Category: Timeline Stories

Starting from 1869, the young carpenter by trade, Melvin Newton Lovell (1844-1895) from Erie, Pennsylvania, later a wooden-ware manufacturer and successful businessman, received numerous patents for various devices, between them several patents for adding machines (cash registers). Lovell’s first patent for cash indicating, registering, and accounting machine (US patent Nr. 445959) was granted in 1891. Later he got other similar patents like: US489382, US489383, and US489384.

The construction of Lovell’s cash register was not original, and in his first patent (US445959) application the inventor mentioned that: The registering and accounting mechanism is in many respects the same as that shown in Letters Patent of the United States No. 41,898, dated March 15, 1864, issued to Joseph B. Alexander for improvement in calculating machines…

Let’s examine the operation of the device, using the patent drawing (see the nearby image).

The operation of the machine will be as follows: Let’s suppose that the operator wishes to record a sale amounting to $12.56. He may do it by pressing key 1 on the left-hand lever, key 2 on the next lever to the right, key 5 on the next lever to the right, and key 6 on the right-hand lever, or he may work from right to left, or he may follow no successive action, the result will be the same—the indicators will display at the openings A’ in the case the figures 1 2 5 6, and on the drums inside the figures 1 2 5 6 will be on the reading-line.

The operator will then depress the bar H², which will release the levers E’, and they will all resume their normal position, the indicators will all show naughts at the openings A’; but the drums G² in the case will stand, as above stated, with the figures 1 2 5 6 in line. If the next sale to be recorded should be $13.64, the drums G² would be moved so as to read 2 6 2 0, which is the sum of 1 2 5 6 and 1 3 6 4, while the indicators would show at the openings A’ the figures 1 3 6 4, the amount of the last sale recorded.

To prevent the wheels I being thrown too far over by the action of the levers, the inventor employed a brake, which consists of the spring Q, which has its free end in contact with the cogs of the wheels, as can be seen in the figure.

Biography of Melvin Lovell

Melvin Newton Lovell (see the nearby portrait) was a man of fine character and marked ability. He was born in Allegheny, Venango county, Pennsylvania, on 31 August 1844, as the firstborn of Darius (Darus) Tappin Lovell (1815-1856) and Susan Bullock (Conover) Lovell (1827-1883). Darius Lovell was born in Enfield, New York, to Abraham Lovell (1785–1865), and Elizabeth Crosby (1786–1860). He married the young Susan Bullock Conover (born 1 Feb. 1827, in New Jersey), daughter of Garret Amwell Conover and Sally Covenhoven, on 1 June 1843 at Oil Creek, Pennsylvania, and they had three children: Melvin Newton (1844-1895), Minerva Skyles (1850-1907), and Mary L. (b. 1854)

When Melvin Lovell was a boy, the family removed to Kerrtown, a village located in the vicinity of Titusville, PA. There Melvin reared to maturity, studying at the local common schools. After the early death of his father on 31 May 1856, Melvin served an apprenticeship in the carpenter’s trade, and his natural mechanical talent, enabled him soon to become a skilled workman. He followed his trade during the major portion of his term of residence in Kerrtown, and also became interested in the oil fields of Titusville.

In 1861, only seventeen years of age, Melvin Lovell left his home and, without parental authority, tendered his services in defense of the Union. Soon after the outbreak of the Civil war, in August 1862, he was enlisted as a private in the 127^th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, and with this command he saw active service until receiving his honorable discharge at the end of May 1863. In 1865 he took up his residence in Erie, where he worked in the carpenter’s trade for a number of years thereafter.

In 1869 Melvin Lovell invented and patented several useful articles for household use, and in that year he began the manufacturing of certain of these inventions, in partnership with Franklin Farrar Adams (1830-1911), a local businessman, Mason of high degree, and later mayor of Erie, and Addison W. Walker. They erected a brick factory one door south of the corner of Eleventh and State streets, installed the necessary machinery, and began the manufacture of washing machines, step and extension ladders, etc.

In 1881 Lovell individually began manufacturing other of his patents, including spring beds, and from modest inception his Lovell Manufacturing Company, incorporated in 1879, grew to be one of the largest industrial concerns of its kind in the country, even was recognized as being the most extensive manufactory of clothes-wringers in the entire world (there were ads strictly for Lovell wringers in domestic magazines of the 30s and 40s, even into the early 50s). Besides the clothes-wringers, Lovell’s also made mouse traps, step ladders, cash registers, and roller bearings.

In connection with his manufactory, Lovell established sales agencies for his products in all parts of the country, and these branches were known as the Lovell stores. From them goods were sold on the installment plan, of which now common system Lovell was practically the originator. After his business had already been established upon a substantial basis and had grown to no inconsiderable proportions, Lovell invented and patented the famous wringer which bears his name, and in later years he confined his operations largely to the manufacture of this very superior invention.

On 15 Oct. 1867, Melvin Lovell married Elizabeth A. Neilson (15 Oct. 1846–3 Dec. 1924), born in New York City, a daughter of James and Mary A. (Gaggin) Neilson, the former of whom was born in the city of Glasgow, Scotland, and the latter in Ireland. They had three daughters: Susan May (1868-1888), Rose Lillian (1872-1941), and Bertha Neilson (b. 1876).

Lovell was also one of the organizers and stockholders of the Combination Roll & Rubber Manufacturing Co, of New York, which was formed for the purpose of manufacturing his patents, with headquarters in New York and a factory at Bloomfield, New Jersey.

In 1895 Lovell was the first and most potent factor in securing the proper representation of the state of Pennsylvania at the Cotton States Exposition, held in Atlanta, Georgia, and was appointed commissioner from Pennsylvania to that exposition, where he did an enthusiastic and particularly successful work in behalf of his native state. Unfortunately, during his stay in Atlanta, he passed away in his prime, on 21 November 1895, and was buried in Erie Cemetery, Erie, PA.

Amazingly, the buildings of Lovell Manufacturing Company, also known as Lovell Place (see the nearby image), managed to survive to our time, and were added to the USA National Register of Historic Places in 1997. It is a historic factory complex and national historic district located in Erie, Pennsylvania. It includes 9 contributing buildings, built between 1883 and 1946. They are characterized as simple brick industrial buildings with shallow gable and parapet roofs, and housed a manufacturer of bed springs, mouse and rat traps, wringers, and dryers, and include a foundry and machine shop.

At the beginning of the 1860s Dr. Joseph Bell Alexander (1821-1871) of Baltimore, Maryland, devised a rather interesting calculating machine, and on 15 March 1864, took out US Patent №41898 for it. It seems the machine never went into production and only the Patent Office model survived to the present (kept in Smithsonian Institution), but it was used in other calculating devices, for example in the cash register of Melvin Lovell.

The adding device of Alexander was a lever-set adding machine, made of copper, brass, paper, and wood. Measurements: 20 cm x 14 cm x 19 cm. The construction is somewhat similar to that of earlier devices like Jabez Burns’ Addometer and John Ballou’s Calculator, but its mechanism is much better designed.

The device of Alexander has a wooden case with a curved metal front and back, and somewhat resembles an early cash register.

