December 2, 2024 • 9 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, some of Walter Hunt's inventions include a saw, a steamer, inkstands, the nail-making machine, a rifle, a revolver, bullets, bicycles, a shirt collar, a boot heel, and a ceiling-walking circus device....but his most successful invention was designed in just three hours to settle a $15 debt to one of the many draftsmen he tasked with drawing up his patents. Here’s Ashley Hlebinsky with the story.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Walter Hunt is
known as the Yankee mechanical genius. His hundreds of inventions
include a saw, a steamer, inkstands, a nailmaking machine, a rifle,
a revolver, bullets, bicycles, a shirt collar, a boot heel,
and a ceiling walking circus device. Hunt's most successful invention
(00:32):
was designed in just three hours to settle a fifteen
dollars debt to one of the many draftsmen he tasked
with drawing up his patents. Here is our frequent contributor,
Ashley Lebinski with the story. He's the co host of
Discovery Channel's Master of Arms, the former curator in charge
of the Cody Firearms Museum, and is the co founder
(00:54):
of the University of Wyoming College of Law's Firearms Research Center.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Here's actually, it never ceases to amaze me how often
prolific inventors are left on the cutting room floor of history.
And there's another part of that too, which is you
see in the nineteenth century a lot of inventors who
dabble in multiple different.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Kind of industries.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
And you see both of these things happening with one
inventor in the eighteen forties, and so he's the inventor
of the safety pin and a successful lockstitch sewing machine,
but he was also behind some of the most important
developments in modern firearms technology. Walter Hunt was born in
upstate New York in seventeen ninety six, and by his
(01:40):
twenty first birthday he actually earned advanced degrees in masonry
and quickly kind of moved on to a career of inventing.
And this man kind of invented a little bit of everything.
His initial inventions surrounded improvements in milling machinery, but he
quickly turned to the eclectic for the rest of his career.
(02:02):
The first major major thing that he's known for was
his invention of a bell that was affixed to a carriage,
so in response to a carriage accident that actually the
carriage ran over a child, Walter Hunt developed this bell
that could be operated by a carriage driver's feet while
safely maintaining hold of the horse's range, basically to send
(02:23):
out a warning so people could hear when the carriage
was coming so that they could get out of the way.
He then went on to invent a fire engine, improvements
in coal burning stoves, a knife, sharpener, artificial stone, rotary,
sweet sweepers, mail sorting machinery, Like I said, very very random,
paraffin oil, candles, shirt collars, fountain pens, and other industrial machinery.
(02:49):
In the mid eighteen thirties, Hunt actually was a pioneer
in terms of the modern sewing machine, although he didn't
initially pursue a patent because he didn't want to hurt
the career of seamstresses. So the women in his life
actually worked as seamstresses, and they were concerned because what
he invented was so efficient, so successful, that they were
(03:10):
worried that they wouldn't have jobs if his invention was
adopted in mass And so he decided, you know, I
did this great thing, but I'm not going to take
out a patent so that I don't mess up a
lot of careers of women in the nineteenth century. By
the eighteen forties, hunt success inventions became really pretty popular.
(03:30):
I have a working theory that within one or two
degrees of separation you can connect something to firearms history.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
In all of America. And part of that is because
there was so so.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Much cross contamination in inventions, so a lot of firearms
designers made sewing machines during this timeframe, so of course
Walter Hunt was going to make something with firearms, and
his invention was.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Not the most successful product.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
But what he ultimately did was he created the oldest
direct ancestor to the Winchester lever action rifle. In the
eighteen forties, Walter Hunt developed a firearm which was aptly
named the Hunt Volitional repeating rifle, and it was a
gun that was patented to hold around twelve or so
rounds of ammunition. He was not quite precise in the
amount of ammo that could be held in a magazine
(04:17):
on the firearm. At the same time, he also developed
a form of semi caseless ammunition that paired with his firearm.
During this timeframe, repeating technology with firearms was incredibly common,
and one of the most notable figures that we always
talk about around the same time was cold success with
his revolver. But it wasn't until multiple advanced technologies got
(04:41):
married together in one type of firearm that the pathway
towards mass manufacturer of reliable repeating technology truly took off.
