[34] In the Matter of the Application of Elias Howe, Jr. for an Extension of His Sewing Machine Patent Dated September 10, 1846, New York, 1860, with attachments A and B, U.S. Patent Office. [L.C. call no. TJ 1512.H6265]

[35] It is interesting to note that when William Thomas applied for the British patent of the Howe machine (issued Dec. 1, 1846), the courts would not allow the claim for the combination of the eye-pointed needle and shuttle to form a stitch, due to the Fisher and Gibbons patent of 1844. For more details on Howe’s years in England see his biographical sketch, pp. 138-141.

[36] The machine referred to as the London Sewing Machine is the British patent of the Thimonnier machine. This patent was applied for by Jean Marie Magnin and was published by Newton’s London Journal, vol. 39, p. 317, as Magnin’s invention.

[37] The exact date is not known; however, it was prior to 1856 as the patent was included in the sewing-machine patent pool formed that year.

[38] James Parton, History of the Sewing Machine, p. 12, (originally published in the Atlantic Monthly, May 1867), later reprinted by the Howe Machine Company as a separate.

[39] Sewing Machine Times (Feb. 25, 1907), vol. 17, no. 382, p. 1, “His [Bonata’s] shop was on Gold Street, New York, near the Bartholf shop, where Howe was building some of his early machines.”

[40] Sewing Machine News, vol. 3, no. 5, p. 5, Sept. 1881-Jan. 1882. “History of the Sewing Machine.”

[41] Op. cit. (footnote 34).

[42] New York Daily Tribune, Jan. 15, 1852, p. 2.

[43] See Howe’s biographical sketch, p. 141.

[44] Op. cit. (footnote 34). Attachments A and B are copies of Judge Sprague’s decisions.

[45] Sewing Machine Journal (July 1887), pp. 93-94.

[46] Report of the Sixth Exhibition of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association, in the City of Boston, September 1850(Boston, 1850).

[47] See biographical sketch, pp. 141-142.

[48]Scientific American (Dec. 6, 1851), vol. 7, no. 12, p. 95.

[49] Ibid. (Sept. 20, 1851), vol. 7, no. 1, p. 7.

[50] Ibid. (June 4, 1853), vol. 7, no. 38, p. 298

[51] J. D. Van Slyck, New England Manufactures and Manufactories, vol. 2, pp. 672-682.

[52] See his biographical sketch, pp. 142-143.

[53] Chester McNeil, A History of the Sewing Machine in Union Sales Bulletin, vol. 3, Union Special Sewing Machine Co., Chicago, Illinois, pp. 83-85. 1903.

[54] Sewing Machine Times (Aug. 25, 1908), vol. 18, no. 418.

[55] Singer gives this limited description of the first machine, with detailed improvements for which he was then applying for a patent: “In my previous machine, to which reference has been made, the bobbin was carried by the needle-carrier, and hence the motion of the needle had to be equal to the length of thread required to form the loop, which was objectionable, as in many instances this range of motion was unnecessarily long for all other purposes....” Quoted from U.S. patent 8,294 issued to Isaac M. Singer, Aug. 12, 1851. It should be noted that in some instances there was a considerable lapse of time from the date a patent application was made until the patent was issued. In this case the handwritten specifications were dated March 14, 1851, and the formal Patent Office receipt was dated April 16, 1851.

[56] If a patent was not approved, for any reason, the records were placed in an “Abandoned File.” In 1930 Congress authorized the disposal of the old “Abandoned Files,” requiring them to be kept for twenty years only. There are no Singer Company records giving an account of the first patent application.

[57] Its whereabouts was unknown as early as 1908, as stated in the Sewing Machine Times (Aug. 25, 1908), vol. 18, no. 418. Models of abandoned patents frequently remained at the Patent Office. Approximately 76,000 models were ruined in a Patent Office fire in 1877. In 1908 over 3000 models of abandoned patents were sold at auction. Either incident could account for the machine’s disappearance.

[58] The patent model of 8,294 is a machine that bears the serial number 22; it was manufactured before April 18, 1851, the date it was recorded as received by the Patent Office.

[59] William R. Bagnall, in “Contributions to American Economic History,” vol. 1 (1908), MS, Harvard School of Business Library.

[60] Singer purchased Phelps’ interest in the company in 1851 and sold it to Edward Clark.

[61] This first, family sewing machine should not be confused in name with a model brought out in the sixties. The name of this first, family machine was in the sense of a new “family” sewing machine. In 1859 a “Letter A” family machine was introduced. Thus in 1865 when the Singer Company brought out another family machine they called it the“New” Family Sewing Machine. Both the first-style Family machine and the Letter A machine are illustrated in Eighty Years of Progress of the United States (New York, 1861), vol. 2, p. 417, and discussed in an article, “The Place and Its Tenants,” in the Sewing Machine Times(Dec. 25, 1908), vol. 27, no. 893.

[62] A looper on the underside in place of the horizontal needle.

[63] Domestic Sewing Machine Company. See Union Special Sewing Machine Co. Sales Bulletin, vol. 3, ch. 15, pp. 58-59.