It contains eight sets of wheels and figured drums. The eight cogged wheels can be rotated vertically on a common crosswise shaft. Each wheel is linked to a lever that extends from the front of the machine and is rotated upward to enter a number. The digits from 1 to 9 are stamped on the front of the case next to the opening for each lever, to indicate the digit being entered. Each large cogged wheel is linked to two smaller wheels. Each one of the smaller wheels has digits from 0 to 9 inscribed around the edge. The first turns forward and gives the total entered (used in addition and multiplication). The second rotates in the opposite direction, and indicates differences (used in subtraction and division). Multiplication is carried out by repeated addition, while the division—by repeated subtraction.

The tens-carry mechanism of the device was implemented by means of a double pinion (marked with D and D’, see the nearby drawing), connected by the drum X. Every tenth tooth on a large wheel has a spring cog or tooth (marked with i), working on a pivot on the left-hand side of the main wheel A, that drives the adjacent wheel D, causing carrying (borrowing) to be done as needed at every ten carries.

The results recorded by the smaller wheels are visible through two rows of windows at the top of the case. Each of these windows has a hinged cover, the upper cover inscribed SUBTRACTION RESULT, and the lower one inscribed ADDITION RESULT. A row of keys at the front of the machine is used in the division and is connected to a mechanism, which is not connected to the main calculating mechanism. There is a crank on the left side (attached to the ratchet-wheel F) for zeroing the wheels associated with division keys. In the patent drawing is supposed to be a zeroing crank for the upper wheels also, but none is on the model.

The patent model is marked with a paper tag attached to the left side (see the nearby image): J.B. Alexander Calculating Machine Received 17th Decr ‘63.

Biography of Joseph Alexander

So, who was the inventor of this small adding device, named Joseph Bell Alexander?

Not a whole lot is known about this man (interestingly, in the middle of the 19th century there was another Dr. Joseph Bell, a surgeon from Edinburgh, Scotland, who was the model of Conan Doyle’s character, the world’s most well-known detective, Sherlock Holmes).

The physician Joseph Bell Alexander was born on 11 May 1821, in New Bern, North Carolina.

In the early 1860s Joseph Alexander moved from Baltimore to Washington, D.C., and was co-owner (with Dr. Charles Brown) of the undertaking firm of Brown&Alexander, located at 323 D Street Washington D.C., which prepared Abraham Lincoln’s body for his funeral tour in 1865, and president’s son, Willie, when he died three years earlier.

Joseph Alexander married in 1864 in Epiphany Church at Washington, to Finnella Maury (Little) Alexander (1839-1904), a daughter of John Little (1805-1876), a rich landowner in Washington, and Margaret (Foyles) Little (1810-1872).

Joseph Bell Alexander must have been a very inventive person, because, besides the above-mentioned patent for a calculating machine, he took out several other patents—six patents for improvements of oil-burning lamps, a couple of patents for siphon bottle and bottle-stopper (actually it was the first American siphon bottle found in patent records), a patent for automatic railroad switch, etc.

Dr. Joseph Bell Alexander died on 12 July 1871, in Washington, D.C., and was buried in Congressional Cemetery.

On 9 August 1859, the young carpenter, student, and teacher from Rockville, county of Parke, Indiana, named John Tenbrook Campbell (1833-1911), obtained a patent for a simple five-positional adding device (so-called Addition Machine), similar to these of the earlier French inventors Jean Lépine, and Hillerin de Boistissandeau from the 1720s.

The Addition Machine of John Campbell was a simple adding instrument (see US patent Nr. 24990), shown in the nearby picture.

It was a simple adding device, which internal mechanism is rather similar to the devices of Lépine and Boistissandeau, although Campbell most probably was not aware of the above-mentioned and had devised the mechanism himself.

It seems the device of Campbell never went into production, and only the patent model (see the lower photo) survived to our time.

The device is a simple finger-operated adding machine, made of metal, wood, and paper, with dimensions: 3 cm x 26.2 cm x 10.5 cm. It has five metal wheels set flat into a wooden case with a metal top. Around the top edge of each wheel are placed ten short pins labeled clockwise from 0 to 9. Above each wheel is a round opening in the case. The edge of this opening is also labeled clockwise from 0 to 9.

The tens-carry mechanism is implemented by means of spring slides (marked with G on the patent drawing), placed above the digital wheels. There is also a fixing mechanism provided, implemented by means of stop-bars (marked with Y), and springs (l).

Biography of John Campbell

John Tenbrook Campbell was born on 21 May 1833, in a farm near Montezuma, Parke County, Indiana, to Joseph Campbell (11 May 1808–22 Jan. 1841), and Rachel (Tenbrook or Tinbrook) Campbell (19 June 1814–5 Jan. 1844). Joseph and Rachel married on 27 March 1832, in Parke County, and John Tenbrook was their first child.

Campbells were descendants of a prominent Scottish Clan (do you remember Robert “Rob Roy” McGregor Campbell, the titular hero of Walter Scott’s novel?), many members of which emigrated to the New World in the 17th and 18th centuries. Joseph Campbell was the son of John Campbell (1770-1850), who was born to John and Hannah Rogers (Nickless) Campbell. He married Nancy Rugg in Worcester, Massachusetts on 23 Nov 1793. Full of adventure, he moved his family to Ohio, where Nancy rests on Ohio soil. In 1814 he took his children (five boys) to the wilds of Indiana to what was then Vigo County. Here among many difficulties and hardships of that time his first son, John, Jr. was stolen by the Indians when very young. John and his children were among the earliest pioneers in this area.

John Tenbrook Campbell was the first of seven children and spent his boyhood days in his father’s mills (Rockport Mills on Sugar Creek, several km NW of Annapolis, IN). He had a hard time after the early death of his parents, and at 15 he left home, took part in the building of Wabash and Erie Canal (tending horses for an Irish teamster and hauling fill from the excavation site to dumping pits), then secured employment in a farm, where he remained until he reached 17. Later on, he began as a carpenter, also studying at Annapolis and Western Manual Labor School in Bloomingdale, Indiana (in manual labor schools, students performed manual labor in exchange for their tuition costs). For ten ensuing years, John worked at his trade as a carpenter during the summer and followed the profession of a teacher in the winter season, meantime spending another term at the Labor School. Finally, he graduated as a civil engineer.

John Campbell took part in the Civil War from the very beginning, organizing an infantry regiment to fight for the Northern cause. Captain John Campbell was wounded and returned home in 1862.

After the war, Campbell was appointed to several important public duties, like Assistant Provost Marshall, Treasurer of Parke County (for 2 terms), Assistant Assessor of Internal Revenue, Assistant of the Indiana Bureau of Statistics and Geology, County surveyor (for 10 years), etc. In the 1870s Campbell opened the first hotel in Bloomingdale, but failing to make a success of the enterprise, later went out of business.

Campbell was so constituted mentally that he cannot learn anything until he becomes interested in it, but then only with great difficulty can he be prevented from learning it. He rummaged through libraries, seeking every source of information and mastering the subject in a very short time. When the inventive fever was on, his most important business must stand aside until he solves the problem, whatever it may be, that has presented itself to his mind.

