death_date birth_place nationality fields birth_date known_for residence image article_title name
november 15 , 1891 -lrb- age 70 -rrb- middlefield , connecticut american inventor 29 march 1821 the first rotary can opener meriden , connecticut wwlyman.jpg william lyman -lrb- inventor -rrb-
 william worcester lyman
william lyman -lrb- inventor -rrb-

william worcester lyman -lrb- march 29 , 1821 -- nov 15 , 1891 -rrb- was an american inventor from meriden , connecticut .
he is credited with inventing the first rotating wheel can opener .
william lyman was born in 1821 in middlefield , connecticut .
at the age of 15 he was apprenticed to the local company griswold & couch , located in meriden , connecticut , to learn pewtersmithery , and worked there until 1844 .
after that , he continued working as a pewtersmith with various local companies until 1880 .
in 1849 , he was appointed as state representative in meriden .
on september 5 , 1841 william married roxanne griswold frary , a local woman one year older than he was .
he died in meriden in 1891 at the age of 70 .
lyman was a dedicated inventor , and was awarded several us patents .
the most famous is his rotating wheel can opener , invented in 1870 .
whereas previous can openers were basically variations of a knife , lyman 's design was the first attempt to facilitate the procedure -lrb- see picture -rrb- .
the can was to be pierced in its center with the sharp metal rod of the opener .
then the length of the lever had to be adjusted to fit the can size , and the lever fixed with the wingnut .
the top of the can was cut by pressing the cutting wheel into the can near the edge and rotating it along the can 's rim .
the need to pierce the can first was a nuisance , and this can opener design has not survived .
in 1925 , a modern-style opener , equipped with an additional serrated wheel , was invented to substitute for lyman 's design .
his other patents were dedicated to improvements to various household food utensils such as a refrigerating pitcher -lrb- 1858 -rrb- , fruit can lids -lrb- 1862 -rrb- , tea and coffee pots , and a butter-dish .
as an example illustrating the nature of those improvements , lyman 's fruit can lid relied on the physical principle that hot food placed in a jar and then allowed to cool would suck down the lid , provided with an elastic rim inside , thereby sealing the can .