To be completely honest, Hunt's firearm was a total hot
mess and was never produced in mass. In fact, the
only known example is actually at the Cody Firearms Museum
in Wyoming, which houses the entirety of the Winchester Arms collection.
(05:02):
But what was so significant was that several of his
ideas came together to further firearms technology forever.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
And one of those things was the type of ammunition.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
So historically speaking, ammunition was kind of loaded separately, so
you had your powder, projectile, you know, all as individual components.
But he patented a way for the powder, the primer,
the projectile to all be kind of smashed together into one. Now,
it wasn't as successful as later ammunition, but it really
(05:34):
was one of the first times.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
You get it all pushed together.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Another thing that he patented with the hundvoditional repeating rifle
was a tubular magazine, so basically a tube that allows
ammunition to be loaded and then the firearm can fire
multiple rounds in succession before having to reload. So you
didn't have to have a cylinder that was rotating, you
didn't have to have any type of external kind of
component in order to load your firearm. You had a
(05:59):
tube that was red sting under the barrel, and then
on ammunition that was all complete that allowed for the
gun to fire. One of the other things that the
huntlehal Repeater had was a firing system that was known
as striker fire, which basically uses a pin to strike
the primer of a cartridge in order to fire the gun.
(06:19):
And striker fire is something that's most often associated with
modern firearms, but he's got probably one of the earliest
striker fire guns in American and even international history. You
see it sometimes with early bolt action technology, but for
the most part, this is something that is, you know,
maybe a century ahead of its time. What's kind of
(06:42):
funny about the development of all of these different things
into a gun that wasn't successful but then ultimately inspired
one of the most iconic guns in American history was
that this small component, this needle like pin that was
used to fire the gun, also showed up in other
parts of a work. So he created certain pins, you know,
(07:02):
that had pointy tips. But the thing that he is
most known for is the invention of the safety pin. Now,
I don't know if the striker fire Hunt gun inspired
the safety pin. Maybe I'm making a stretch there or
vice versa, but this is something that he did around
the same time that he was working on the huntvalitional
repeating rifle in eighteen forty nine, and what he was
(07:25):
kind of coming up with here, I guess it goes
along with his background and creating sewing machines, but he
was trying to find a new way that you could
attach clothing items together.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
And so what he did was he utilized.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
A coil wire design and he added spring tension to
it with a protective clasp to keep the pin and
clothes secured. And if you think about that description, that
kind of sounds exactly like a safety pin a day.
And that's because the design was so inventive and effective
back in the eighteen forties that it really hasn't changed
much since then.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Hunt sold patent for four hundred dollars to W. R.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Grace and Company to pay off a draftsman he odes,
so he had some debts, and so he saw this
as a good opportunity to pay that off but not
necessarily make a lot of money for himself.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
WR. Grace would go on to make millions of dollars.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Off of Hunt's invention, and not unlike Oliver Winchester. I
guess when you think about his firearm that he invented,
but he himself would not see the financial fruits of
his labors. This is kind of one of those sad
stories that you hear a lot throughout invention history. You
see a lot with designers. They come up with this
great idea, but they're kind of, you know, the genius mind,
(08:38):
and then they always end up selling it.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
To the business mind.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I guess a lot of times you get the genius
mind go up against the business mind, and who's going
to win in terms of finances? In that one, It's
probably going to be the business person. And so he
did try to at some point kind of recoup some
of his money by taking the patent out later on
the sewing machine. But his legacy, at least for invention
certainly is the test of time. And he's actually in
(09:02):
the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his invention of
a safety pin. When you look at all the stuff
he made, he probably could be there for a lot
of different reasons, but the fact that the safety pin
is what got him into a Hall of fame shows
how the simplest invention can revolutionize multiple industries even today.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to
Ashley Lebinski for sharing with us the story of Walter Hunt.
