Bathgate, Linlithgowshire, died in
Buffalo, lecturer, newspaper editor, writer, preacher, and inventor,
was inventor of the mailing machine used in nearly every newspaper
office on the continent. Alexander Morton, (1820-60), the perfector if
not the inventor of gold pens, was born in Darvel, Ayrshire. James
Oliver, born in Roxburgh, Scotland, in 1823, made several important
discoveries in connection with casting and moulding iron, was the
inventor of the Oliver chilled plow, and founder of the Oliver Chilled
Plow Works, South Bend, Indiana. The business established by him is
now carried on in several cities from Rochester, New York State, to
San Francisco, and south to Dallas, Texas. William Chisholm, born in
Lochgelly, Fifeshire, in 1825, demonstrated the practicability of
making screws from Bessemer steel, organized the Union Steel Company
of Cleveland, (1871), and devised several new methods and machinery
for manufacturing steel shovels, scoops, etc. His brother, Henry, was
the first to introduce steel-making into Cleveland, and might justly
be called "The Father of Cleveland." Andrew Campbell (1821-90) was the
inventor of many improvements in printing machinery, and of a long
series of devices comprising labor-saving machinery relating to hat
manufacture, steam-engines, machinists' tools, lithographic and
printing machinery, and electrical appliances. William Ezra Ferguson
(b. 1832), merchant and inventor of the means of conveying grain on
steam shipments without shifting, was of Scottish ancestry. Alexander
Davidson (b. 1832) made many inventions in connection with the
typewriter, one of the most important being the scale regarding the
value of the letters of the alphabet. As an inventor he was of the
front rank. Andrew Smith Hallidie (b. 1836), son of a native of
Dunfermline, was the inventor of steel-wire rope making and also the
inventor of the "Hallidie ropeway," which led up to the introduction
of cable railroads. James Lyall (1836-1901), born in Auchterarder,
invented the positive-motion shuttle (1868) which revolutionized the
manufacture of cotton goods. He also invented fabrics for pneumatic
tyres and fire-hose. James P. Lee, born in Roxburghshire in 1837, was
inventor of the Lee magazine gun which was adopted by the United
States Navy in 1895. His first weapon was a breech-loading rifle which
was adopted by the United States Government during the Civil War.
Later he organized the Lee Arms Company of Connec