Walter Hunt
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Walter Hunt (1796 - 1859) was an American mechanic, who lived and worked in New York State. Through the course of his work he became renowned for being a prolific inventor, notably of the fountain pen, sewing machine (1834), safety pin (1849), a forerunner of the Winchester repeating rifle, a successful flax spinner, knife sharpener, streetcar bell, hard-coal-burning stove, artificial stone, street sweeping machinery, the velocipede, and the ice plough. Hunt did not realise the significance of a good amount of these when he invented them; today, many are widely-used products. He thought little of the safety pin, and sold the patent for a paltry sum of $400 to a man whom he owed fifteen dollars. He failed to patent his sewing machine at all, because he feared that it would create unemployment. (This led to a court case some years later when the machine was re-invented by Elias Howe.) Hunt is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. Read "Necessity's Child" by Joseph Nathan Kane for a detailed biography of Walter Hunt.
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