Occupation inventor | Name Walter Hunt Role Inventor | |
 | ||
Known for fountain pensewing machinesafety pinflaxstreetcar bellhard-coal-burning stovestreet sweeping machinery,velocipedeice plough Died June 8, 1859, New York, United States Similar People Elias Howe, Barthelemy Thimonnier, Isaac Singer, Josef Madersperger, Cyrus McCormick | ||
Walter Hunt (July 29, 1796 – June 8, 1859) was an American mechanic. He was born in Martinsburg, New York. Through the course of his work he became renowned for being a prolific inventor, notably of the lockstitch 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, and the ice plough.
Walter Hunt did not realize the significance of many of these when he invented them; today, many are widely used products. He thought little of the safety pin, selling the patent for $400 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 it would create unemployment among seamstresses. (This led to an 1854 court case when the machine was re-invented by Elias Howe; Hunt's machine shown to have design flaws limiting its practical use). In seeking patents for his inventions, Hunt used the services of Charles Grafton Page, a patent solicitor who had previously worked at the US Patent Office. 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.