A. H. Patch

A. H. Patch (November 18, 1825 – January 29, 1909) was an American businessman, inventor, and manufacturer from Hamilton, Massachusetts. He is remembered for inventing pole-mounted corn sheller and "Black Hawk Corn Sheller."

Life and career

A. H. Patch was born Asahel Huntington Patch on November 18, 1825, in Hamilton, Massachusetts, to Captain Danial and Elisabeth Gould Patch. To support himself and the family, he assumed responsibilities feeding the poultry on the family farm at an early age. When he was still in his teens, he walked to Boston, Massachusetts, and started work in a grocery store, where he delivered groceries, swept the store, and slept under the counter.

He was then hired by a local businessman, Oliver Ames, to work in his Worcester factory. By the end of the three years, Patch was the factory superintendent. 

In the early 1850s, Patch traveled to Louisville, Kentucky, where he was hired first by Miller and Wingate and then a large seed and implement company. He interested these owners in developing a grass and grain cutting machine, the Kentucky Harvester.

After the Civil War, business picked up and Patch went into the plow business as a silent partner. In 1872, he moved with his family to Massachusetts, where he patented his first pole-mounted corn sheller. It was featured in Scientific American magazine in 1872. According to an article in the Clarksville [Leaf Chronicle] dated July 17, 1966, Patch's corn sheller was given the "highest award of the World's Fair" at the 1893 Columbian World's Fair in Chicago, Illinois for ingenuity. One of the major themes of the Chicago World's Fair was that of the value of corn as a crop and as a dietary staple.

In 1875, Patch partnered with William Douglas Meriwether to found a plow factory "Meriwether and Patch Plow Co." in Clarksville, Tennessee. (William Douglas Meriwether was the father of noted American journalist and columnist Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer, a.k.a. Dorothy Dix. After around ten years of struggling, the factory closed. 

While in Tennessee, Patch also invented other box shellers. His most famous sheller was called the "Black Hawk Corn Sheller," named for the strong and determined Indian chief, Black Hawk. He patented it in 1886. The Black Hawk Corn Sheller became one of the best sellers of agricultural equipment around the world.

Personal life

Patch married Sarah Mehitable in New Hampshire. They had four children—George Marsh Patch (1862 - 1944), Fannie Elizabeth Patch (1860 - 1941), Benjamin Avery Patch (1868 - 1943), and Mamie Patch (1865 - 1907.)

Death

Patch died on January 29, 1909, at the age of 83, in Clarksville, Tennessee.