John Campbell published various books and articles in the fields of statistics, geology, labor problems, finance, meteorology, etc., and devised several other devices, e. g. a device for ascertaining the distance, methods of measuring the height of the clouds, and others. In 1872 he published an interesting book—”The great problem of the age: An address on labor reform.” He took out letters patents upon several inventions, e. g. Portable Fence (U.S. Patent 63853), Lifting-Tongs (U.S. Patent 130194), Revolving Cultivator (U.S. Patent 329137), etc. In the 1870s Campbell matured a road system in statutory form for creating, constructing, repairing, and maintaining the public highways, on which he took out the copyright.

Campbell was a respected civil engineer. He wrote many newspaper articles, which he gathered in extensive scrapbooks.

John Campbell was married to Anna Bartha (Butterfield) Campbell (23 Jan. 1841-28 Nov. 1917), and they had one daughter, Lillian Jennie (Campbell) Bjorkman (1 Jan. 1869-25 Feb. 1903).

The last few years of his life John Campbell spent in the Indiana State Soldiers’ Home in Lafayette, Tippecanoe County, where he died on 30 April 1911. He was buried in Rockville Cemetery, Parke County, Indiana.

On 6 November 1894, Horace David Hicks, an employee of Brown’s Lumber Company, Whitefield, New Hampshire, USA, got a patent (US patent No. 528596, assigned one-half to Brown’s Lumber Company) for an adding machine with a very interesting construction. Certainly, the adding device of Hicks remained only on paper and never went into serial production, but nevertheless, it deserves our attention for its originality.

Let’s see how the inventor described his device in the patent application:
My invention relates to that class of adding machines which employ wheels having numbers on the peripheries; and my object is to provide a more simple, and inexpensive device which can be handled and operated with greater ease than those heretofore in vogue. To accomplish these ends, I employ the two co-operating numbered wheels in conjunction with a screw or worm shaft.

Let’s examine the operation of the device, using the patent drawing (see the nearby image).

In using the device the pointer k, is first set at the first point on the scale-bar as seen in the figure, and the disks are turned to bring the 100 point beneath the arm g. Supposing it is desired to add the numbers 10, 20, and 70; advance the wheels until figure 10 on disk c’ appears beneath the arm. Then turn the disk back until it is arrested by the detent g’. The disk c is carried forward with the disk c’, but is held still by the pawl d² when the disk c’ is returned to the starting point. A second advance of the wheel c’ to bring the point 20 beneath the arm, and another return movement will cause the disk c to register 30, the sum of the two numbers. If the disk c’ is now advanced to 70 and returned to the starting point, it will have caused the other disk to register a total of 100, and the pointer k to advance one point on the scale-bar. This operation can be continued until the sum of ten thousand has been registered, and then by returning the pointer to the starting point at the left end of the bar, increased additions can be made.

The operation of disengaging the pointer to slide it back can easily be performed by simply pressing it away from the threaded bar b, against the tension of the spring m, and sliding it to the starting point.

Biography of Horace Hicks

Horace David Hicks was born on 23 April 1826, in Jefferson, Coos County, New Hampshire, USA. He was the firstborn of David Hicks (1796–1889), a local farmer, and Eliza (Garland) Hicks (1803–1867).

David Hicks, son of Benjamin (1763-1846) and Alice (Hight) Hicks (1762-1846), was born at Jefferson, on 27 Aug. 1796, one of seven children. He was a descendant of the early settlers Hicks brothers: Robert, who came to the New World on the board of ship Fortune to Plymouth, Massachusetts, on 11 Nov. 1621, or his brother Thomas, who emigrated to America about 1630.

In 1818 David Hicks bought a farm of one hundred acres, which became his permanent home. He was a natural mechanic, and his skill was in demand for making nice woodwork like spinning wheels, clock real, and the like (so Horace obviously derived the natural endowments of his father). A quiet, law-abiding (but very fond of his rod and gun and of trapping) and much-respected citizen he was called deacon in his later years.

On 25 Dec. 1824, David Hicks married Eliza, daughter of John and Betsy (Hight) Garland, and they had six children: Horace (1826-1905), Elizabeth C. (1829-1911), Alice Jane (1832-1856), John Austin (1836-1896), Joseph Garland (1844-1906), and Harriet (1846-1872).

David Hicks died at Jefferson on 4 Nov. 1889, and his wife Eliza died on 30 Sep. 1867.

Horace Hicks worked 30 years for Brown’s Lumber Company at Whitefield, New Hampshire (a town, located some 10 km west of his hometown Jefferson), once the largest mill of its kind in New England. His brother-in-law Nathan Randall Perkins (married to Horace’s sister Elizabeth) was the second president of the company.

Besides the above-mentioned patent for adding machine, Horace Hicks was a holder of another US patent (Nr. 246504) for a belt fastener.

Horace Hicks married Frances P. Dennis (25 Apr. 1835-24 Aug. 1904), a native of England. They had one child, Alice J. (9 Mar 1854-11 May 1854), who died as a baby.

Horace David Hicks died on 15 September 1905, at Jefferson, NH, and was buried in the local Hillside Cemetery.

In May and June 1886, Brainard Fowler Smith, a merchant from Sacramento, California, filed applications for two patents for keyboard-driven adding machines. The patents (US360118 and US363972) had been granted the next year (March and May 1887), as the second patent (US363972) was granted to Brainard Smith and Arthur Shattuck, and was implemented later with some modifications in the famous keyboard adder Centigraph (Smith and Shattuck must have been friends not only because of this joint patent but also because both of them used to work for California state’s prison administration. Smith was a secretary from 1888 until 1908, while Shattuck was a director in the 1890s.)

Let’s examine the operation of the first adding machine of Brainard F. Smith, using the patent drawing (see the image below).

By pressing down any of the keys the yoke (E) is elevated at its lower end, thus depressing the extended upper end of one of the arms (e), whereby the pawl (F), which is mounted upon it, engages the ratchet wheel (d) and turns the disk or wheel (D) forward. The disk or wheel (D) is provided on its periphery with the integers or digits from zero up, and with several series of these around the entire circumference.

It is the intention in this machine to make one of the keys turn the disk or wheel (D) one space or number, another key to turn it two spaces, another three, and so on, according to the number of keys; and as it has been shown five here, it is obvious that the fifth key will turn the wheel or disk five spaces or numbers. The key on the extreme right is here shown as the unit-key, while the one on the extreme left is the 5-key.

It is obvious, that instead of having five keys, we could have nine, here five keys are used for the purpose of convenience, as it is easier to operate them with the fingers of one hand, and the same result can be obtained by touching two of the keys consecutively to form whatever number above 5 which may be before the operator. If any number up to 5 is to be added, a single key corresponding to that number is operated. For a 6, the 5 and the 1 may be operated consecutively, or the 3-key may be operated twice, or the 4-key and the 2-key may be operated consecutively, according to the will of the operator.

