AN INTIRELY NEW METHOD OF MAKING AND CONSTRUCTING, ON MECHANICAL PRINCIPLES, WAGGONS, WAINS, CARTS, AND OTHER WHEEL CARRIAGES, AND ROLLERS FOR ROADS, TILLED LANDS, WALKS AND GARDENS, WHICH, WITHOUT ANY HORSES OR OTHER CATTLE, AND WITH A VERY MODERATE AND ALMOST INCONSIDERABLE HUMAN FORCE
Year: 1757

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOHN
LADD, of Trowbridge, in the County of Wilts, Surveyor and Dealer in Timber,
send greeting.
WHEREAS I, the said John Ladd, having found out and invented " AN
INTIRELY NEW METHOD OF MAKING AND CONSTRUCTING, ON MECHANICAL PRINCIPLES,
WAGGONS, WAINS, CARTS, AND OTHER WHEEL CARRIAGES, AND ROLLERS FOR ROADS,
TILLED LANDS, WALKS AND GARDENS, WHICH, WITHOUT ANY HORSES OR OTHER CATTLE,
AND WITH A VERY MODERATE AND ALMOST INCONSIDERABLE HUMAN FORCE, WILL MOVE
ROLLERS OF ANY SIZE, HITHERTO MADE USE OF IN TURNPIKE ROADS, TILLED LANDS
WALKS, OR GARDENS, AND WILL MOVE AND CARRY FROM PLACE TO PLACE GREAT
WEIGHTS IN SUCH WAGGONS, WAINS, CARTS, OR OTHER WHEEL CARRIAGES IN ANY
DOCKYARDS, WHARFS, QUAYS, TIMBER YARDS, OR OTHER PLACES WHERE THERE ARE
NOT VERY GREAT AND STEEP ASCENTS, AND WILL MOVE THE SAME OR LIKE WEIGHTS IN
VERY HILLY PLACES AND PUBLICK ROADS AND HIGHWAYS, WITH THE ADDITION ONLY
OF A MUCH LESS NUMBER OF HORSES OR OTHER CATTLE THAN ARE NOW USED FOR
DRAWING THE SAME WEIGHTS IN THE COMMON ROADS AND HIGHWAYS; WHICH
MECHANISM IS ALSO DESIGNED FOR AND WILL BE OF GREAT USE IN COACHES, CHARIOTS,
CARAVANS, AND OTHER SUCH LIKE CARRIAGES, AND OTHER PURPOSES, AND WILL BE
VERY USEFULL AND CONVENIENT TO MANY OR MOST OF HIS MAJESTY'S SUBJECTS," His
Majesty has been graciously pleased to grant unto me, my executors, adminis-
trators, and assigns, His most gracious Letters Patent under the Great Seal of
Great Britain, bearing date the Ninth day of April instant, for the sole making,
uttering, and vending, my said Invention in manner therein mentioned, for the
term of fourteen years, according to the Statute in that case made and pro-

page_text: vided; in which said Letters Patent is contained a proviso that if I, the
said John Ladd, shall not particularly describe and ascertain the nature of
my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, by an
instrument in writing under my hand and seal, and cause the same to be
inrolled within the time and in manner therein mentioned, the said Letters
Patents shall cease and be void, as in and by the said Letters Patent, relation
being thereunto had, may more fully appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said John Ladd, in compliance with the
said recited proviso, do hereby describe, ascertain, and declare my said Invention
to be, and the same is and is to be performed in manner herein-after set forth,
(that is to say)
The said Invention is, two or more wheels, with leaves or teeth on the cir-
cumference of cach of such wheels, and a chain or chains, all constructed after
an intirely new-invented fashion, as hereafter and in Figure 1 and Figure 2 in
the Drawings hereunto annexed are described and delineated, with or without
friction rollers to the said chain and to the axle or axles of wheel carriages
and other engines, as hereafter described or delineated; all which wheels to
be used for all the purposes to which the said Invention is to be used or may
be applied, whether they be lesser or larger, are to have leaves or teeth of the
shape a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, in the said Figure 2, fitted to the openings of the
said chain, and the substance or the spokes of one of the said wheels, having
such leaves or teeth, is to be fixed to or upon the nave of one of the common
wheels, which in waggons, carts, and all other wheel carriages are to carry the
weights, as in Figure 4 hereunto also annexed, and will become or may be
considered to be in the nature of what learned mechanicks call an axis in pe-
ritrochio to the said wheel to which it is so fixed, and there must be one other
of such wheels with like leaves or teeth on the outside of the circumference
thereof, which on the nave thereof must have a lesser wheel with like leaves
or teeth on the outside also of its circumference, fitted to another chain, which
last-mentioned lesser wheel will become, or may be considered also as an axis
in peritrochio to the greater wheel thereto it is to be fixed. And to the spindle
or arbour of such last-mentioned wheel may be applied a common winch, to be
turned by a man, as is usually done in draw-wells and malts mills, who with
common labour at such winch will have power to move great weights with
much greater facility than has hitherto been praticed; and by the addition of
one or more wheel or wheels, and chain or chains of the like sort, either with
or without one or more winch or winches, may be occasionally applied only
when wanted; still vastly greater and immenso weights may be moved and
carried on any ground hard enough to bear the same, with a much less force

