ultivation of coffee,
William Panter was granted the first English patent on a "mill for
husking coffee." This was in 1775. James Henckel followed with an
English patent, granted in 1806, on a coffee drier, "an invention
communicated to him by a certain foreigner." The first American to enter
the lists was Nathan Reed of Belfast, Me., who in 1822 was granted a
United States patent on a coffee huller. Roswell Abbey obtained a United
States patent on a huller in 1825; and Zenos Bronson, of Jasper County,
Ga., obtained one on another huller in 1829. In the next few years many
others followed.

John Chester Lyman, in 1834, was granted an English patent on a coffee
huller employing circular wooden disks, fitted with wire teeth. Isaac
Adams and Thomas Ditson of Boston brought out improved hullers in 1835;
and James Meacock of Kingston, Jamaica, patented in England, in 1845, a
self-contained machine for pulping, dressing, and sorting coffee.

William McKinnon began, in 1840, the manufacture of coffee plantation
machinery at the Spring Garden Iron Works, founded by him in 1798 in
Aberdeen, Scotland. He died in 1873; but the business continues as Wm.
McKinnon & Co., Ltd.

About 1850 John Walker, one of the pioneer English inventors of
coffee-plantation machinery, brought out in Ceylon his cylinder pulper
for Arabian coffee. The pulping surface was made of copper, and was
pierced with a half-moon punch that raised the cut edges into half
circles.

The next twenty years witnessed some of the most notable advances in the
development of machinery for plantation treatment, and served to
introduce the inventions of several men whose names will ever be
associated with the industry.

John Gordon & Co. began the manufacture in London of the line of
plantation machinery still known around the world as "Gordon make" in
1850; and John Gordon was granted an English patent on his improved
coffee pulper in 1859.

Robert Bowman Tennent obtained English (1852) and United States (1853)
patents on a two-cylinder pulper.

George L. Squier began the manufacture of plantation machinery in
Buffalo, N.Y., in 1857. He was active in the business until 1893, and
died in 1910. The Geo. L. Squier Manufacturing Co. still continues as
one of the leading American manufacturers of coffee-plantation
machinery.

Marcus Mason, an American mechanical engineer in San Jose, Costa Rica,
invented (1860) a coffee pulper and cleaner which became the foundation