And by the way, what happened to Hunt selling his
patent for four hundred dollars and the person he sold
it to making a fortune. All very often the inventors, well,
(09:42):
they don't make the money is it's the businessmen who
know how to take those inventions and make them profitable
and make them able to scale and reach the mass public.
The story of Walter Hunt here on our American Stories
And we continue with our American stories. Walter Hunt is
known as the Yankee mechanical genius. His hundreds of inventions
include a saw, a steamer, inkstands, a nailmaking machine, a rifle,
a revolver, bullets, bicycles, a shirt collar, a boot heel,
and a ceiling walking circus device. Hunt's most successful invention
(00:32):
was designed in just three hours to settle a fifteen
dollars debt to one of the many draftsmen he tasked
with drawing up his patents. Here is our frequent contributor,
Ashley Lebinski with the story. He's the co host of
Discovery Channel's Master of Arms, the former curator in charge
of the Cody Firearms Museum, and is the co founder
(00:54):
of the University of Wyoming College of Law's Firearms Research Center.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Here's actually, it never ceases to amaze me how often
prolific inventors are left on the cutting room floor of history.
And there's another part of that too, which is you
see in the nineteenth century a lot of inventors who
dabble in multiple different.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Kind of industries.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
And you see both of these things happening with one
inventor in the eighteen forties, and so he's the inventor
of the safety pin and a successful lockstitch sewing machine,
but he was also behind some of the most important
developments in modern firearms technology. Walter Hunt was born in
upstate New York in seventeen ninety six, and by his
(01:40):
twenty first birthday he actually earned advanced degrees in masonry
and quickly kind of moved on to a career of inventing.
And this man kind of invented a little bit of everything.
His initial inventions surrounded improvements in milling machinery, but he
quickly turned to the eclectic for the rest of his career.
(02:02):
The first major major thing that he's known for was
his invention of a bell that was affixed to a carriage,
so in response to a carriage accident that actually the
carriage ran over a child, Walter Hunt developed this bell
that could be operated by a carriage driver's feet while
safely maintaining hold of the horse's range, basically to send
(02:23):
out a warning so people could hear when the carriage
was coming so that they could get out of the way.
He then went on to invent a fire engine, improvements
in coal burning stoves, a knife, sharpener, artificial stone, rotary,
sweet sweepers, mail sorting machinery, Like I said, very very random,
paraffin oil, candles, shirt collars, fountain pens, and other industrial machinery.
(02:49):
In the mid eighteen thirties, Hunt actually was a pioneer
in terms of the modern sewing machine, although he didn't
initially pursue a patent because he didn't want to hurt
the career of seamstresses. So the women in his life
actually worked as seamstresses, and they were concerned because what
he invented was so efficient, so successful, that they were
(03:10):
worried that they wouldn't have jobs if his invention was
adopted in mass And so he decided, you know, I
did this great thing, but I'm not going to take
out a patent so that I don't mess up a
lot of careers of women in the nineteenth century. By
the eighteen forties, hunt success inventions became really pretty popular.
(03:30):
I have a working theory that within one or two
degrees of separation you can connect something to firearms history.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
In all of America. And part of that is because
there was so so.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Much cross contamination in inventions, so a lot of firearms
designers made sewing machines during this timeframe, so of course
Walter Hunt was going to make something with firearms, and
his invention was.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Not the most successful product.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
But what he ultimately did was he created the oldest
direct ancestor to the Winchester lever action rifle. In the
eighteen forties, Walter Hunt developed a firearm which was aptly
named the Hunt Volitional repeating rifle, and it was a
gun that was patented to hold around twelve or so
rounds of ammunition. He was not quite precise in the
amount of ammo that could be held in a magazine
(04:17):
on the firearm. At the same time, he also developed
a form of semi caseless ammunition that paired with his firearm.
During this timeframe, repeating technology with firearms was incredibly common,
and one of the most notable figures that we always
talk about around the same time was cold success with
his revolver. But it wasn't until multiple advanced technologies got
(04:41):
married together in one type of firearm that the pathway
towards mass manufacturer of reliable repeating technology truly took off.
