrow. They moved with equal facility in a walk or trot." In 1837 the machines were sold in various parts of the country. One at Hornewood, Md., one at West River, and several others throughout the state. One of the machines sold in 1838 to the St. George's and Appoquinomick Ag. Society cut several hundred acres of grain, up to 1845, and was then in good repair. In all this time the cost for repairs was only 1-1/4c per acre. The popularity of the machine became so p.r.o.nounced that other inventors were given courage, and those who before had failed were prompted to pick up their work where they had dropped it or begin on newer lines.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Silver medal awarded to Mr. Hussey for the Reaper at Baltimore in 1845.]

[Sidenote: A Hussey-McCormick Contest]

In 1843 we find that Hussey's machine was in a field-contest with one brought in by Cyrus H. McCormick of Rockbridge County, Va. We say brought in, because the claim that it was in fact invented and made by _Robert McCormick_ seems to be quite well founded. (Memorial of Robert McCormick.) The contest took place on the farm of a Mr.

Hutchinson, about four miles above the city of Richmond. Mr. Hussey had, for a number of years, been building two sizes of machines, and at the first day's trial was obliged to use a small one because his only large machine within reach was elsewhere occupied. The majority of the self-appointed committee of bystanders reported in favor of McCormick's machine, but Mr. Roane, one of them, who signed very reluctantly, later bought a Hussey machine. A few days after, at Tree Hill, Mr. Hussey was present with his large machine.

In the "American Farmer" was soon after published a letter from Mr.

Roane, dated January 23, 1844, to Mr. Hussey, in which, among other things, he says:

[Sidenote: Mr. Roane's Letter]