CHAPTER III.

THE FIRST PRACTICAL TYPEWRITER The time--the winter of the year 1866-67. The place--a little machine shop in the outskirts of the city of Milwaukee. The scene--three men, all middle aged, thoughtful and studious, each one hard at work on a pet invention of his own, without a thought in the mind of any one of them of the great achievement which was destined to come out of this chance association. Thus was the stage set for the invention of the first practical typewriter, though nearly seven years were yet to elapse before its actual production began in the little town of Ilion, New York. One of these three men, Carlos Glidden, the son of a successful ironmonger of Ohio, was engaged in developing a mechanical "spader" to take the place of a plow. The other two, Samuel W. Soulé and Christopher Latham Sholes, both printers by trade, were engaged in developing a machine for numbering serially the pages of blank books and the like. Of these men, the central figure in the association subsequently formed was Christopher Latham Sholes, a name which must always occupy the place of highest honor in any history of the writing machine. Sholes was born in Columbia County, Penn., on February 14, 1819. He came of the oldest New England stock and his ancestors had served with distinction in the War of the Revolution. His grandfather on the maternal side was a lineal descendant of John and Priscilla Alden, so the spirit of the pioneer was a part of his inheritance. It is also of deep significance that Sholes was a printer and publisher by trade, the most closely allied mechanical arts to typewriting that the world then knew. As a publisher, Sholes knew, from the necessities of his own occupation, the vital help that a writing machine would offer. And it certainly accords with the fitness of things that, after the lapse of four centuries, the art of Gutenberg should have furnished, in one of its disciples, the inventor of the typewriter. At the age of fourteen young Sholes was apprenticed to the editor of the Intelligencer of Danville, Pa., to learn the printing trade, but four years later he joined his brother, Charles C. Sholes, well known in the early politics of Wisconsin, then living in Green Bay. A frail constitution, with a tendency to consumption, of which disease he finally died, seems to have influenced his early removal to what was then a wild region at the edge of the great pine forest. In the following year, when only nineteen years old, he took charge of the House Journal of the Wisconsin Territorial Legislature, which he carried to Philadelphia to be printed; a long and difficult journey at that time. In 1839 we find him at Madison, where he became editor of the Wisconsin Inquirer, owned by his brother Charles. In the following year he went to Kenosha, where he edited the Southport Telegraph, afterwards the Kenosha Telegraph, and four years later was appointed postmaster of the town. Sholes's activities as a journalist finally took him into Wisconsin politics, a career for which, in character and temperament, he was very poorly fitted. Nevertheless, he served two terms as state senator, in 1848 and 1849 from Racine County, and in 1856 and 1857 from Kenosha County. In 1852 and 1853 he represented Kenosha in the assembly. While a member of the council he was a witness of the homicide of one of the members by another, a tragedy made familiar to the world by Charles Dickens in "American Notes." The account given by Dickens was taken from Sholes's own paper, the Southport Telegraph. In 1860 Sholes removed to Milwaukee, where he had an active and varied career, first as postmaster, and later as commissioner of public works and collector of customs. He was also for a long time editor of the Milwaukee Daily Sentinel and the Milwaukee News. It was in 1866, while serving as collector of customs for the Port of Milwaukee, that the invention of the typewriter enters the story. On the personal side much more could be written concerning Sholes, for he was a man of very unusual and attractive character. Some might have called him an eccentric, but his eccentricities were of a kind which endeared him to everyone. He is described as one of the most unselfish, kind-hearted and companionable men that ever lived. He was also a man of extreme personal modesty, and of almost excessive tenderness of conscience, viewed from the usual business standpoint. He was always more than just to others and less than just to himself. Some phases of his character were a puzzle. As an editor he made it a rule to copy into his own paper all the adverse criticisms that were passed upon him by his political adversaries, and some of them were very bitter and unjust, and he would always omit all complimentary notice of himself and his work. Gentle and lovable, cultured and brilliant, modest and unselfish, these were the outstanding characteristics of Christopher Latham Sholes. He was not the kind of man ever to make much money. In the days before the typewriter he had, by a fortunate chance, acquired wealth, but he did not keep it. The typewriter gave him another opportunity, but he let it pass. From first to last he was singularly indifferent to worldly fortune. One day, in his later years, he remarked to a