Month

Language

Carpenter's Hatchet. (open access)

Carpenter's Hatchet.

Patent for a new and improved carpenter's hatchet. This design, "by curving or convexing the back of the hatchet downward from the eye to the rear end of the blade [it] greatly facilitates the ease and efficiency with which the hatchet can be used in driving nails in angles and corners—an improvement which will be at once appreciated by all carpenters—while by forming the back of the blade with the opposite recesses, leaving the thin wall between them, the hatchet can be used as a screw-driver, and the carpenter can thus dispense with the use of a separate screw-driver" (lines 67-79).
Date: March 27, 1888
Creator: Stopple, John Julius
System: The Portal to Texas History
Method of Making Mattresses. (open access)

Method of Making Mattresses.

Patent for a new and improved method of making mattresses. This invention "consists in first disintegrating the material and simultaneously forcing the same into a suitable receptacle, fanning said material as it passes into the receptacle, and finally compressing the same . . . thereby dispensing with tacking of the bat" (lines 15-22).
Date: March 5, 1889
Creator: Haynes, Daniel
System: The Portal to Texas History