To be completely honest, Hunt's firearm was a total hot
mess and was never produced in mass. In fact, the
only known example is actually at the Cody Firearms Museum
in Wyoming, which houses the entirety of the Winchester Arms collection.
(05:02):
But what was so significant was that several of his
ideas came together to further firearms technology forever.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
And one of those things was the type of ammunition.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
So historically speaking, ammunition was kind of loaded separately, so
you had your powder, projectile, you know, all as individual components.
But he patented a way for the powder, the primer,
the projectile to all be kind of smashed together into one. Now,
it wasn't as successful as later ammunition, but it really
(05:34):
was one of the first times.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
You get it all pushed together.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Another thing that he patented with the hundvoditional repeating rifle
was a tubular magazine, so basically a tube that allows
ammunition to be loaded and then the firearm can fire
multiple rounds in succession before having to reload. So you
didn't have to have a cylinder that was rotating, you
didn't have to have any type of external kind of
component in order to load your firearm. You had a
(05:59):
tube that was red sting under the barrel, and then
on ammunition that was all complete that allowed for the
gun to fire. One of the other things that the
huntlehal Repeater had was a firing system that was known
as striker fire, which basically uses a pin to strike
the primer of a cartridge in order to fire the gun.
(06:19):
And striker fire is something that's most often associated with
modern firearms, but he's got probably one of the earliest
striker fire guns in American and even international history. You
see it sometimes with early bolt action technology, but for
the most part, this is something that is, you know,
maybe a century ahead of its time. What's kind of
(06:42):
funny about the development of all of these different things
into a gun that wasn't successful but then ultimately inspired
one of the most iconic guns in American history was
that this small component, this needle like pin that was
used to fire the gun, also showed up in other
parts of a work. So he created certain pins, you know,
(07:02):
that had pointy tips. But the thing that he is
most known for is the invention of the safety pin. Now,
I don't know if the striker fire Hunt gun inspired
the safety pin. Maybe I'm making a stretch there or
vice versa, but this is something that he did around
the same time that he was working on the huntvalitional
repeating rifle in eighteen forty nine, and what he was
(07:25):
kind of coming up with here, I guess it goes
along with his background and creating sewing machines, but he
was trying to find a new way that you could
attach clothing items together.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
And so what he did was he utilized.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
A coil wire design and he added spring tension to
it with a protective clasp to keep the pin and
clothes secured. And if you think about that description, that
kind of sounds exactly like a safety pin a day.
And that's because the design was so inventive and effective
back in the eighteen forties that it really hasn't changed
much since then.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Hunt sold patent for four hundred dollars to W. R.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Grace and Company to pay off a draftsman he odes,
so he had some debts, and so he saw this
as a good opportunity to pay that off but not
necessarily make a lot of money for himself.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
WR. Grace would go on to make millions of dollars.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Off of Hunt's invention, and not unlike Oliver Winchester. I
guess when you think about his firearm that he invented,
but he himself would not see the financial fruits of
his labors. This is kind of one of those sad
stories that you hear a lot throughout invention history. You
see a lot with designers. They come up with this
great idea, but they're kind of, you know, the genius mind,
(08:38):
and then they always end up selling it.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
To the business mind.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I guess a lot of times you get the genius
mind go up against the business mind, and who's going
to win in terms of finances? In that one, It's
probably going to be the business person. And so he
did try to at some point kind of recoup some
of his money by taking the patent out later on
the sewing machine. But his legacy, at least for invention
certainly is the test of time. And he's actually in
(09:02):
the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his invention of
a safety pin. When you look at all the stuff
he made, he probably could be there for a lot
of different reasons, but the fact that the safety pin
is what got him into a Hall of fame shows
how the simplest invention can revolutionize multiple industries even today.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to
Ashley Lebinski for sharing with us the story of Walter Hunt.
And by the way, what happened to Hunt selling his
patent for four hundred dollars and the person he sold
it to making a fortune. All very often the inventors, well,
(09:42):
they don't make the money is it's the businessmen who
know how to take those inventions and make them profitable
and make them able to scale and reach the mass public.
The story of Walter Hunt here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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