friend that he had been trying all his life to escape becoming a millionaire and he thought he had succeeded admirably. He was always a visionary, and one of his visions was of a human Utopia which should witness the abolition of greed and poverty and the dawn of universal love. Call him a dreamer if you will, but one day he dreamed a dream which he proceeded to translate into a wonderful reality, which has placed the whole world in his everlasting debt. The typewriter was not the first evidence of Sholes's inventive genius. Years before he had been the first to conceive of the method of addressing newspapers by printing the names of subscribers on the margin. His more recent work on the machine for paging blank books brings us to the beginning of the typewriter story. But all else is now obscured by the memory of his crowning achievement, the invention of the writing machine. What was the influence which caused these three men, Sholes, Soulé and Glidden, to drop the inventions on which they had been working and to pool their interests in a new and far greater undertaking? According to one story, the idea arose out of a chance remark of Glidden's, who had become interested in Sholes's paging machine and one day said, "Why cannot such a machine be made that will write letters and words and not figures only?" Nothing further was said or done at the time, but in the summer of the following year (1867) a copy of the Scientific American, which quoted an article from a London technical journal, fell into the hands of Glidden. It described a machine called the "Pterotype," invented by John Pratt, which was designed to do just what Glidden had suggested. This invention had inspired an editorial in the same issue of the paper which pointed out the great benefit to mankind which such a machine would confer, as well as the fortune that awaited the successful inventor. Glidden immediately brought this article to the attention of Sholes, and it appealed so strongly to his imagination that he decided to see what could be done. General William G. LeDue, whose own interest in the invention of a typewriter dated back to 1850, and who subsequently was the first man to introduce the machine into the Government service at Washington, tells how, in 1867, he visited Milwaukee and found Sholes, together with Glidden, at work on the book-paging machine, and suggested to them the idea of a typewriter. These two accounts are in no sense contradictory. When an idea is "in the air," it is natural to find more than one influence at work. At any rate, we soon find Sholes working whole-heartedly on the new idea, assisted by Glidden and Soulé, both of whom had been invited to join in the enterprise. None of these men, so far as we know, had any knowledge at the time of any previous attempts to invent a typewriter, with the single exception of John Pratt's "Pterotype" already mentioned. In the building of the new machine they were, at the outset, wholly dependent on their own creative efforts. All of them were amply endowed with inventive talent, but not one of the three was a mechanical engineer by profession, or even a mechanic by trade, and they needed the help of the skilled mechanics at Kleinsteuber's machine shop in the carrying out of their ideas. Of these mechanics, Matthias Schwalbach is the man who figures most prominently in this story. Schwalbach had already helped Sholes in developing his paging machine, and, when the efforts of the three inventors were transferred to the typewriter, he entered into the new work with interest and enthusiasm. As the work went on Schwalbach began to do more than merely carry out the ideas of Sholes; he developed some ideas of his own which were of the greatest help to the inventors. The work went steadily onward and by autumn of the year 1867 the first machine had been made, although no patent was taken out until June of the year following. This first machine had innumerable defects and was a crude affair in every way. But it wrote accurately and rapidly, and that was the main point. Moreover, as a self-advertiser, it soon scored a notable triumph. A number of letters were written with it and sent to friends, among these one to James Densmore, then of Meadville, Pa. Densmore was immediately interested. Like Sholes and Soulé, he had been both editor and printer, and could well realize the importance of such a machine. Densmore was a practical man of affairs, with imagination, foresight, energy and courage unbounded. Instantly he saw the possibilities of the new invention and shortly afterwards he purchased, by the payment of all expenses already incurred, an interest in the new machine before he had so much as seen it. Densmore did not actually see the typewriter until March of the following year (1868). He then pronounced it good for nothing save to show that the idea was feasible, and pointed out many defects that would need to be remedied before it would be available for practical uses. Shortly afterwards Soulé dropped out of the enterprise, leaving it to Sholes, Glidden and Densmore. The relationship which then began between Sholes and Densmore was a strange meeting of opposites, for two men more unlike could hardly be imagined. Densmore is described as bold, aggressive