My Trails into the Past

February 11 is National Inventors Day. My husband family has a couple on inventors who received patents for their inventions. U.S. Patent 45790 was awarded to Thomas N. Davey, my husband’s great-granduncle. The National Archives branch at Kansas City, Missouri, has the original patent documents and I ordered the file for this patent. The patent was issued 3 January 1865 to him and Thomas Davey Senior, both of Jeffersonville in Clark County, Indiana. It was for cutting splints for chair bottoms and for similar purposes. Thomas N. was not yet a citizen of the U.S., and still, he was able to receive a patent for his invention. The documentation was written in beautiful handwriting on eleven pages. Thomas N. signed at the end and his witnesses were Thomas Davey (his father) and Joseph Stealey (his wife’s uncle).  Do I understand it? No, but I can appreciate the thought process to try to improve on something and then go through the process to get it patented. Thomas would go on to r...