Walter Hunt
Walter Hunt
Born	29 July 1796(1796-07-29)
Died	8 June 1859 (aged 62)
Nationality	United States
Occupation	inventor
Known for	fountain pen sewing machine safety pin flax streetcar bell hard-coal-burning stove street sweeping machinery, velocipede ice plough

Walter Hunt (1796–1859) was an American mechanic. He lived and worked in New York state. Through the course of his work he became renowned for being a prolific inventor, notably of the sewing machine (1833), safety pin (1849), a forerunner of the Winchester repeating rifle, a successful flax spinner, knife sharpener, streetcar bell, hard-coal-burning stove, artificial stone, street sweeping machinery, the velocipede, and the ice plough^[1].

Hunt did not realize the significance of a good load of these when he invented them; today, many are widely-used products. He thought little of the safety pin, selling the patent for a paltry sum of $400 (roughly $10,000 in 2008 dollars)^[2] to the company W R Grace and Company, to pay a man to whom he owed $15. He failed to patent his sewing machine at all, because he feared that it would create unemployment among seamstresses. (This led to an 1854 court case when the machine was re-invented by Elias Howe; but with Hunt's machine shown to have design flaws limiting its practical use). Like Howe, Hunt is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

Some of his important inventions are shown here with drawings from the patent.

Fountain pin Patent 4927	Safety pin Patent 6281	Nail making machine Patent 3305	Sewing machine Patent 11,161
Swivel-Cap Stopper Patent 9,527	Inkstand Patent 4221	Firing cock repeating gun Patent 6663	Ice Boat Patent 958

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Marshall Cavendish Corporation, Inventors and inventions. New York : Marshall Cavendish, 2007. ISBN 9780761477617, p. 845 ff.
• Hunt, Clinton N. Walter Hunt, American inventor. New York: C. N. Hunt, 1935. OCLC 250585694
• Kane, Joseph Nathan. Necessity's child : the story of Walter Hunt, Americaʼs forgotten inventor, Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland, 1997. ISBN 9780786402793

[edit] External links

• Walter Hunt at Find a Grave

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