Civil Service at Washington have
obtained patents for valuable inventions. W. A. Lavalette patented two
printing presses, Shelby J. Davidson a mechanical tabulator and adding
machine, Robert A. Pelham a pasting machine, Andrew F. Hilyer two hot
air register attachments; and Andrew D. Washington a shoe horn. Nearly
a dozen patents have been granted Benjamin F. Jackson, of
Massachusetts, on his inventions. These consisted of a heating
apparatus, a matrix drying apparatus, a gas burner, an electrotyper's
furnace, a steam boiler, a trolley wheel controller, a tank signal,
and a hydrocarbon burner system.

It is not generally known that Frederick J. Loudin, who brought fame
and fortune to one of the leading Negro universities in the South by
carrying the Fisk Jubilee Troupe of Singers on several successful
concert tours around the world, is also entitled to a place on the
list of Negro inventors. He obtained two patents for his inventions,
one for a fastener for the meeting rails of sashes, December, 1893,
and the other a key fastener in January, 1894. Several colored
inventors have also applied their inventive skill to solving the
problem of aerial navigation, with the result that some of them have
been granted patents for their inventions in airships. Among these are
J. F. Pickering, of Haiti, February 20, 1900; James Smith, California,
October, 1912; W. G. Madison, Iowa, December, 1912; and J. E. Whooter,
Missouri, 2 patents, October 30 and November 3, 1914. It has been
reported that the invention in automatic car coupling covered by the
patent to Andrew J. Beard, of Alabama, dated November 23, 1897, was
sold by the patentee to a New York car company, for more than fifty
thousand dollars. This same patentee has obtained patents on more than
a half dozen other inventions, mostly in the same line.

Willie H. Johnson, of Texas, obtained several patents on his
inventions, two of them being for an appliance for overcoming "dead
center" in motion; one for a compound engine, and another for a water
boiler. Joseph Lee, a colored hotel keeper, of Boston, completed and
patented three inventions in dough-kneading machines, and is reported
as having succeeded in creating a considerable market for them in the
bread-making industry in New England. Brinay Smartt, of Tennessee,
made inventions in reversing valve gears, and received several patents
on them in 1905, 1906, 1909, 1911 and 1913.

The path of the inventor is not always an e