The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1903-11-06
GREAT INVENTION
MADE HIM WEALTHY
Gordon Mckay, Who RevoIu-
tionized Shoemaking, Has
just Died.
BY MACHINES
Harvard Will Get Four Millions of the
Great Fortune That His Great
Royalties Earned-kind-
ness to Young Wife.

Newport, r. l., cpecial: Gordon Nc
Kay, the millionaire inventor and the
man who ~revolutionized the shoe
making industry, is dead at his home
here. Mr.. Mckay was 80 years of age.
The end came today after a long ILL
ness. Mr.. McKay's chief invention was
the ShoeSewing machine.
With the death of Mr.. Mckay, Har-
ward university will come into an in
heritance by his will of a sum said to
amount to 50, 900, 900. Mr.. Mckay made
up his mind more than ten years ago
to give the bulk of his fortune to Har-
ward. He was moved to this act out
of regard for Professor Shaler of Har-
ward, and also from the fact that he
formerly lived in Cambridge, perfect
ing there the greatest of his Inventions.
The money was placed in a trust fund
for Harvard in 1893, and to go into the
treasury of the university upon it's
donor death. Mr.. Mckay recently
gav a large tract of land and a build
ing at Kingston, r. l., for the education
Of young negroes, which Is called the
Mckay institute.
He Sold Stock to Poor Folks.
Mr.. Mckay moved from Cambridge
to this city, occupying a fine villa in
Marine avenue His inventions revo-
~lutionized the boot and shoe industry.
He peddled he stock of his first cor
pOratiOn from dOor to door among the
friends and acquaintance in the Berk-
shire town of Pittsfield, where he was
born in 1921; among the cotton work
ers Of Lawrence and Lowell, where h
had managed machine shops, and
among the whaling population of New
Bedford, and when the first dividend
was declared the holders of those shares
found themselves already wealthy,
with assurance of still greater accumu-
lations.
He compelled every man, woman and
child who wore an American-made shoe
to pay tribute to him. 1t was only a
wee bit OF a tax-from - cent to a
cents a pair-but it enabled him to live
in the most luxurious style of modern
m~illionaires, giving literally to educa-
tonal institutions and make princely
gifts to friends
Mr.. McKay's father was a cotton
manufacturer, and when he died the
1~2-year-old boy set himself to learn
civil engineering, and earned his first
wages in that capacity on western rail-
ways and canals. He had a love for
mechanics, n as a youth built a ma
chine shop in his native town, in which
his 100 or more men did all sorts Of
jobbing for cotton and paper mills.
His Civil War Offer.
When the shoe-sewing machine
made by Inventor L.. r. Blake Of
Abingdon, failed to work, Mckay was
the one practical man who foresaW its
possibilities, bought the patents, put In
some automatic devices here and there,
and changed the feeding apparatus I'M
til the machine did it's work with all
the Intelligence and perfection of
trained humanity. Then he took to
himself as a helpmate in his inventive
enterprise Robert H. Mathees, a prac-
teal fellow with original ideas, and
when the war broke out in 1861 Nc
Kay was ready to offer the government
what no other man on earth could do
the making of army shoes by ma
chinery in his factories in Raynham
and Pennington, N. H.
His Young Wife Divorced.
Mr.. Mckay had fine residences in
Littlef1eld, Cambridge and Boston, and
: magnificent mansion in Washington,
o which he tool Miss Minnie Treat.
the young bride Of his old age, upon
whom he lavished every luxury that
money could purchase.
When she had obtained a divorce he
kept on giving her $4,000 a year for
spending money, and sending her cost
ly fruits and flowers, rare gems and
other expensive gifts, and when she
married Baron Adolph Won Bruening
he sent her a check Of such magnif-
cence that it became the gossip Of the
world.
He donated literally to Harvard col
lege, to his native town and to various
institutions.
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