Let’s see an example to add:
3 6 7
5 8 4
9 7 1

Both wheels are set at 0. First press the 1-key, whereby the figure 1 on the disk D appears at the aperture in the casing. Then operate the 4-key, whereby figure 5 appears. Now for the 7, you touch consecutively the 5-key and the 2-key, whereby figure 2 appears at the aperture over the wheel (D), and figure 1 appears at the aperture over the wheel or disk C, which represents the tens, the movement of the wheel (C) being accomplished by one of the pins d’ on the wheel (D) coming in contact with the arm (l’) of the escapement-pawl and momentarily relieving said pawl from its engagement, whereby the spring (C’) of the wheel (C) throws it forward one space, when it is caught by said pawl again. You now write down the 2 under the first column and have the 1 to carry; but you have first, before proceeding to add the second column, to adjust both wheels back to 0. I do this by touching enough of the keys to cause the wheel (D) to turn to the next 0, and then, with the thumb pressing upon the milled rim of the flange (c) of the wheel (C), turning said wheel back to 0. Having now 1 to carry, you touch the 1-key and proceed with the second column, thus: For the 7, the 5 and the 2-key; for the 8, the 5 and the 3-key; for the 8, the 5 and the 1-key, consecutively, which will give us the result at the two apertures the figures 22. You now write down the 2 and again adjust the machine, as before described, by bringing both wheels back to 0. Having 2 to carry, you touch the 2-key, and then proceed with the last column. You touch the 5 and the 4 for figure 9, then the 5, and next the 3, so that you get the figures 19 appearing at the apertures in the casing, which figures you set in proper place for the result.

Certainly, adding machines like this are of little practical use, because they needed many manual operations for resetting calculating wheels and writing down the intermediate results. The later Centigraph of Shattuck will be the first successful machine of this type, as it will avoid the above-mentioned manual operations.

Biography of Brainard Smith

Brainard Fowler Smith was born in Madison, Indiana, on 4 July 1849, to Samuel Fowler Smith (1808-1879), a merchant, and Belvidere Roberts (1819-1866), a Yankee school teacher from Vermont.

Samuel Fowler Smith (see the nearby photo from the 1870s) was a remarkable man. Born in the Yorkshire village of Walton, England, on 22 Dec. 1808, in 1835 he decided to follow his two elder brothers Benjamin and John, who already immigrated to the US and landed in New York on 3 Nov. 1835. Spending some time working as a shoemaker (in England he used to work in a shoe shop and as shoemaker) in Cincinnati, Ohio, and then seeing his relatives, he settled in Madison, Indiana, and set up his own shoe business, and a choir and singing school. In 1844 he married the 24-year-old Vermont-born Belvidere Roberts, and soon they had three children, but only one of them, Brainard, survived to adulthood, moreover with everlasting health problems. Later (in 1851) they had another son, Charles Roberts Smith, and a daughter.

The family remained in Madison until 1855 when Smith moved to Indianapolis to enter a partnership with Judson Ostgood to make lasts and pegs for the shoemaking industry. Later they established a highly successful business for carriage wheels, and the establishment was at that time the largest factory in the West. After the death of his wife in 1866, Smith married the young Lizzie Sinclair and they had one child. Samuel Smith died on 12 March 1879.

In 1862 Brainard Smith obtained one year of his preparatory education at Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, of which his uncle, Rev. Henry Harvey Curtis, was president. His second collegiate year was taken at Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana. He entered the freshman class at Yale College in 1866, but upon the death of his mother, he returned home and afterward finished his collegiate course at Indianapolis.

After graduating Brainard Smith entered the office of his father’s factory and remained there until the ensuing autumn. Hearing a great deal about California, his curiosity was excited to spend a winter here. Carrying out his contemplated program, he liked the climate so well that he has ever since remained here. In 1871 he came to Sacramento with E. E. Ames, who was an agent for the Studebaker wagons and for his father’s patent wheels, and remained with him first as a commercial traveler and afterward as business manager until 1879 when he went to San Francisco to assume the management of a large agricultural house there.

Filling that position until 1883, Smith returned to Sacramento and opened a house of his own, under the company name of Brainard F. Smith & Co., but several years later he accepted a government position. Since 2 August 1888, Smith has been secretary of the Folsom State Prison, and on 2 May 1889, he was elected the secretary of the Preston School of Industry, to be located in Amador County. He has taken an active interest in politics as a Republican, having identified himself with almost every political movement. Smith remained in the office of Folsom Prison and then in San Quentin Prison until his death in 1908.

Brainard Fowler Smith was scarcely five feet in height, one leg much shorter than the other, and he walked with two canes, rarely resorting to the use of crutches. He at all times was one of the best-dressed men in the community and always wore a silk hat. Deformed and crippled as he was, no one ever heard him murmur or complain, and he was the life of every gathering of which he was a member. He wore diamonds, and always had money. With the latter, he was very liberal and did much for charity. His poor little emaciated and distorted frame encased a heart as big as that of a bullock, and he had a brain and intellect equal to that of most men.

Brainard Smith married Mattie S. Pinkham of San Francisco on 5 October 1892, in San Francisco. They had one son, Caryl Leigh Smith (born 29 Jan. 1894—died 2 Sep. 1959).

Besides the two patents for adding machines from 1886 and 1887, Brainard Smith had another patent for a pipe for smoking (US596832) from 1898.

Brainard Smith was a member of Sacramento Masonic Lodge No. 6 Order of Elks.

Brainard Fowler Smith died on 30 August 1908, in San Quentin, California.

In June and November 1885, Lawrence Wilson Swem (1856-1917), a jeweler of West Liberty, Muscatine, Iowa, filled two patent applications for a simple keyboard-operated adding machine, somewhat similar to the earlier adder of Marshall Cram from 1877 and very similar to the later adding machine Centigrpah of Arthur Shattuck from 1886 and 1891. The first patent (US patent No. 327970) was granted on 6 Oct 1885, while the second patent (US patent No. 343506) was granted in June 1886. The witness of the first patent was Jonathan (Jout) Maxson (1833-1925), a leading man in the local community, a clerk, merchant, and Postmaster at West Liberty, so we can easily guess one reason this machine was created.

Like other machines of this kind (so-called single-column adders), the device of Swem was intended to add a single digit at a time, i.e. the unit column is entered first, then the tens, the hundreds, the thousands, and so on, certainly a rather cumbersome task (as every partial sum had to be recorded on paper and the sum eventually performed), which greatly limits the usefulness of such devices.

Let’s examine the internal mechanism and operation of the adding machine of Swem, using the second patent drawing (see the lower image).

The numbers, entered by the keyboard, are transferred to the ratchet-wheel (B) by means of the rock-shaft (A). The wheel (B) is turning is turning freely or loosely thereon, and is provided with a specific number of teeth, ordinarily one hundred. This wheel can be rotated only in one direction, which is secured by a radial arm (C), a pawl-arm (D), retaining-pawl (F), and a spring (B’).

Secured to the ratchet-wheel (B), so as to turn with it, is a disk (G), having a series of numbers (from 1 to 99) on its periphery. The number entered on the disk (G) can be ascertained by means of a suitable indicator (G’).

The carry mechanism is implemented by means of a cam (H), mounted on one side of the disk (G), on which rests one end of the arm (I), the other being pivotally supported on a post (K), erected on the base (E). The post (K) has on top an extension (L), which supports a ratchet-wheel (M), with a specific number of teeth, say 14, and a plate (N), with an orifice (O), through which may successively be seen numbers on the said ratchet-wheel (M), corresponding in position to the teeth thereon. When the disk (G) has revolved once, the cam (H) will raise the arm (I) till it has reached the apex of the said cam and will carry the pawl (R) from one tooth of the wheel (M) to another.

