Figure 17.—Morey and Johnson sewing machine, 1849. Below: The machine is marked with the name of its maker, Safford & Williams. The number 49 is a serial number. Missing parts have been replaced with plastic. (Smithsonian photo 48400; brass plate: 48400-H.)
Although the Bradshaw machine was not in current manufacture, a machine based on it received the seventh United States sewing-machine patent. Patent 6,099 was issued to Charles Morey and Joseph B. Johnson on February 6, 1849. Their machine (fig. 17) was being offered for sale even before the patent was issued.
This was the first American patent for a chainstitch machine. The stitch was made by an eye-pointed needle carrying the thread through the fabric; the thread was detained by a hook until the loop was enchained by the succeeding one. The fabric was held vertically by a baster plate in a manner similar to the Howe machine. Although not claimed in the patent description, the Morey and Johnson machine also had a bar device for stripping the cloth from the needle. This bar had a slight motion causing a yielding pressure to be exerted on the cloth. Although the patent was not granted until February 6, 1849, the application had been filed in April of the previous year. The machine was featured in the Scientific American on January 27, 1849 (fig. 18):
Morey and Johnson Machine—These machines are very accurately adjusted in all their parts to work in harmony, without this they would be of no use. But they are now used in most of the Print Works and Bleach Works in New England, and especially by the East Boston Flour Company. It sews about one yard per minute, and we consider it superior to the London Sewing Machine the specification of which is in our possession. It [Morey and Johnson] is more simple—and this is a great deal.... The price of a machine and right to use $135.[36]
An improvement in the Morey and Johnson machine was patented by Jotham S. Conant for which he was issued a patent on May 8, 1849. Conant’s machine offered a slight modification of the cloth bar and of the method of keeping the cloth taut during the stitching operation. No successful use of it is known.
A second improvement of the Morey and Johnson patent was also issued on May 8, 1849; this United States patent (No. 6,439) was to John Bachelder for the first continuous, but intermittent, sewing mechanism. As shown in the patent model (fig. 19), his clothholder consisted of an endless belt supported by and running around three or any other suitable number of cylindrical rollers. A series of pointed wires projected from the surface of the belt near the edge immediately adjacent to the needle. The wires could be placed at regular or irregular distances as required. The shaft of one of the cylindrical rollers, which supported the endless clothholder, carried a ratchet wheel advanced by the action of a pawl connected to the end of the crankshaft by a small crankpin, whose position or distance from the axis of rotation of the shaft could be adjusted.
Figure 18.—A Morey and Johnson sewing machine as illustrated in Scientific American, January 27, 1849. (Smithsonian photo 45771.)