and arrogant. If Sholes was a dreamer and an idealist, Densmore in some respects was a plain "crank." He was a vegetarian of the militant type, and did not hesitate to remonstrate with meat eaters, even total strangers in public restaurants. His own diet consisted mainly of raw apples, a reminder of the raw turnips of Colonel Sellers. He was always impervious to the shafts of ridicule and insensible to slights. Indomitable and resolute, in the pursuit of any object he could not be discouraged or repulsed. But Densmore, in his own rough way, was usually kind to the gentle Sholes, and it may be set down to his credit that more than once, during the years of inventive struggle from 1867 to 1873, when difficulties thickened and Sholes, if left to his own devices, would have become discouraged, Densmore's unquenchable faith was the salvation of the infant enterprise. The relationship between Densmore and Sholes reminds us in some respects of the similar relationship in the eighteenth century between Boulton and James Watt. During these years Densmore consistently played the part of Boulton to Sholes, who, under his urging, continued to build model after model, until twenty-five or thirty had been made. Each one of these marked some improvement over the last, but in the hands of practical users each one showed some defect and broke down under the strain of actual use. It was not until early in the year 1873 that the machine was deemed sufficiently perfected for actual manufacture. In the meantime other men had entered the typewriter story. One of these was James Ogilvie Clephane of Washington, D. C., who, years after, became closely identified with Ottmer Mergenthaler, the inventor of the Linotype. It was thus the unusual distinction of Clephane to place his name in intimate association with two of the greatest inventions of our times. Clephane's role in the case of the typewriter was that of practical tester. As an official shorthand reporter, he had a complete and instant appreciation of the boon that the new machine would confer on his own profession, and he faithfully and gladly tried out one model after another sent to him by the inventors. He was severe in his criticisms of the defects of these models, as they revealed themselves in actual service, so much so that Sholes frequently became disheartened. But it was all in a good cause, and Densmore kept assuring Sholes that such tests were just what were needed to reveal the weak points. Thus by slow degrees the original conceptions of the inventors were modified by their growing knowledge of practical requirements. Mr. Charles E. Weller, during this period of typewriter development, played a role similar to that of Clephane. Mr. Weller, now a resident of La Porte, Ind., is the only present-day survivor of the many friends of Sholes, and his invaluable little book, "The Early History of the Typewriter" is the most intimate picture of the character and struggles of the inventor that we now possess. Weller was in personal contact with Sholes almost from the beginning. In July, 1867, when resident in Milwaukee working as a telegraph operator and student of shorthand, he tells how Sholes came into the telegraph office one day to secure a sheet of carbon paper, a rare article in those days. Weller knew Sholes as an inventive genius, and his curiosity was immediately aroused. Sholes told him that if he would call at his office he would be glad to show him something interesting, and Sholes kept his word. What Weller saw was a crude experimental affair rigged up with a single key, like a telegraph transmitter, which printed through the carbon paper a single letter wwwww. But it printed this letter in sequence as fast as the key could be operated. "If you will bear in mind," says Weller, "that at that time we had never known of printing by any other method than the slow process of setting the types and getting an impression therefrom by means of a press, you may imagine our surprise at the facility with which this one letter of the alphabet could be printed by the manipulation of the key." Sholes then explained how he was developing this idea into a machine which would print in similar manner any and all letters of the alphabet--in other words a complete writing machine. Weller, shortly after, removed to St. Louis, to take up the profession of shorthand reporter. On leaving, Sholes promised to send him, for practical testing, the first completed model and in January, 1868, the machine arrived. Sholes, in the meantime, had chosen his own name for this machine, which he called a "type-writer." And thus to the inventor himself fell the honor of christening his own creation with the name which has always been universal among English speaking users. The proper naming of the typewriter had been quite as long and difficult a job as the evolution of the practical machine itself. Those who came before Sholes failed in this, quite as much as in their inventive efforts. Henry Mill did not even attempt to name his invention. Burt called his a "Typographer." Thurber called his first machine a "Patent Printer"; his second a "Mechanical Chirographer." Eddy, like Mill, made no effort to find a name. Jones called his invention a "Mechanical Typographer"; Beach