Thus it is evident that if there are 99 numbers on the disk (G) and 14 on the wheel (M), any number from 1 to 1500 may be indicated, and the addition of amounts till the said sum is reached easily and rapidly accomplished without mental labor.

Biography of Lawrence Swem

Lawrence Wilson Swem was born in West Liberty, a small town in Muscatine County, Iowa, on 24 April 1856, to Ezra Brown Swem (14 Apr 1815-17 Nov 1871) and Phoebe (Phebe) H. Swem (nee Gregg) (11 Jan 1819-17 Jan 1887), a dressmaker. Ezra married Phoebe on 3 December 1837, in Wayne, Indiana, and they had nine children, but it seems only seven of them survived to adulthood: two girls—Amanda Jane (1842-1921), Mary (1848-1869), and five boys—Edward Lawrence (23 Oct 1838-4 May 1918), James Madson (30 Mar 1845-10 May 1909), Lawrence Wilson (24 Apr 1856-28 Sep 1917), Ross Elden (1858-1921), and William Carroll (7 Apr 1861-1 Apr 1931).

At the age of 12, Lawrence went to Belle Plain, Iowa, with his parents. He returned to West Liberty, however, and for several years conducted a jewelry store there. He also served the town as mayor for several years. In 1912 Swem retired from the jewelry business, to devote all his time to manufacture of the ring moulds. In his busy life, he also found time for the study of law and was admitted to the bar, though he did not practice the profession.

Besides the above-mentioned patents for adding machines, Lawrence Swem was a holder of several more US and Canadian patents for various devices like—lamp extinguisher (patent US201570), hydraulic air pump (US556220), gas-making apparatus (US595979), mold for castings of precious metal (US981033), ring expanding press (US1154893), hydrocarbon burner (US1216248), and gaz machine (CA052056). His burner was implemented on practically all kerosene lamps. His Swem Ring Mould for the casting of perfect gold rings has been in great demand since it was placed on the market. In its manufacture, Swem was associated with Edward Livingston Webb (1866-1963), a West Liberty businessman.

Lawrence Swem married on 28 June 1877, to Elva Ora Swem (nee McFadden) (18 Jan 1859-14 Dec 1922). They had three children, two boys—Roy J. Swem ( 9 Aug 1878-2 Oct 1934), and Azel Clark (22 Apr 1891-4 Apr 1958), and a girl—Gay Lucetta (18 May 1881-23 Sep 1959).

In 1914 Swem and his wife and younger son moved to Iowa Falls, Hardin, Iowa, where their daughter Gay Lucetta (Mrs. Frank Wilbur) married and lived. Lawrence Wilson Swem, a man of remarkable mind, died of diabetes on 28 September 1917, in Iowa Falls, at the age of 61, and was buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery, West Liberty, Muscatine, Iowa.

Note: Biographical information for Lawrence Wilson Swem was kindly provided by Lynn McCleary, the President of Muscatine Co. Genealogical Society.

At the beginning of the 1880s, the young county and court clerk of Sonoma, California, Arthur Ewing Shattuck (1854-1932), driven by the need to facilitate the tedious office calculation work, designed his first calculating device, which he patented in 1882. Later Shattuck became a holder of a total of five (four US and one Canadian) patents for calculating machines.

The first (№268135 from 1882) and second (№349459 from 1886) patents (received along with Charles Thorn Jr.) are for chain adders (one of many adding devices based on Abaque Rhabdologique of Claude Perrault), which remained on paper only and never reached the market.

In May 1887 Shattuck got his third patent (№363972), this time along with Brainard Smith (who patented a similar calculating device only two months before) for a simple 5-key single-column adder (like other machines of this kind, it was intended to add a single digit at a time, i.e. the unit column is entered first, then the tens, the hundreds, the thousands, and so on, certainly a rather cumbersome task (as every partial sum had to be recorded on paper and the sum eventually performed), which greatly limits the usefulness of such devices), similar to the earlier adders of Marshall Cram and Lawrence Swem (Smith and Shattuck must have been friends not only because of this shared patent but also because both of them later became California state’s prison officers. Shattuck was a director in the 1890s, while Smith was a secretary from 1888 to 1908).

Four years later (in 1891) Shattuck got his fourth US patent (№453778), for an improved version of the third patented device, which will be manufactured and sold in small quantities in the 1890s under the name Centigraph Adding Machine (called also Centigraphe and Centagraph) firstly by the company Centigraph Co. of New York (formed 1890), as later the rights to produce it were sold to the American Adding Machine Co. of Atlanta, Georgia. Centigraph was also reviewed and advertised in various periodicals in the US in the 1890s (see the upper ad from 1892).

The Centigraph Adding Machine is a metal device, mounted on a wooden base and case, with measurements (cm): length: 15.3, width: 20.6, height: 15.0.

The operation of the machine is as follows (see the lower patent drawing): Pressing the keys, the disk (plate) D is so turned, that through its aperture the ciphers are seen. For the digits over five two keys (marked with F) must be pressed simultaneously (for instance for 6, keys 5 and 1 must be pressed), whereupon plate C moves one number to the right, and plate D moves five numbers to the left, and in the aperture figure 6 is seen. The plate can counter to 99, but there is a separate 5 positional pointer for hundreds, which allows the sum to reach 599.

The keys 1, 2, 3, and 4 actuate pawls on a disc, which carries 100 notches in its circumference, and the 5 key actuates a pawl on a parallel and similar disc with 20 notches in its circumference. The two discs (plates) travel round in opposite directions. The discs are mounted on the same axis, and are connected together solely by a coiled spring round that axis. The 100-notch disc carries the numbers 1-99 and the total added together appears through a square hole in the 20-notch disc. There is a spiral groove in the 100-notch disc, in which travels a pin carried at the end of a pointer pivoted to the 20-notch disc. This pointer indicates the hundreds up to 500. A milled handle attached to the center of the 20-notch disc is used for bringing the disc to zero, and it winds up the spring in the operation.

Biography of Arthur E. Shattuck

Arthur Ewing Shattuck was born on 16 May 1854, in Petaluma, Sonoma, California, as the first child (of six) of Francis (Frank) William Shattuck (1828-1893) and Aletha Olivia (Olive) Ewing-Shattuck (1834-1882).

Shattuck was one of the oldest families in America, which ancestry can be traced back to William Shattuck (1622-1672), the pilgrim founder of Shattucks in America, who came to the New World probably in 1639 and settled in Watertown, Massachusetts colony. William Shattuck was the 6^th great-grandfather of Arthur Ewing Shattuck.

Francis (nickname Frank) William Shattuck was born on 15 February 1828, in Dupin County, North Carolina, and came to California along with his family in 1849, when the discovery of gold was drawing to this section of the US men from all parts of the country. He was located in Petaluma, San Francisco area, and became a lawyer, just like his father David Olcott Shattuck (1800-1892), an eminent lawyer and the first judge of the superior court of San Francisco. Frank Shattuck practiced law for many years, serving as a notary and County Judge of Sonoma county.

Frank Shattuck married Aletha Olivia “Olive” Ewing (born November 1834 in Lexington, Missouri – died 29 August 1882 in Petaluma, California) on 15 Jun 1853, in Petaluma (Sonoma Co., CA), and the next year was born their first child, Arthur Ewing. The family had two sons and four daughters: Arthur Ewing (1854-1932), William Finis (1856-1907), Rena (1858-1942), Frank Olivia (1860-1935), Mattie Newell (1862-1938), and Aletha Lee (1864-1938).

