Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1867-06-11
THE SEWING MACHINE.

ten oy ZIG oiVSEaPueE, aEIoui auu iAow
it we condense the following. Elias
Howe is the name Of the man to whom
belongs the credit, and the now legally
awarded profit, Of inventing the great
point" in the sewing machine; he 1t was
who first saw that it was necessary to
put the eye in the point Of the needle.
His attention was turned to this subject
by overwhelming q conversation in the
nauticle instrument shop Of Ari Davis,
in Boston, in 1889. A knitting machine
the topic of conversation, when
Ari broke forth with: "What are you
bothesipg yourselves with a knitting
machine for? Why don't you make a
sewing machine?" az wish could"
said a capitalist who was present shut
it can't be done" go, yes, it cam"
said Ari, ~ can make . sewing machine
myself" ."well," said the capitalist,
"you do it and I'll insure your indie
pendence." Ari never attempted to
mako o sewing machine; but a listener,
Elias Howe, kept all these words in his
mind. From that time he was "bent"
on making q sewing machine. Howe
was born in Spencer, Massachusetts,, in
1919. His father was a farmer and a
miller. At six years Of age, Howe
worked with his brothers at sticking the
wire teeth into strips OF leather for
sscxrds" used in the manufacture OF
cotton. He is described a, a ''careless,
play-loving boy" At eleven he went
to "live out" on q farm, but the work
proved too heavy for him, and he re-
turned to his fathers house. In 1885
he went to Lowell, and obtained a learn
er's place in a large mandatory OF
cotton machinery. There he remained
until 1887, when he went TO Cambridge,
and found employment in a large ma
chine shop. There he worked in the
same shop and boarded in the same
house with y. P. Banks. In a few
months thereafter he found employment
a, the shop of Ari Davis. Judging mere
~ BY appearances, no n would have
pitched upon hin as the person likely to
make one Of the revolutionizing inven-
tions of the age. Understood, curley-
headed, and exceedingly fond of his
joke, be was at 20 more a boy than a
man." At 81 he married. In ls+3 he
set about the actual work Of ~inyenting
the machine. Many months were vast
ed on q false scent. At first he only
thought Of inventing a machine which
should do what he saw his wife doing,
when she sewed. His first device wa a
needle pointed at both ends, with the
eye in the middle, that should work up
and down through the cloth, and carry
the thread through it ct each thrust.
Long time he "brooded over this plan"
One day, in 1874, the thought flashed
upon him: " Is il necessary that q ma
chine should initiate the performance by
the hand? May there not be another
stitch I" "This was tho crisis of the
invention" In October, ~, he con
vipced himself, BY a rough model Of
wood and wire, that a machine would
sew that used two threads and formed a
stitch BY the aid OF a shuttle and a
curved needle, with the eye near the
point. At that time Howe was very
poo and his father was unable to help
him. A young friend and schoolmate
living at Cambridge, by the name Of
Geo. Fisher, who had recently inherited
some property, agreed to advance $500,
and support Howe and his family, while
the inventor made n of his machines
in his (Fisher's) garnet. All the winter
OF ~ and AS, Howe worked at his ma
chine. In July, he sewed by his ma
chine all the seams Of two suits of wool
en- clothes, one suit for Mr.. Fisher, and
the other for himself, the sewing of both
Of which outla,ted the cloth. This
/" first sewing machine" after crossing
the ocean many times, and after appear
ing pioneer witness" in court,
may still be seen at Howe's Office, in
New York, where it still sews
seams in cloth at the rate of 300 stitches
. minute. 1t goes into a box Of the
capacity Of q cubic foo' and a half. IL
is agreed by all that Howe in his FIRST
manufacture, carried his invention Of
the sewing machine farther on toward
its complete and final utility than any
inventor has ever brought a first
rate invention at the first trial. The
journsymeu tailors opposed the intro
duction Of the machine into general use,
As they insisted that it must necessarily
reduce the whole fraternity Of tailors to
beggary. For two weeks, Howe sat in
one Of the rooms Of the Quincy Hall
clothing ~manufactury, in Boston, and
offered to sew up any seam that might be
brought to him. "0ne unbelieving
tailor after another brought a garment,
and saw its long seams sewed perfectly,
at the rate of two hundred and fifty
stitches a minute,-seven times faster
than the work could be done by hand"
He won a wager, that he could sew with
his machine faster than FIVE Of the fast
est sewing girls of the city, and his work
was decided by the umpire to be the neat
est and strongest. But not a machine was
ordered. Not a tailor encouraged him
by word or deed. Howe made another
machine, and took out a patent in Sep
TENDER 1886. But Geo. Fisher had be-
come discoursged-had "lost confidence
in the machines ever paying anything"
Dc had advanced upwards Of $4,000.
America having rejected the invention
Howe resolved to offer it to England"
In October 1886, his brother, Amasa B.
lava "a