called his an improvement in "Printing Instruments for the Blind"; Francis called his an improvement in "Printing Machines"; Harger called his an "Improved Mechanical Typographer"; DeMay also described his machine as an "Improved Mechanical Typographer or Printing Apparatus." Livermore, following the same lead, called his an "Improved Hand Printing Device or Mechanical Typographer." Peeler stated that he had invented a new and valuable "Machine for Writing and Printing." Hall did a little better when he described his invention as a "Machine for Writing with Type or Printing on Paper or Other Substance." Of all those who began before Sholes, the only one who showed any originality in picking a name was John Pratt with his "Pterotype," a word the meaning of which few people knew. It remained for Sholes himself, in his simple, direct way, to hit upon a name which no one has ever been able to improve upon. During the next few years, Weller tested out the machine that Sholes had sent him, and also later models, in connection with his work as shorthand reporter. The letters he received from Sholes during these years, addressed to "Charlie" and "Friend Charlie," every one of them typed by Sholes himself on his own machine, are striking word pictures of the writer in all his changing moods. In one we read, "The machine is done, and I want some more worlds to conquer. Life would be most flat, stale and unprofitable without something to invent." Again only two months later, "I have made another most important change in the machine," etc. Six months later, "I have now a machine which is an entirely new thing. I have been running this about two months, and in all that time it has not developed a single difficulty. In fact any such thing as trouble or bother has ceased to enter into the calculation." This sounds good and it sounds final, but listen to the last letter of the series, written two years later, on April 30, 1873. "The machine is no such thing as it was when you last saw it. In fact you would not recognize it." Sholes is always through and yet never through. But this time, as far as Sholes is concerned, the word was indeed final, for when this last letter was written the historic contract which placed the manufacture and further development of his machine in the hands of E. Remington & Sons, the famous gunmakers, had already been made. All of this happened more than half a century ago, and now, after all these years, "Friend Charlie" begins to figure again in this story. Throughout his long life, Mr. Weller's devotion to the memory of Sholes has been unbounded, and recently, despite advanced years, he has become the leading spirit in a movement instituted by the National Shorthand Reporters' Association to erect a monument to mark the last resting place of Sholes in Forest Home Cemetery, Milwaukee, which will be worthy of his name and fame as one of the world's great inventors. It is earnestly to be hoped that the efforts of "The C. Latham Sholes Monument Commission" to raise the necessary funds will soon be successful, in order that the erection of this monument may commemorate this anniversary year of the writing machine. While Weller and Clephane, late in the sixties, were demonstrating the utility of the new machine in connection with shorthand reporting, another man was doing similar pioneer work in an entirely different field. This man was E. Payson Porter, an honored name in the history of telegraphy, and long known as the dean of American telegraphers. Porter first saw one of the Sholes models in 1868, at which time he was employed as an operator in the Chicago office of the Western Union Telegraph Company, and he astonished the inventor by the rapidity with which he manipulated the keys at first sight. His skill was due to the fact that he had formerly worked a House telegraph printer. Sholes, of course, was delighted. He promised Porter the finest machine he could make, upon condition that he could receive on the typewriter as fast as any telegrapher could send a message. In due time the machine arrived in Chicago, and Porter thus describes the demonstration which followed. "A sounder and key were placed upon the table and General Stager was the first to manipulate the same for me to copy, which I did readily. Colonel Lynch then attempted to 'rush' me, and failing to do so, an 'expert' sender was sent for from the operating room. A thorough trial of my ability to 'keep up' resulted so satisfactorily that the typewriter was taken into the operating room." This demonstration was made in the year 1869, and Porter's description of it gives the whole gist of typewriting in its relation to telegraphy. It lies simply in the superior speed of the "mill," as telegraphers call the typewriter, over handwriting, in receiving over the wire, and it is just this difference in speed which in the past forty years has revolutionized the telegrapher's profession. The partnership between telegraphy and the "mill" is as firmly established today as that other partnership between the typewriter and shorthand, and it is worth noting that, in each case, the reality of this partnership was demonstrated at least five years before the first typewriter was actually placed on the market. The