Arthur Ewing Shattuck acquired his early education in the public and private schools of Petaluma, California, and at the age of sixteen put aside his textbooks to enter upon a business career. When he was eighteen years of age he was appointed deputy county auditor, but on account of his youth, he retired from public office until he had attained his majority, when he was appointed deputy county clerk of Sonoma county and served in Judge Temple’s court for a number of years. It seems during his service as a county and court clerk in the 1880s Shattuck invented his adding devices, the object of this article.

Subsequently, Arthur Ewing Shattuck became a member of the editorial staff of the Santa Rosa Democrat, a daily newspaper, then published by Thomas Larkin Thompson (1838–1898), who was later appointed to the position of United States minister to Brazil. When in 1892 Thompson became secretary of state of California, he appointed Shattuck as his assistant, and the latter largely had the management of the office until he resigned in 1894 in order to devote his attention to private business interests in San Francisco. Arthur Shattuck was appointed to the position of state’s prison director, and upon the expiration of his term, he joined his brother William Finis in a manufacturing enterprise in San Francisco under the firm name of the Pacific States Type Foundry, of which he was secretary/treasurer and then president for ten years.

On 4 Dec. 1895 Arthur Shattuck married Margaret Emily Sharp (1871-1965), a native of Sacramento, California. They had two daughters, Margaret Ledeane (1897-1983) and Kathryn Ann Shattuck-Van Brunt (1901-1994).

Arthur Ewing Shattuck died in 1932 in San Francisco.

At the beginning of 1877 the young 23-year-old self-taught mechanic Marshall Cram, working as the first foreman of the Mankato Manufacturing Company machine shop in Mankato, Minnesota, stumbled upon a problem. One of his duties was to keep books at night, which needed calculations, so wanting to make his work easier, Cram decided to create a calculating machine. By April 1877 his design was ready and on 17 April he filed a patent application. The patent was issued on 7 August 1877 (see US Patent No. 193853). Interestingly, the witness of the patent was Henry Tourtelotte (1839-1919), a prominent local merchant at Mankato, so we can easily guess another reason this machine was made.

The adding machine of Cram was similar to the later Centigraph of Arthur Shattuck from the middle 1880s. In contrast with Centigraph however, the device of Cram remained only on paper and never went into serial production, because the inventor didn’t have enough money to start the manufacture, and after 17 years the patent expired and was not renewed.

Just like other machines of this kind (so-called single column adders, e.g. that of Tito Gonnella), the calculating machine of Marshall Cram was intended to add a single digit at a time, i.e. the unit column is entered first, then the tens, the hundreds, the thousands, and so on, certainly a rather cumbersome task (as every partial sum had to be recorded on paper and the sum eventually performed), which greatly limits the usefulness of such devices.

The display capacity of the adding machine of Cram is 999. It is contained in an ordinary-looking box with an overall size of 10 x 18 x 11 cm and a weight of 0.650 kg. The machine itself is a small brass instrument with keys numbering from one to nine arranged in two rows. As one presses a key, it turns a flanged wheel a number of notches equal to the number imprinted on the key. This number is shown on the edge of the flanged wheel. For instance, if the operator presses the numbers three and six the wheel turns so that a small arrow is pointing to a figure nine.

The wheel counts only up to 100, so hundreds are shown on a stationary brass plate which has 100, 200, 300, and so on marked at the correct place so that one full turn of the flanged wheel, which has 100 digits on it, will draw the arrow from one to 100. Then, as the flanged wheel starts over from one again, the total sum is found by adding the sum of the flanged wheel and the 100, 200, 300, or whatever it is on the stationary brass plate.

It seems the adding machine of Cram remained only on paper, and never went into production. Only one example of the device (apparently the only prototype built by the inventor) survived to our time, as it was preserved by the descendants of the inventor (still living in Minnesota) up to 1996 when it was sold to an American collector, then it was sold to Arithmeum Museum in Bonn, Germany (see the nearby image). Interestingly, the model in Arithmeum differs somewhat from the patent version: the summing unit is installed on the left (instead of the right) of the keyboard, so obviously this example was made for left-handers. Amazingly, according to his descendants, Cram believed he had invented the very first adding machine and was disappointed when applying for his patent, he found out that he was to receive a patent for only an improvement in adding machines, so he was sufficiently discouraged to put the invention on the shelf, where it remained for 120 years.

The surviving machine appears to be made from a brass sheet. Actually, one of Cram’s patent claims was the use of a single sheet of brass in forming the entire base of the adder. The only part that seems to have been machined is the screw hub on the ratchet wheel. The machine is mounted into what appears to be a walnut or mahogany box.

Biography of Marshall Cram

Marshall Moses Cram was born on 2 June 1853 in Republic, Ohio. He was the youngest child of Moses Bailey Cram (born 17 October 1804 in Weare, New Hampshire—died 18 June 1878 in Faribault, Minnesota), and his first wife Rachel Amanda (Pond) Cram (born 19 Oct 1814 in Shoreham, Vermont—died 1854 in Scipio, Ohio). Moses Bailey Cram and Rachel Amanda Pond married on 18 December 1834, in Madison, Ohio, and had eight children: Martha Arnetta (1836-1917), Rachel Araminta (1838-1869), Abigail (1840-1844), Ellen (1842-1923), Mathilda (1843-1914), Charles (1846-1847), Elvira (1848-1850), and Marshall Moses (1853-1941). After the death of his first wife Rachel Amanda in 1854, Moses Bailey Cram married in 1855 to her younger sister—Lucy Clarinda Pond (1819-1865), and they had three children: Lilly Edith (1856-1914), Virgil (1858-1901), and Florence (1860-1862).

Besides the above-mentioned patent for a keyboard-driven adding machine, Marshall Cram was a holder of three other US patents (for a boiler cleaner (US634521) and for profile measuring and recording devices (US987863 and US1308580).

Cram spent almost entire his life in Mankato, Minnesota, where he used to work for Mankato Manufacturing Company, and in North Mankato, where he was appointed as the city engineer. As an engineer, Cram needed an instrument for surveying purposes, which inspired him to another invention—a surveying instrument, known as the sectograph. It was used for surveying roads and other land where comparative levels are wanted. The levels are shown by pin holes on a roll paper which reproduces the levels on the scale of one inch to 10 feet. In his spare time, Cram used to make little inventions for his home use, like a mechanical calendar device, lightning hook-up, signal device for the temperature of the honey (he was an apiarist), etc.

Marshall Moses Cram married Mary Grice (born 1 Oct. 1854 in Pennsylvania—died 25 Nov. 1939 in North Mankato, Minnesota) in 1875 in Minnesota, and they had two daughters—Martha Rubina (1880-1964), and Lula.

Marshall Moses Cram died on 16 July 1941 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the home of his daughter Martha, where he spent the last two years and was buried in Kerns Oak Grove Cemetery, North Mankato.

Note: Biographical information for Marshall Cram was kindly provided by Bri Krumwiede, an Archives Assistant of the Blue Earth County Historical Society, Mankato, MN.

