The Blodgett and Lerow machine was built by several shops. One of the earliest was the shop of Orson C. Phelps on Harvard Place in Boston. Phelps took the Blodgett and Lerow machine to the sixth exhibition of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association in September 1850 and won a silver medal and this praise, “This machine performed admirably; it is an exceedingly ingenious and compact machine, able to perform tailor’s sewing beautifully and thoroughly.”[46] Although Phelps had won the earliest known premium for a sewing machine, and although the machine was produced commercially to a considerable extent (figs. 20 and 21), one outstanding flaw in its operation could not be overlooked. As the shuttle passed around the six-inch circular shuttle race, it put a twist in the thread (or took one out if the direction was reversed) at each revolution. This caused a constant breaking of the thread, a condition that could not be rectified without changing the principle of operation. Such required changes were later to lead I. M. Singer, another well-known name, into the work of improving this machine.
Also exhibited at the same 1850 mechanics fair was the machine of Allen B. Wilson. Wilson’s machine received only a bronze medal, but his inventive genius was to have a far greater effect on the development of the practical sewing machine than the work of Blodgett and Lerow. A. B. Wilson[47] was one of the ablest of the early inventors in the field of mechanical stitching, and probably the most original.
Wilson, a native of Willett, New York, was a young cabinetmaker at Adrian, Michigan, in 1847 when he first conceived of a machine that would sew. He was apparently unaware of parallel efforts by inventors in distant New England. After an illness, he moved to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and pursued his idea in earnest. By November 1848 he had produced the basic drawings for a machine that would make a lockstitch. The needle, piercing the cloth, left a loop of thread below the seam. A shuttle carrying a second thread passed through the loop, and as the tension was adjusted a completed lockstitch was formed (fig. 22). Wilson’s shuttle was pointed on both ends to form a stitch on both its forward and backward motion, a decided improvement over the shuttles of Hunt and Howe, which formed stitches in only one direction. After each stitch the cloth was advanced for the next stitch by a sliding bar against which the cloth was held by a stationary presser. While the needle was still in the cloth and holding it, the sliding bar returned for a fresh grip on the cloth.
Wilson made a second machine, on the same principle, and applied for a patent. He was approached by the owners of the Bradshaw 1848 patent, who claimed control of the double-pointed shuttle. Although this claim was without justification, as can be seen by examining the Bradshaw patent specifications, Wilson did not have sufficient funds to fight the claim. In order to avoid a suit, he relinquished to A. P. Kline and Edward Lee, a one-half interest in his U.S. patent 7,776 which was issued on November 12, 1850 (fig. 23).
Figure 23.—Wilson’s patent model, 1850. (Smithsonian photo 45504-H.)
Inventor Wilson had been associated with Kline and Lee (E. Lee & Co.) for only a few months, when, on November 25, 1850, he agreed to sell his remaining interest to his partners for $2,000. He retained only limited rights for New Jersey and for Massachusetts. The sale was fruitless for the inventor, as no payment was ever made. How much money E. E. Lee & Co. realized from the Wilson machine is difficult to determine, but they ran numerous ads in the 1851 and 1852 issues of Scientific American. A typical one reads:
A. B. Wilson’s Sewing Machine, justly allowed to be the cheapest and best now in use, patented November 12, 1850; can be seen on exhibition at 195 and 197 Broadway (formerly the Franklin House, Room 23, third floor) or to E. E. Lee & Co., Earle’s Hotel. Rights for territory or machines can be had by applying to George R. Chittenden, Agent.[48]
Another reads: