Safety Pin

On this day in 1796, Walter Hunt was born in upstate New York. So what? Well Walter has cost Bearwiskers a lot of money! Walter invented and built the first Safety Pin, and in 1834 he built the first American sewing machine which was the first eye pointed needle sewing machine. He later lost interest in patenting his sewing machine because he believed the invention would cause unemployment.

Walter also invented a forerunner of the Winchester repeating rifle, a successful flax spinner, knife sharpener, streetcar bell, hard coal burning stove, artificial stone, improved velocipedes and ice ploughs.

The eye pointed needle sewing machine was later re-invented / improved by Elias Howe of Spencer, Massachusetts and patented by Howe in 1846.