Eli Whitney Blake, Sr. (January 27, 1795 – August 18, 1886) was an American
inventor
An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea, or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...
, best known for his
mortise lock and stone-crushing machine, the latter of which earned him a place into the
National Inventors Hall of Fame
The National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) is an American not-for-profit organization, founded in 1973, which recognizes individual engineers and inventors who hold a US patent of significant technology. Besides the Hall of Fame, it also operate ...
.
Early life
Blake was born on January 27, 1795, in
Westborough
Westborough is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 21,567 at the 2020 census, in over 7,000 households. Incorporated in 1717, the town is governed under the New England open town meeting system, headed ...
in
Worcester County, Massachusetts
Worcester County ( ) is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 862,111, making it the second-most populous county in Massachusetts. Being 1,510.6 ...
. He was the son of Elihu Blake and Elizabeth Fay (
née
The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...
Whitney) Blake. His older brother, also named Elihu Blake, was the father of
William Phipps Blake.
His sister, Maria Georgianna Blake, was married to Archibald Burgess.
He was a nephew of
Eli Whitney
Eli Whitney Jr. (December 8, 1765January 8, 1825) was an American inventor, widely known for inventing the cotton gin in 1793, one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution that shaped the economy of the Antebellum South.
Whitney's ...
, the inventor of the
cotton gin
A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (); ...
. His maternal grandparents were Eli Whitney Sr., a prosperous farmer, and his wife Elizabeth (née Fay) Whitney. His paternal grandparents were Tamar (née Thompson) Blake and Ebenezer Blake Jr., a descendant of William Blake, who emigrated from England to
Dorchester between 1630 and 1635, and later helped
William Pynchon settle
Springfield, Massachusetts
Springfield is the most populous city in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States, and its county seat. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, the ea ...
.
Blake studied at
Leicester Academy
Leicester Academy was a private, state chartered school in Leicester, Massachusetts.
History
Leicester Academy was founded on March 23, 1784, when the Act of Incorporation for Leicester Academy was passed by the Massachusetts General Court as a ...
, and was graduated at
Yale
Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...
in 1816, after which he studied
law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...
with Judge Gould at
Litchfield Law School
The Litchfield Law School was a law school in Litchfield, Connecticut, that operated from 1774 to 1833. Litchfield was the first independent law school established in America for reading law. Founded and led by lawyer Tapping Reeve, the proprietar ...
in
Litchfield, Connecticut
Litchfield is a town in and former county seat of Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 8,192 at the 2020 census. The town is part of the Northwest Hills Planning Region. The boroughs of Bantam and Litchfield are ...
.
Career
Blake soon abandoned the study of law at the request of his uncle,
Eli Whitney
Eli Whitney Jr. (December 8, 1765January 8, 1825) was an American inventor, widely known for inventing the cotton gin in 1793, one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution that shaped the economy of the Antebellum South.
Whitney's ...
, who desired his assistance in erecting and organizing the
gun
A gun is a device that Propulsion, propels a projectile using pressure or explosive force. The projectiles are typically solid, but can also be pressurized liquid (e.g. in water guns or water cannon, cannons), or gas (e.g. light-gas gun). So ...
factory at
Whitneyville. Here he made important improvements in the machinery and in the processes of manufacturing arms.
On the death of his uncle in 1825, Blake associated with himself his brother Philos, and continued to manage the business. On December 31, 1833, he, with brothers Philo and John, patented an "Escutcheon Latch", the first
mortise lock produced in the United States. In 1836, under the firm name of Blake Brothers, they established at
Westville a factory for the production of door locks and latches of their own invention. The business was afterward extended so as to include
caster
A caster (or castor) is an undriven wheel that is designed to be attached to the bottom of a larger object (the "vehicle") to enable that object to be moved.
Casters are used in numerous applications, including shopping carts, office chairs, t ...
s,
hinge
A hinge is a mechanical bearing that connects two solid objects, typically allowing only a limited angle of rotation between them. Two objects connected by an ideal hinge rotate relative to each other about a fixed axis of rotation, with all ...
s, and other articles of hardware, most of which were covered by patents. In this branch of manufacture, Blake Brothers were among the pioneers, and long held the front rank.