mention of telegraphy brings another name into this story, that of no less a personage than Thomas A. Edison. It has been said of this universal inventive genius that he has figured in some way in connection with nearly every development in the field of mechanical progress during the last half century; so it is not surprising to find his name written into the story of the typewriter. Early in the seventies Edison had a shop in Newark, N. J., and he tells how Sholes came there to consult with him concerning his invention; a natural thing for Sholes to do, for even in those early days the fame of "The Wizard" was nation-wide. Edison was able to give Sholes some very valuable assistance. Later on, Edison helped D. W. Craig, a former general manager of the Associated Press, in the development of a machine, built on typewriter principles, designed to facilitate the transmission of telegrams. Edison also did some typewriter inventing on his own account. His patent of December 10, 1872, is for an electrically operated traveling wheel device, which was the forerunner of the stock-ticker printing machine in use today. Of the twenty-five to thirty experimental models, built by Sholes and Glidden during the years from 1867 to 1873, only a few are now in existence. But though many links in this chain are missing, it is fortunate that the two most important ones are still preserved, the first and the last. The first model constructed by Sholes, Soulé and Glidden, now in the Smithsonian Institution at Washington (Patent of June 23, 1868), shows a machine so crude that it would hardly be recognized as a typewriter. A second model, also in the Smithsonian Institution (Patent of July 14, 1868), is of equal interest because it has been identified by Weller as identical with the first machine sent to him by Sholes for practical testing. This machine shows a great advance over the other. Both machines, however, have the up-strike pivoted type bar, a feature which afterwards became standard for many years in typewriter construction. The last model of the long series was the one shown to the Remingtons in 1873, when the contract was made for the manufacture of the typewriter. This model, now in the historical collection at the home office of the Remington Typewriter Company in New York, although a crude affair, judged by present-day standards, contains many of the fundamental features of the modern type-bar machines. The quality of the writing done by these early models is better known today than the machines themselves, for this writing has been preserved to us in Sholes's own letters. From the day when Sholes completed his first model, he seems to have discarded the pen entirely. From that time all his personal letters are typewritten, the signature included, which would be considered extreme, even by the present-day business man. As for the quality of the typing in these letters, let it speak for itself. The letter shown on page 51, the original of which is in the Remington Historical Collection, was written by Sholes from Milwaukee on June 9, 1872. The typing in this letter is interesting because it shows capital letters only, to which all the Sholes models were restricted. But even more interesting is the contents of the letter itself, for in it we find Sholes in one of his not infrequent fits of deep despondency. "We shall be in a position," he says, "to furnish good machines provided any person is in a position to want them after they are furnished. You know that my apprehension is that the thing may take for a while, and for a while there may be an active demand for them, but that, like any other novelty, it will have its brief day and be thrown aside. Of course I earnestly hope that such will not prove to be the case, and Densmore laughs at the idea when I suggest it, but I should like to be sure that it would be otherwise." Think of it! The typewriter a mere passing novelty! And think of such an idea entering the head of the inventor of the machine! How much better he was building than he knew! As we look back on this period of typewriter history we hardly know which to admire more, Sholes's inventive genius or Densmore's sustaining faith. Of equal interest is a photograph from the same historical collection, dating from the same year, 1872. It shows the daughter of Sholes operating another one of his experimental models. What motive, we wonder, ever induced Miss Sholes to take such an interest in the machine, to learn to operate it, and to have her photograph taken seated before it? Probably it was only a daughter's natural interest in her father's invention. It is difficult to believe that Miss Sholes foresaw the wonderful future of the machine in connection with woman's work. Yet, as an accidental prophecy, this photograph of the first woman who ever operated a typewriter should be of interest to every one of the vast army of women who today owe their living to the writing machine. The time now draws near for the opening of the second chapter of typewriter history, the entrance into the story of the great house of E. Remington & Sons. In casting about for a suitable manufacturer for the new invention, the minds of the inventors turned naturally to the noted gunmakers who had already made the