Stephen McCormick
Born:
26 Aug 1784
(Auburn, Fauquier County, Virginia, USA)
Died:
28 Aug 1875
American inventor and manufacturer of a cast iron plow with detachable
components and introduced the concept of replaceable and standardized
parts
Ignoring his father's wishes that he study law, McCormick turned to
invention, and one of his earliest achievements was to increase the
productivity of the water-powered grist-mill by improving the shape of
its nether millstone. On its face, grain was placed to be ground by the
rotation of the upper stone. The shape of the grinding surfaces
controls how the meal that was introduced in the middle would worked
its way out to the rim, and leave as flour.
By 1816, he had turned his inventiveness to the manufacture of a
cast-iron plow that improved on the earlier design of Charles Newbold.
McCormick created his plow with detachable components. His cast-iron
mould board was designed to have an adjustable wrought-iron point
attached beneath it. In use the plow had a lower draft, but produced a
deeper furrow and broke up the soil more effectively.
His ideas led to the use of replaceable, standardized parts.
McCormick's first patent was issued on 3 Feb 1819, with further
patents on 28 Jan 1826 and 1 Dec 1837.
After starting production of plows on his Auburn farm for local
sales, by 1826, McCormick had expanded his marketing efforts to the
entire state of Virgina and the South. In addition to his manufacturing
at Auburn, he started factories in Leesburg and Alexandria, Virginia,
which sold plows either by direct sales to the farmer, or through his
company, McCormick and Minor, based in Richmond.
In addition to the plows built at his own factories, McCormick had an
income from licensing his design to some dozen iron foundries in
Virginia, with a royalty of up to seventy-five cents per plow. In this
way, more than ten thousand plows of McCormick's design had been made
by 1839.
Within a year of his second patent, McCormick experienced infringement
of his patent rights when other iron foundries widely copied the design
without paying royalties. McCormick even had to defend his patent
against a claim of infringement by inventor Gideon Davis, but the
matter was settled out of court.
While McCormick's sales were primarily in Virginia, and to a lesser
extend in the Southern U.S. the well-known inventor, Jethro Wood,
successfully manufactured and sold cast-iron plows in the Northern U.S.
states. Wood's patent, however, was issued about seven months later
than McCormick's.
The main period of activity for the production of his plows spanned
from 1826 to 1850, and when McCormick later retired from the business
to enjoy his later life, he lived to the age of ninety-one.
Ref: Dictionary of American Biography
