Denied a patent extension
From the Richmond Daily Dispatch October 29, 1861:
Non-extension of M’Cormick’s reaper patent.
The Commissioner of Patents has declared adversely on McCormick’s application for the extension of his reaper patent of 1847, for the following reasons:
1. 1st. That the invention is one of great utility and importance to the public.
2. 2d. That the sums already received by Mr. McCormick and the sums he is entitled to receive from infringements, together amount to an adequate remuneration, and therefore the patent should not be extended.
The parties residing in the State of New York and opposing the extension, were represented by Judge Dewitt, C. Lawrence, and Robert W. Fenwick, of Washington City.
Sketch from 1845 patent of an improved grain reaper by Cyrus Hall McCormick.
Cyrus McCormick was not the sole inventor of the mechanical reaper, but he and his family helped develop it. Patent controversies were a part of the story of reaper development. Civil War connection? I’m guessing, but it seems like it’s a tale of two inventions. Eli Whitney was a Northerner who invented the cotton gin, which made cotton a great cash crop for the United States, but “King Cotton” made the South much more dependent on slavery. Cyrus McCormick was a Virginian. The McCormick family business took off as it moved to Chicago, which was closer to the huge, flat, fertile ground in the Midwest and Plains. The reaper seems to have helped (along with railroads, canals, etc.) the North more than the South because it freed up more laborers for manufacturing.
Could we suspend gravity for a while?