name Remington famous. The origin and the rise of the house of Remington carries us back many years into the past. The story goes that in 1816 a young boy named Eliphalet Remington, who was working with his father at their forge in the beautiful Ilion Gorge in the Mohawk Valley, asked his father for money to buy a rifle and was refused. Nothing daunted, the boy Eliphalet welded a gun barrel from scraps of iron collected around the forge, walked fourteen miles to Utica to have it rifled, and finally had a weapon that was the envy of his neighbors. Soon he was making and selling other guns, and step by step the old forge grew into the great gun factory which in Civil War times did so much to equip the northern armies in the great struggle. In time the firm made big contracts to supply arms to foreign governments; they also added other lines of manufacture, including sewing machines and agricultural implements. In 1873, when the typewriter begins to figure in the Remington story, the first Eliphalet, the boy gunmaker of 1816, had already been twelve years in his grave, and the business was in charge of his three sons, Philo, Samuel and Eliphalet, Jr. At the time of the signing of the typewriter contract, Samuel was absent in Europe. The president and active head of the business was the elder brother, Philo, and it was Philo Remington who was destined to father the new machine with his name and devote his utmost efforts and resources to its manufacture and sale. It was late in the month of February, 1873, that Densmore came to the Remington Works at Ilion, bringing with him the precious model that was the culmination of six years of effort and struggle. Sholes, it appears, did not accompany Densmore on this journey, which perhaps was just as well, for he was far too modest a man to make a good pleader of his own cause. But Densmore did not go alone. He was accompanied by G. W. N. Yost, with whom Densmore had formerly been associated in the oil transportation business in Pennsylvania. The story of how Densmore came to invite Yost to join him is curious. It seems that he wanted the assistance of Yost's well known fluency, in persuading the Remingtons. Evidently Densmore must have felt keenly the fatefulness of his errand, for this is the only case on record where he failed to show the most complete confidence in himself. George Washington Newton Yost--to give him the full benefit of his sonorous name--was a salesman par excellence. He had proved it in the oil business. He was destined to prove it again in after years, when he sold more typewriters through his own personal powers of persuasion than any other man in the early days of the business. Had Yost possessed equal ability as an organizer and sales director he might have written his name into this story as the man who made the typewriter a commercial success, for fortune gave him every opportunity. Fate, however, had reserved this achievement for other men. It is now fifty years since the signing of the history-making contract between the owners of the typewriter and the Remingtons, and all but one of the actors in these scenes have long since gone to their rest. It is fortunate, however, that there is one man now living who was present and an active participator in the conferences which resulted in the signing of the contract, and his memory of them is as vivid as though they were the events of yesterday. This man is Henry Harper Benedict, who afterwards became one of the founders of the commercial success of the writing machine. Mr. Benedict, like others whose names figure prominently in this story, was a native Herkimer County boy. In 1869, after taking a degree at Hamilton College, he accepted a position with E. Remington & Sons, with whom he remained for thirteen years in a confidential capacity, becoming in time a director on the board of the corporation and treasurer of the Remington Sewing Machine Company. The story of the typewriter contract, and the events leading up to it, is thus told in Mr. Benedict's own words. "Mr. Philo Remington's office and mine communicated. One day I saw on the mantelpiece in his office an envelope addressed to him in something that looked like print. I asked him what it was. He said, 'Read it.' It proved to be a letter from one James Densmore (unknown to us all) setting forth at considerable length the facts in connection with the invention of a machine to take the place of the pen, that is, to write by manipulation of keys. He told who were the inventors, and said that after many years of effort they had finally produced a working model, and they wanted to find someone to undertake the manufacture of the machine. He wished to bring the model to Ilion to see whether the Remingtons would care to take it up. "I said to Mr. Remington, 'Have you done anything about this?' He said, 'No, what do you think we had better do?' 