In 1852, Blake was appointed to superintend the
macadam
Macadam is a type of road construction pioneered by Scottish engineer John Loudon McAdam , in which crushed stone is placed in shallow, convex layers and compacted thoroughly. A binding layer of stone dust (crushed stone from the original mat ...
izing of the city streets, and his attention was directed to the want of a proper machine for breaking stone. This problem he solved in 1857, by the invention of the Blake stone breaker, which, for originality, simplicity, and effectiveness, was justly regarded by experts as unique.
Blake was one of the founders, and for several years president, of the
Connecticut Academy of Science. He contributed valuable papers to the ''American Journal of Science'' and other periodicals, the most important of which he published in a single volume as ''Original Solutions of Several Problems in Aërodynamics'' (1882).
Personal life
On July 8, 1822, Blake was married to Eliza Maria O'Brien (1799–1876),
a daughter of Edward J. O'Brien and Mary (née Pierrepont) O'Brien, a great-granddaughter of the Rev.
James Pierpont, one of the founders of
Yale College
Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...
.
After the death of Eliza's father, her mother remarried to prominent lawyer Eleazer Foster and had several more children, including
Eleazer Kingsbury Foster. Together, Eli and Eliza were the parents of many children,
including five boys who graduated from Yale:
* Mary Elizabeth Blake (1823–1916), who married Rev. George Bushnell (1818–1898).
* Henrietta Whitney Blake (1825–1901), who married
Alexander MacWhorter III.
* Charles Thompson Blake (1826–1897), who went to California during the
gold rush
A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, ...
and worked in gold
assay
An assay is an investigative (analytic) procedure in laboratory medicine, mining, pharmacology, environmental biology and molecular biology for qualitatively assessing or quantitatively measuring the presence, amount, or functional activity ...
ing for
Wells, Fargo & Co.
He married Harriet Waters Stiles.
* Henry Taylor Blake (1828–1922), who married Elizabeth Coit Kingsley (1830–1914), daughter of
James Luce Kingsley.
* Robert Pierrepont Blake (1830–1836), who died in childhood.
* George Augustus Blake (1832–1882), who died unmarried.
* Eliza Maria Blake (1833–1836), who died in childhood.
* Frances Louisa Blake (1835–1893), who married Arthur Dimon Osborn, son of
U.S. Representative
The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...
Thomas Burr Osborne.
Arthur's sister Elizabeth married Gov.
Henry Baldwin Harrison
Henry Baldwin Harrison (September 11, 1821 – October 29, 1901) was a Republican Party (United States), Republican politician and the List of Governors of Connecticut, 52nd Governor of Connecticut.
Biography
Harrison was born in New Haven, ...
.
*
Eli Whitney Blake, Jr. (1836–1895), who married Helen Mary Rood (1832–1869).
* Edward Foster Blake (1837–1862), who was killed in battle at
Cedar Mountain, Virginia during the
U.S. Civil War.
* James Pierrepont Blake (1839–1865), who drowned near
Beaufort, South Carolina
Beaufort ( , different from that of Beaufort, North Carolina) is a city in Beaufort County, South Carolina, United States, and its county seat. Chartered in 1711, it is the second-oldest city in South Carolina, behind Charleston, South Carolina ...
while trying to assist freedmen.
* Eliza Maria Blake (1841–1917).
His wife died on April 15, 1876, and Blake died on August 18, 1886, in
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is a city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound. With a population of 135,081 as determined by the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is List ...
.
Descendants
Through his daughter Mary, he was the grandfather of four, including homemaker Dotha Bushnell (1861–1921) and Mary Pierpont Bushnell (1859–1936), who married Rowland Gibson Hazard (1855–1918) (a grandson of
Rowland G. Hazard), the parents of
Rowland Hazard III, a founder of
Alcoholics Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is a global, peer-led Mutual aid, mutual-aid fellowship focused on an abstinence-based recovery model from alcoholism through its spiritually inclined twelve-step program. AA's Twelve Traditions, besides emphasizing anon ...
.
Through his daughter Frances, he was the grandfather of chemist
Thomas Burr Osborn and Arthur Sherwood Osborn.
References
External links
*
Biography at National Inventors Hall of Fameat the
Rhode Island Historical Society
Blake family papersat
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blake, Eli Whitney
1795 births
1886 deaths
19th-century American inventors
Leicester Academy alumni
Burials at Grove Street Cemetery