Like most other important inventions, the typewriter did not spring into existence all at once, for while the practical embodiment in really useful machines has only taken place since about 1868, there had been many experiments and some success attained at a much earlier date. The British patent to Henry Mills. No. 395 of 1714, is the earliest record of efforts in this direction. At this early date no drawings were attached to patents, and the specification dwells more on the function of the machine than the instrumentalities employed. No record of the construction of this machine remains in existence, and it may fairly be considered a lost art. In quaint and old-fashioned English, the patent specification proceeds as follows:
““ANNE, by the grace of God, &c., to all whom these presents shall come, greeting: WHEREAS, our trusty and well-beloved subject, Henry Mills, hath by his humble peticon represented vnto vs, that he has by his greate study, paines, and expence, lately invented, and brought to perfection “An Artificial Machine or Method for the Impressing or Transcribing Letters Singly or Progressively one after another as in Writing, whereby all Writing whatever may be Engrossed in Paper or Parchment so Neat and Exact as not to be Distinguished from Print, that the said Machine or Method, may be of greate vse in Settlements and Publick Recors, the Impression being deeper and more Lasting that any other Writing, and not to be erased, or Counterfeited without Manifest Discovery, and having therefore humbly prayed vs to grant him our Royall Letters Patents, for the sole vse of his said Invention for the term of fourteen yeares.””
““Know Yee, that wee,” etc.”
The first American typewriter of which any record remains is that described in the patent granted to W. A. Burt, July 23, 1829. It was called a “Typographer.” It had a segment bearing the letters of the alphabet and corresponding notches acting as an index. A superposed lever, which could be worked up and down, and also moved laterally, was provided with a series of type, arranged in a segmental curve, so that any type could be brought into place on the subjacent paper by swinging the lever over to and down into the proper notch in the index segment below. A restored model of this is to be found in the U. S. Patent Office.
FIG. 135.—FRENCH TYPEWRITER, 1833.
The first organized typewriter in which separate key levers were provided for each type is a French invention. It is to be found in the French patent to M. Progin (Xavier), of Marseilles, No. 3,748, Sept. 6, 1833 (Brevets d’Invention, Vol. 37, 1st Series, pl. 36). It was called a Typographic Machine, and is shown in the illustration ([Fig. 135]). Upright key levers s are arranged in a circle around a circular plate n. They have hook-shaped handles at the upper end, and terminate below in forks that are pivoted to the shanks of type hammers, to raise and lower them. These hammers are inked from a pad, and at a central point deliver a printing blow on the paper below. The paper is held stationary, and the whole nest of levers was moved over the paper for each letter printed. The circular index plate n had marked on it opposite the respective levers the letters and characters represented by said levers. Besides printing letters, the device was to be used for printing music, and for making stereotype plates.
