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HONOR TO WHOM HONOR


IS DUE.


It is really gratifying to correct a personal error when


the correction establishes the rights of neglected inventors.


In Cotton Chats for December, I referred to the earliest in­vention


in the line of changing shuttles, as claimed for


Charles Parker, but possibly belonging to Clinton G. Gil­roy.


As I noted, the shuttle changing idea of Gilroy, as


outlined in his work on weaving, was not apparently taken


from the Parker patent. We had the state of the art on


shuttle- changing devices investigated at great length some


fourteen years ago, and other investigations have since been


made by other parties. In all these years, Parker has been


held to be the first inventor in this line, probably because


the official British publication of Abn: dgeme1tts of the


Specijicat£ o1ts 1' elat£/ tg to Weav£ ng places Parker at the


top of the list of patents for apparatus for changing shuttles.


Mr. Arthur S. Browne, patent expert, in noting my article


in Cotton Chats, has since called my attention to the patent


of John Patterson Reid and Thomas Johnson, No. 6' 579,


dated March 20, 1834. It is from this patent that Gilroy


devised the loom of Arphaxad without question; for Gilroy


was a careful student of patents, and the Reid & Johnson


loom contains all of the elements referred to in Gilroy's


satire. It contemplates the weaving of four webs of cloth


at once, in the same vertical power loom. It has a mech­anism


designed to change the shuttles when anyone weft


thread breaks, or fails, the substitution occurring by an in­stantaneous


movement, without any act of the attendant,


and without stopping the loom, the mechanism being brought


into action by a weft stopper annexed to the shuttle. The


specification also refers to changing shuttle boxes to bring


different colored weft into action. It also contains a jacquard


mechanism.


Both Reid and Johnson were prolific inventors, John­son


having taken out a patent as early as 1803, for a dress­ing


machine, and Reid as early as 1827, for a lay motion.


Johnson and Reid together took out several other patents


for lesS interesting improvements.


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Cotton Chats 1904, No. 23, Page 4