Although a consistent member of the Society of Friends, Mr. Wood was extremely liberal in his religious views, and did not conform to the peculiar dress of the sect. He had that truly Catholic spirit so admirably characteristic of the great Quaker-poet, John G. Whittier. Not even the cruel wrongs he sustained at the hands of dishonest infringers could turn the sweetness of his kindly temper. Nature had endowed him richly in every way, and no gift had been abused. Physically, his was the highest type of manly beauty. Six feet and two inches in height, perfect in proportion, courtly in manner, his presence was worthy his character.
We will not linger over the closing scene of his eventful life. That belongs to the sacred secrecy of private grief. His death occurred at the very threshold of a new conflict, and upon it his son and executor, Benjamin Wood, entered with intelligent zeal. The closing of it being reserved for two of his daughters.
The story of these new labors was well told several years ago by a journalist familiar with the facts, and we cannot do better than to unearth the record from its musty file, and by transcribing it to these pages, give it a kind of resurrection worthy its importance.
“After the death of Jethro Wood, his son Benjamin, who received the invention as a legacy, continued his efforts to wrest justice from the unwilling hand of the law. Nearly all his father’s failures had proceeded from the inadequacy of the patent laws, which were almost worthless to protect the rights of the inventor. Even now a patent is worth little until it has been fought through the Supreme Court of the United States. In those days so many obstacles were thrown in the way of inventors, and the combinations against them were so formidable, that Eli Whitney, in trying to establish his right to the cotton-gin in a Georgia court, while his machine was doubling and trebling the value of lands through the State, had this experience, which is given in his own words: I had great difficulty in proving that the machine had been used in Georgia, although at the same moment there were three separate sets of this machinery in motion within fifty yards of the building in which the court sat, and all so near that the rattling of the wheels was distinctly heard on the steps of the Court House.
“Similar difficulties had met Jethro Wood in his suits; so his son resolved to strike at the root of the evil by securing a reform in the laws. He accordingly went to Washington, where he remained through several sessions, always working to this end. Clay, Webster, and John Quincy Adams, all of whom had known Jethro Wood and his invention, aided his son powerfully with their votes and counsel, and he succeeded in securing several important changes in the patent laws.
“Then he returned to New York, and commenced suit to resist encroachments on his right, and the wholesale manufacture of his plow by those who refused to pay the premium to the inventor. The ‘Cast-Iron Plow’ was now used all over the country, and formidable combinations of its manufacturers united their capital and influence against Benjamin Wood. William H. Seward, then practicing law, was retained as Wood’s counsel, and the plow-makers engaged all the talent they could muster to oppose him.
“Heretofore it had never been contradicted that Jethro Wood was the originator of the plow in use, but now his right to the invention was denied, and it was alleged that his improvements had been forestalled by other makers. Again and again the case was adjourned, and Europe and America were ransacked for specimens of the different plows which were declared to include his patent.
“Mr. Wood also obtained from England samples of the plows of James Small and Robert Ransom. He searched New-Jersey to find the Peacock plow which was said to have a cast-iron mould-board of exactly similar shape to his father’s. Everywhere in that State he found ‘Wood’s plow’ in use, but he could hear nothing of the one he sought. At length riding near a farm-house he discovered one of the old ‘Newbold-Peacock plows’ lying under a fence, dilapidated and rust-eaten. ‘We don’t use it any more,’ the farmer replied to his inquiries, ‘we’ve got one a good deal better.’ ‘Will you sell this?’ asked Wood. ‘Well, yes.’ And Wood, glad to get it at almost any price, paid the keen farmer, who took advantage of his evident anxiety, two or three times the price of a new plow, and added the old one to his specimens.
“This motley collection of implements was brought into court and exhibited to the judges. At last, after the case had dragged its slow length along, through many terms, and the plaintiff was nearly worn out with the law’s delay, the time for final trial and decision arrived. The combination of plow-makers feared that the case would go in Wood’s favor, and made every effort to keep him out of court, that he might lose it by default. During his long entanglement in the law, he had contracted many debts, and one of his opponents had managed to purchase several of these accounts. Just before the case was to be heard for the last time, this worthy plow manufacturer, attended by a sheriff, and armed with a warrant to arrest Wood for debt, appeared at the front door of his house. Fortunately Wood had had a few minutes warning, and slipping out at the back door, he made his way under cover of approaching darkness to a house of a friendly neighbor. There he procured a horse and started for Albany, 150 miles distant, hearing every moment in fancy the clattering of hoofs at his heels.
“As if fortune could not be sufficiently ill-natured, his horse proved vicious and unmanageable, and thrice in the tedious journey threw the rider from his saddle upon the frozen earth, so injuring him, that he was barely able to go on.