In the 1850s (or even earlier) Count Niccola Guinigi-Magrini, a nobleman from Lucca, Italy, designed and made a simple dial adder (which he called Manipolatore Aritmetico—Arithmetical Manipulator) with a unique design that summed eight-digit figures up to 99,999,999. Now the only surviving device is exposed in the Arithmeum Museum, Bonn, Germany (see the lower images). Arithmeum recently uploaded a 3D animated video made by a student of Computer Science, showing the functionality of the machine in detail and also giving an impression of its operation and aesthetics (see the Arithmeum video)

On the device lid is attached an engraved brass plate with the inscription N. GUINIGI Invento ed Eseguı 1858 (N. Guinigi Invented and Built in 1858). Guinigi even asserted that he had used his Manipolatore for 19 years while performing the duty of some administration task in the town council of Capannori, near Lucca. So probably his device had been designed much earlier than 1858.

The calculating machine of Guinigi was presented in the newspaper Monitore Toscano, published in Florence on 10 February 1859. There is also a letter from Tito Gonnella (another Italian inventor of calculating machines) to Filippo Corridi, president of the Tuscan Academy of Arts and Manufacturing (Accademia Toscana di Arti e Manifatture), dated 26 February 1859, in which Gonnella complained that the academy had ignored two calculators he invented and built between 1857 and 1859, but acknowledged the arithmetical machine of Guinigi.

Together with the machine of Guinigi was preserved a seven-page manuscript, handwritten by the inventor himself, entitled Manipolatore Aritmetico, which describes the calculator in detail and explains how to use it, with practical examples. The manuscript states: The purpose of this small machine is to perform additions, driving them to an easy game for everybody, doing away with computing and carrying, always to a correct outcome. The user does not need more knowledge than just [reading] numbers. A quarter of an hour suffices to master the machine operation.

On 6 December 1858, Guinigi submitted the prototype of his calculator to the Accademia Toscana. The device was examined by a commission of two mathematicians, Antonio Ferrucci and Giovanni Novi, who wrote a report, which concludes: this [machine] is particularly worth mentioning for its simplicity and the solidity of its organs… with no essential fault… [but] presents some flaws in its construction…. The report was presented by Ferrucci during the Ordinary Meeting of the Academy on 16 January 1859 and recommended the inventor introduce some improvements in the construction.

Guinigi’s adder is mounted in a wooden box (dimensions: 37 x 38 x 18 cm, weight: 9 kg) with a large circular dial on the top. Inside the large dial is a glass plate covering eight small, round windows showing eight digital wheels. The gears, levers, axles, and cams were made mostly of boxwood, but an internal brass slab that holds the accumulator and carries axles and other small elements (screws, pins, and springs) is made of brass or steel.

The large dial has 20 knobs on its circumference, featuring the numbers 1 to 20 inscribed on an internal circle. The dial can be rotated clockwise by the knobs until a stop is reached (just like a rotary telephone dial). On the front side, eight levers (numbered 1 to 8) stick out; each one can be pressed down, but an internal device prevents pressing more than one at a time.

The mode of operation of the machine described by Guinigi in his manuscript seems really easy: having a vertical list of numbers to sum, the addition is made by columns, starting on the right, as accountants do with pen and paper. The rightmost front lever is pressed and each digit of the units column is entered in succession by pressing the respective knob on the dial wheel and turning it clockwise until the stop is reached (zeros are ignored).

Tens carries are automatically added to the next decimal order. Then the rightmost lever is raised and the one to its left pressed; the tens column digits are entered as before. The procedure is then repeated for all the columns and the result can be read in the small windows under the glass cover.

Guinigi obviously realized that his machine is subject to jamming when a ripple-carry occurs (as was the case with most previous and coeval calculators) for example when adding 1 to 99999. The two brass buttons on the front side are designated as anti-jamming devices, one for the lower four decimal orders, and another for the higher ones (the buttons are connected with two levers operating on the carry gears, giving them an extra hit in case of ripple-carry). The machine also lacks (again as most calculators of the time), a device of critical importance—for zeroing. To reset the counter wheels, the operator must add the complement to 10 to each accumulator, starting with the rightmost one.

The making of Guinigi’s adder is all in wood with small metal details (springs and screws), but the inventor wrote in his manuscript, that intended to make [the machine] again, in metal and more precise, but both for lack of will and for a shortage of time… making it in metal with a new design remained, and I think will remain forever, just a wish. So obviously the above-mentioned device remained only as a prototype and was not developed further and popularized.

Biography of Niccola Guinigi

Count Niccola Guinigi-Magrini (also spelled Nicola or Niccolao) was born in 1818 in Lucca, a Bourbon-Parma duchy in Tuscany, Central Italy. He was one of the last descendants of two outstanding Lucchese families of wealthy and powerful merchants, Guinigi and Magrini, who formed the Guinigi-Magrini branch at the beginning of the 17^th century. Guinigi’s most renowned ancestors were Francesco Guinigi (ar. 1320-1384), who orchestrated the purchase of Lucca’s independence in 1369 and was rewarded with the honorific Padre della Patria, and his youngest son Paolo Guinigi (1372-1432), who ruled Lucca (titled Capitano e Difensore del Popolo—Leader and Defender of People) from 1400 until 1430.

Niccola Guinigi was part of the local aristocracy, a man of liberal mind and progressive ideas, and an active partaker in the public life of Lucca. He was a member of the Organizing Committee of the Fifth Meeting of Italian Scientists in 1843 and a representative to the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1855 and the Dublin International Exhibition of 1865.

In May 1848, Guinigi fought in the battle of Curtatone against the Austrian imperial forces. In 1849, while serving in Lucca’s Civil Guard (he was an officer and a head of the Civil Guard), he was taken prisoner by rioters and sentenced to death, but eventually escaped the execution. Later on, Guinigi held public positions in Lucca, as the patron of the Assumption Chapel, chairman of the Royal Commission for the Conservation of Fine Arts and Encouragement of Arts and Manufactures, and president of the Departmental Council.

Count Niccola Guinigi died on 25 January 1900, leaving no issue.

Literature: Silvio Hénin, Massimo Temporelli, An Original Italian Dial Adder Rediscovered, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, 2012, vol. 34, n. 2

The Italian physicist, mathematician, and inventor Tito Gonnella (1794–1867), professor of mathematics and mechanics at the Florentine Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze, is primarily known as the inventor (in 1824) of one of the first planimeters (an instrument for measuring the area, enclosed by an irregular closed curve) in the world. An improved version of Gonnella’s orthogonal planimeter was exposed at the London International Exhibition of 1851 in Crystal Palace and received the highest award for this type of instrument—the Council Medal.

Remarkably, besides his prized planimeters, Gonnella devised two calculating machines, and examples of them survive today, the first in Bonn (Arithmeum Museum), the second in Florence (Museo Galileo).

We don’t know when exactly Gonnella created his calculating machines, but the first of them—the dial adder, was created for sure before 1857 because in this year he donated one of them (it seems he made three examples) to Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who founded his researches. In 1861 Gonnella was awarded a medal for his two adding machines at the first Italian National Exposition in Florence. In 1862, one of his adding machines (the dial adder) was presented at the Great London Exposition (see its description in the catalog on the nearby image), and received an honorable mention For the ingenuity and simplicity of the construction of his calculating machine (In Class XIII.—Philosophical Instruments and Processes depending on their Use; Section: Calculating Machines.) Both Gonnella’s adding machines were exhibited several times in Italy in the second half of the 19th century.

