Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1886 — Shaker Inventions. [ARTICLE]

Shaker Inventions.

Various contrivances of mechanical merit have originated among the Shakers. The idea of a circular saw for catting boards was taken from a small saw first made and used in a turning lathe at Mount Lebanon, and the first iron saw was constructed in W 92 by Benjamin Bruce at that place, and is now in the New York State Agcultural Department in Albany.. The washing machine was a Shaker invention many years before it was patented. Printing presses, cheese presses, and planing mills have all been perfected by their ingenious activity. Babbitt metal is claimed as a composition of their discovery. Mowers and reapers and pea shelters, butter . workers and clothes-pins are all the product of their multiplied industry and skill. The Watervliet ConKagmity claims the invention of cut nails, and the screw propeller system of navigation is traced to an origin among these land locked people. The Shakers-have' paid little attention to patent rights and have reap--9d but little from their many inventions, having generally* been satisfied with the benefit occur- • ring to society from their nse.