page_text: or strengh than has been usual; and the same mechanism, wheels, and chain,
with a winch or other instrument, to put the same in motion, is intended for,
and may be applied to, coal pitts, mines, draw-wells, mills, cranes, or
other engines for lifting, raising, moving, or drawing weights in & about
wharfs, quays, warehouses, or elsewhere, and in most sorts of millwork, and
other purposes. The said new chain is to be made in links, as delineated in
Figure 1 in the said annexed Drawing, the profile or side whereof is also
delineated or shewn in Figure 2 in the said Annexation, which links may be
perhaps best joyned together by a smooth well-hardened spindle, rivetted or
otherwise made fast at each end, on which all the said links may easily move,
and which will operate better and more easily by having a roller of bell metall
or other hard metall, running on each spindle or rivet in the middle, and
between either side of cach iink at k, l, m, n, o, in the said Figure 1, by
means of which rollers the friction will be greatly lessened, which chain must
have no ends, but one of the said chains being of a proper length must be
put on or over the leaves or teeth of a lesser and of a larger of such
wheels as are before described, as in Figure 3 in the said annexed Drawing, so
that then any one or more winch or winches being turned, the whole mechanism
will be put into motion, and in the application or use of the said Invention to
or in wheel carriages and rollers, or other engines turning on a pevett, gudgeon,
or axis, the addition of friction wheels to the axle or axles of such carriges and
rollers and other engines after the manner delineated in Figure 8 and Figure 9
in the said Drawing annexed, will in some degree facilitate the motion of such
wheel carriages, and rollers and engines. The said Invention may be disposed in
almost any form to all sorts of wheel carriages and engines, either as in Figure 4
in the said Annexation, or otherwise. And the position or disposition of the
wheels of the said Invention doth not anywise impede or affect the due operation
of the mechanism thereof; and although one such chain or chains and wheels
with axis in peritrochio, will, with a considerable inferior power or strength,
raise, move, and carry much greater weights than are usually raised, moved, and
carried by any other methods now used, yet my Invention is that where
necessity or occasion requires, two or more such chains with wheels are to be
and may be added; and such addition, although the celerity of the motion be
thereby abated, will proportionably increase the power, so that the use or
exertion of the same strength or force will move, carry, or raise weights still
vastly greater. And my said Invention may also be and is to be applied to
coaches, chariots, chaises, and other carriages for pleasure, and for stage
coaches, caravans, and other carriages for passengers, constructed after the
usual and common forms and methods, but may have advantages something

