Now here’s a guy. He was always seeing some object or situation that could be improved and he would find a way to make it better. Otherwise known as an inventor.
His name was Walter Hunt, and today is his happy birthday. Though he happened a long time ago, having been born on July 29, 1796, and lasting six decades, until June 8, 1859 — 62 years later to be precise.
He looked like a pretty normal guy, from his painting. Born in Martinsburg, New York, he was the first of thirteen children, his parents being Sherman and Rachel Hunt. I bet being the oldest in a big family gave many opportunities for him to solve new ways of doing things. Yet, he didn’t have any special education. He was educated in a one-room schoolhouse. And then, in 1817 Hunt earned a degree in masonry. A stone worker.
He married a woman with a good name, somewhere along the lines. One Miss Polly Loucks. And they had four children together. But aside from all of that, he worked mostly as a farmer. They lived in a big milling community, where the textile mill dominated the economy. Most of his family and friends worked at the mill, and when the mill did poorly, all his family and friends suffered too.
Hunt used to go over to the mill and help them figure out ways to do things better, like building a new spinning and roping machine. From time to time though, the owner would threaten to cut the wages of the workers, because of things like the cost of flax going up. Old Walter Hunt convinced the owner that he was running his mill inefficiently, and suggested they build a better flax spinner. Several months later Hunt created the new machine that was patented on June 22, 1826. After he received the patent, Hunt traveled to New York City for the first time in his life to raise the capital needed to manufacture the new machine. But, once he got there, he sold the patent outright. Apparently, this would become Hunt’s pattern of doing business.
On his first day in New York City, he witnessed an accident. For whatever reason, a carriage ran over a little girl. The incident really hit him hard. Especially when he learned that those types of accidents happened frequently in NYC. Kind of like the moped mania that is going on today. Anyway, when he got home, he worked on an alarm for vehicles. They already had a bell, or a horn, on them. But. Drivers would rarely use these devices because they needed to keep both hands on the horse reins during an emergency.
So our buddy Hunt came up with a metal gong with a hammer that could be operated by foot. On July 30, 1827, Hunt patented his new invention. He then decided to return to New York to sell his new invention. He took his family with him, just pulled their roots up out of the ground, selling the home and belongings, and moved to New York. It took a while but Hunt was finally able to sell his coach alarm. And again, he sold his idea outright and never made any profit from future sales of the product.
He went on to create an entire slew of things, including a knife sharpener, a machine to make rope, a castor globe to move furniture more easily, and a coal heating stove that directed heat equally in all directions. Once more, for all of these inventions, Hunt sold the rights to the products in order to pay his debts, and he never received any long-term profits. His list goes on. Notably, the sewing machine, the fountain pen, the ice boat, nail-making machine, ink-stand, fire cock repeating gun, and more. Walter Hunt, an inventor of all trades.
Of course, my favorite was the safety pin. Such a simple thing, yet with such great implications. A small device that can hold together two different entities, without any care to what those items might be. A broken zipper, a pant leg too long, a flower on a lapel, a number on a runner’s shirt. It makes no difference. The safety pin is the thing that brings togetherness.
Today, I’m going to try to be a safety pin, in some way or another. I’m going to try to pull things together, instead of tearing them apart. Thanks for thinking this one through, Walt.
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If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships – the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
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Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.
— Desmond Tutu
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“Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: That we are here for the sake of other men —above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received and am still receiving.”
― Albert Einstein, Living Philosophies
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