Interestingly, there is a letter from Gonnella to Filippo Corridi, president of the Tuscan Academy of Arts and Manufacturing (Accademia Toscana di Arti e Manifatture), dated 26 February 1859, in which Gonnella complained that the academy had ignored two calculators he invented and built between 1857 and 1859, but acknowledged the arithmetical machine of a certain Count Niccola Guinigi (another Italian inventor of calculating machines).

The two above-mentioned adding machines are described with details in Gonnella’s 35 pages brochure Descrizione di due macchine aritmetiche per l’addizione, published in March 1859 in Florence (see the book of Gonnella, courtesy of Museo Galileo, Florence). Gonnella was obviously interested in calculating devices for many years, as can be seen in his earlier brochure Opuscoli mathematici nei quali si tratta, published in 1841 in Florence (most of the work is concerned with a theoretical treatment of optics, but the final section describes an integrating machine—a form of planimeter).

1. Gonnella’s stylus-operated dial adder

The first calculating machine described by Gonnella is a stylus-operated dial adder, based on the idea of Pascaline and several other simple early adders, e. g. that of Jean Lépine and Hillerin de Boistissandeau from the 1720s, but as a realization more akin to the later adding machines of David Roth, and Chaim Zelig Slonimski from 1840s. It seems only one example of the device survived to our time, and it is kept now in the collection of the Arithmeum Museum in Bonn, Germany (see the nearby photo).

The dial adder of Gonnella (see the lower drawing from his 1859 book) is an 8-positional (both in the input and result mechanisms, although the adder presented in London in 1862 was 6-positional) brass and iron device, placed in a wooden box. Its dimensions are 53 x 10,6 x 10,7 cm, weight: 4,5 kg. The numbers are entered by means of a stylus (pen).

The tens carry transfer mechanism of the adder is unique and original, but not quite reliable because in the case of ripple carry (for example adding 99999 plus 1) it tends to jam. Gonnella acknowledged this flaw and attempted to correct it with an anti-jamming device, but we don’t know if such improvement has been implemented.

Interestingly, the Arithmeum model is most probably not one of the first three examples, mentioned to be made by Gonnella by 1859, because despite the similarities between the published drawings and the model, there is a substantial difference. That is the knob at the lower center of the dial plate, destined to help carry transfer, much like the anti-jamming buttons of Guinigi. This device was neither mentioned in Gonnella’s 1859 book nor shown in the published drawings, so it seems possible that Gonnella’s adder was also subject to the ripple-carry problem and was later improved by adopting this patch solution, perhaps influenced by Guinigi’s design.

2. Gonnella’s Keyboard Adder

The Gonnella’s Keyboard Adder, devised probably in 1858, is one of the earliest keyboard-driven machines, after these of White (early 1800s), Torchi (1834), Schwilgué (1844), Parmelee (1850), Schilt (1851), Hill (1857), and Castle (1857). Gonnella certainly was not aware of the machines of the American inventors Parmelee, Hill, and Castle, but he probably knew the machine of his compatriot Luiggi Torchi, which has been exposed in the Palace of Science and Arts of Brera in the 1830s, as well as with the machine of Schwilgué and especially with Schilt’s, which has been exposed at the 1851 London International Exhibition (where Gonnella’s planimeter was awarded) and received a bronze medal.

The Gonnella’s Keyboard Adder (see the lower image) is a solid brass-iron device (size 20/30/18 cm, weight below 1 kg).

The device has a nine-digit keyboard (keys 1—5 on the lower row, 6—9 on the upper row). The accumulator is in the form of a helical drum (a drum with an engraved helix curve). Like other machines of this kind (so-called single column adders), it was intended to add a single digit at a time, i.e. the unit column is entered first, then the tens, the hundreds, the thousands, and so on, certainly a rather cumbersome task (as every partial sum had to be recorded on paper and the sum eventually performed), which greatly limits the usefulness of such devices.

Each of the keys is attached to a toothed sector, the number of teeth of which corresponds to the figure, engraved on the key. The pressing of the keys causes the same upward movement of the corresponding sectors. During this movement, the teeth of the sector will engage with one of the nine tooth wheels and will rotate it, as the angle of the rotation is proportional to the number of the teeth, e. g. pressing of the 7-key causes the corresponding wheel to rotate 7/25 of the turn (because the 100-divisions helical flange of the drum is a four-turns, i. e. 25 divisions per turn).

The teeth wheels are fixed to a shaft, to which is also attached the drum in the left part, on the surface of which is engraved a four-turns helical flange, graduated with 25 divisions per turn (total of 100, from 0 to 99). Thus the drum rotates simultaneously with the teeth wheels. The helical flange engages with a peripheral slit on the bottom of the horizontally mounted wheel (graduated on the periphery 0 to 5), that rotates 1/25 of the turn every turn of the drum, thus counting the hundreds when 99 is exceeded. This solution allows sums up to 599 to be calculated, not requiring a carry mechanism to be implemented, because the addition sum can be read as a combination between the figure on the horizontal wheel and the figure on the drum.

The above-described mechanism is workable, but it has some shortcomings, which Gonnella surely noticed, that’s why in his brochure he described several improvements, which he obviously never attempted to implement in practice. Some of these improvements are:
1. A mechanism for resetting the drum and the horizontal wheel.
2. A spring-driven arm, destined to avoid the recoil of wheels.
3. A five-key keyboard, to be pressed two in sequence for digits greater than 5.

Biography of Tito Gonnella

Tito Filippo Giovanni Battista Gonnella was born on 18 September 1794 in Livorno, a port city on the Ligurian Sea on the western coast of Tuscany, Italy. He was the son of Francesco Gonnella and Violante Stoppioni.

Francesco Gonnella (1757-1835) was an heir of a known local family. His father, Filippo Maria Gonnella (1722-1798) was a Doctor of Law from the University of Pisa and was known as one of the publishers (in the 1770s) of the famous Livornese edition of Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers of Diderot and d’Alembert.

Francesco Gonnella was born on 22 February 1757, in Livorno. Just like his father, he also managed to get a Doctor degree from the University of Pisa, and entered public administration, becoming assistant director of the archive of Libro detto delle Riformagioni in Livorno. Francesco Gonnella died on 28 December 1835.

Tito Gonnella, just like his father and grandfather, get a Doctor degree from the University of Pisa. He graduated in 1818, with a treatise on the production of divisions for mathematical instruments. In the same 1818, he was assigned to a Florentine commission which, at the request of Grand Duke Leopold II, was to draw up the new land registry for Tuscany.

From 1829 to 1850 Gonnella taught pure mathematics and mechanics at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, then until 1854 pure mathematics. He is primarily known as the inventor of one of the first planimeters (the so-called wheel-and-cone planimeter that used a friction-wheel integrator) in the early 1820s, and also as the inventor of an improved reflecting telescope (presented in 1841).

Tito Gonnella died in 1867 in Florence.

Literature: S. Hénin, Two Early Italian Key-driven Calculators, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, 2010. n. 1