Walter Hunt

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 is said to have 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.

• 

  Fountain pen
  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 gunPatent 6663

• 

  Ice Boat
  Patent 958