page_text: greater if the wheels which are to bear, support, or carry such carriages to
which the said Invention is to be added, and the axles thereof are constructed
after the manner delineated or described in Figure 5 in the said Drawings
annexed, the section whereof is delineated or described in Figur 6 in the
said Annexation, either with or without friction wheels or rollers, as in the said
Figure 6; and all the other parts of my said Invention, not herein-before
described, are also described and delineated in the several Figures 7, 8, 9, 10,
11, and 12, in the said annexed Drawings, the said Figure 7 being such a
slider or slipper as is proper to be used in such wheel carriages as require
sliders to the arbour or spindle of the pinion, whereof an handle or leaves is
to be fixed to turn or guide the said slider, and will thereby lock the carriage
for the better convenience of turning the said carriage. The said Figure 8 is
an axletrec, one end of which is round, and the other end thereof is square, by
means whereof carriages heavy laden will turn with greater facility; and to
such axletrees are fixed friction wheels in a new method, as delineated in the
said Figure 8, which will ease the axletree of the weight at the shoulders of the
said axletree, particularly on uneven ground. The said Figure 9 is an axle-
tree with shoulders or flanches, which shoulders or flanches may in some
degree answer the intention of an axletrec, especially where there are no very
great or steep ascents, or when the weights are not immensely great. The
said Figures 10, 11, and 12, are a new method of placing or applying friction
wheels (which is also a part of my said Invention) to rollers, gudgeons of mill
wheels, shafts, spindles, arbours, or other axes or axletrees that move horizon-
tally, which will effectually take off or abate one eighth part at least of the
friction of such gudgeons, shafts, spindles, arbours, axes, or axletrees, and save
them much longer from wearing out, by reason the said gudgeons, shafts,
spindles, arbours, axes, or axletrees, will, where such friction wheels are used,
bear on the said friction wheels only. The manner of applying or using the said
friction wheels with wheel carriages of all sorts, rollers, and other engines what-
soever, whereunto the mechanism of my said Invention is applicable (and which
also a new Invention), is by fixing two friction wheels in a box of iron, or
other hard metal, one of such boxes being fixed or placed at each side of the
is carriage or roller, or in such place or part of or near the said engine, so that
both ends of every axis or axletree, gudgeon, shaft, arbour, or spindle, of every
such carriage or engine, may bear on the outside or circumference of two of
the said friction wheels, the said Figure 10 being a representation of the
outside of one side of the said box, and the said Figure 12 being a repre-
sentation of the inside of one side of the said box. The said friction wheels
to be in such positions as delineated or described in the said Figure 12, the

page_text: letters y, z,
in the said Figure 12 being or representing one end or flat part of
the said friction wheels, with their pevetts in the centers, which pevets are to
rest or bear upon holes in the said box at the said centers; and the letter x,
in the said Figure 12, being or representing the hole in the said box, through
which, on each side of the said box, the end or point of each of the said gud-
geons, shafts, spindles, arbours, axes, or axletrees of the said wheel carriages,
rollers, or other engines should pass, and have room or length to move or
play horizontally; and the hole in the other end of the said box through which
the said gudgeons, shafts, spindles, arbours, axes, or axletrees should pass, and
have likewise room or length to move or play horizontally; and also the holes
whereon or wherein the pevets of the said friction wheels are to rest and work
are shewn or delineated also in the said Figure 10, at the same letters x, y, z,
respectively, exactly answering to the same in the said Figure 12. And the
Figure 11 shews or represents the section or end of one of the said boxes, and
one of the said two friction wheels to be fixed in each box, with its proper
shaft or spindle. And in the said Figure 11 are delineated also bolts and
nutts, whereby the said boxes may be fixed to any carriage or engine, and the
ends of the barrs and bolts which may be proper to hold or keep the two sides
of each box together. By Figure 13 in the said annexed Drawing is shewn
or set forth a plain and easie manner of applying the said Invention properly
to a crane, or to any other engine for raising great weights. And the said
Invention may be in the same or in almost any other manner applied to almost
every sort of millwork and clockwork, and to all sorts of cranes or other en-
gines whatsoever, for moving great weights, or to any sort of engine or machine
having or using an axis in peritrochio, and may be worked by a winch, crank,
waterwheel, dogwheel, horse or horses, man or men; and by the addition of
the number of such new-invented wheels and chains the force may be increased
so as to raise or draw immense weights.
In witness whereof, I, the said John Ladd, have hereunto set my hand and
seal, the Twenty-ninth day of April, in the thirtieth year of the reign
of our Sovereign Lord George the Second, by the grace of God of
Great Britain, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, &c.,
and in the year of our Lord One thousand seven hundred and fifty-
Coton

page_text: DWARDS.
AND BE IT REMEMBRED, that on the Twenty-ninth day of April, in
the year above written, the aforesaid John Ladd came before our said Lord
the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Writing aforesaid, and every
matter and thing therein contained and specified, in form above said. And
the said Writing was stamped according to the Statute made in the sixth year
of the reign of the late King William and Queen Mary, and so forth.
Inrolled the Thirtieth day of April, in the thirtieth year of the reign