'Why,' I said, 'of course we want to see the machine; it is a wonderful invention if it's anything, and we should not neglect the opportunity offered us to examine it.' The result was that the model was brought to Ilion early in 1873 by Mr. James Densmore and another man, whom Mr. Densmore introduced as Mr. Yost. Densmore, as we soon saw, was not much of a talker, and he had brought Yost to serve, as he himself expressed it, as 'Aaron to his Moses.' He did well, for Yost was one of the most persuasive talkers I ever listened to, and his tongue never tired. "Densmore and Yost opened up the model, and exhibited it to us in a room at the Osgood House, then known as Small's Hotel. There were present at the meeting, Mr. Philo Remington, Mr. Jefferson M. Clough, Superintendent of the Remington Works, Mr. William K. Jenne, Assistant Superintendent, Mr. Densmore, Mr. Yost and myself. We examined and discussed the machine for perhaps an hour and a half or two hours and then adjourned for lunch or dinner. As we left the room, Mr. Remington said to me, 'What do you think of it?' I replied, 'That machine is very crude, but there is an idea there that will revolutionize business.' Mr. Remington asked, 'Do you think we ought to take it up?' I said, 'We must on no account let it get away. It isn't necessary to tell these people that we are crazy over the invention, but I'm afraid I am pretty nearly so.'" The party met again later in the day and a tentative agreement was entered into which developed into the contract which opened a new chapter in the story of human progress. The actual date of this contract was March 1, 1873. The original contract was for manufacture only, but in due course of time the Remingtons acquired complete ownership. Densmore was unsuccessful as selling agent and made little money in this role, but when the ownership passed to the Remingtons, he accepted a royalty, by which he was subsequently enriched. Sholes, either at this time or shortly after, is said to have sold out his royalty rights to Densmore for $12,000, a goodly sum in those days, but the only reward, so far as we know, that he ever received for his priceless invention and the years of labor he had bestowed upon it. As soon as the Remington firm had agreed to undertake the manufacture of the new machine, the ample resources and the skillful workmen available at their great factory were brought into service in the further improvement of the typewriter. There was still much work to do, for the Sholes and Glidden machine, even after the years of labor expended upon it, was, after all, only the inventor's crude model. Sholes and Glidden had worked out the basic ideas, and that was about all. To make these ideas practical, in a machine that could be produced and sold in quantities, now became the manufacturer's task. It was a fortunate thing for the infant typewriter that the Remingtons had in their service at this time a notable group of mechanical master minds, and the efforts of these men were now centered on the new machine. Prominent in this group were William K. Jenne, Jefferson M. Clough, afterwards superintendent of the factory of the Winchester Arms Company, Byron A. Brooks, a professor of higher mathematics, and others. Brooks subsequently attained prominence in the field of typewriter invention. But the most notable personage among these men was William K. Jenne, and at this time the mantle passes from Sholes to Jenne, who became for many years the central figure in the history of the development of the typewriter on its mechanical side. It is true that Sholes, despite failing health, continued active in the invention of typewriter improvements during the greater part of his remaining days, but it was under the fostering care and supervision of Jenne that the Sholes and Glidden model of 1873 was transformed into the first commercial typewriter, and it was under his continued superintendence that this famous machine subsequently underwent one improvement after another until it finally won for itself an indispensable place in the world's work. Jenne, like Sholes, came of good New England stock. He inherited his mechanical genius from his father, Siloam Jenne, who was a skilled mechanic and an inventor of some repute in his day. It was in 1861, at the age of 23, that Jenne migrated from his Massachusetts home to the town of Ilion, in the Mohawk Valley, where he was destined to spend all of the remaining years of his long, active and useful life. These were the Civil War times, when E. Remington & Sons were busy on the big war contracts, and the fame of their guns had already spread to the four corners of the earth. Jenne almost immediately entered the Remington employ and, in the historic year 1873, he occupied an important position in their sewing machine department. From the time, however, of the arrival at Ilion of the Sholes and Glidden model he became identified with the typewriter exclusively. He soon became Superintendent of the Typewriter Works, which position he continued to hold for thirty years, until his retirement, full of honors, in the year 1904. We now come to the fateful hour, the appearance on the market of the first commercial typewriter. The actual manufacture of the machine began in September, 1873, and it may be said that in this year and month occurred the birth of the practical writing machine. In the early part of the following year the first machines were completed and ready for sale. The machine was then known simply as "The Type-Writer." Today it is known as the "Model 1 Remington" and it will always be known as the "Ancestor of All Writing Machines."