The Life of Theodore Ruggles Timby

© 2022 Christine M. Wands

 all rights reserved

 Theodore Ruggles Timby, 1819-1909

Meridian, New York, was certainly home to smart and imaginative individuals, but there was one village resident that surpassed all the others in the volume of his patents, and in his ability to be at the center of controversy for his entire life.

Theodore Timby may have been one of the most interesting people in Meridian’s history. He had a larger-than-life personality and an inventive genius that kept his name in the public eye from the age of twenty-one until his death at the age of ninety. His tactics concerning the Tempest Insurance Company showed us another side to his inventiveness. He indulged in shameless self-promotion, evaded censure when it was well-deserved, and failed at multiple attempts to get money (that he may or may not have deserved) from the US government.

Timby was born in Dover, Dutchess County, in 1819[1] to George Washington Timby, Sr., and Sarah Johnson Timby. The Timby family was peripatetic; their six children were born in at least five separate places around upstate New York as George moved from farm to farm as a laborer. One son was born in Massachusetts. Before coming to Cayuga County, the family lived in Chenango, Steuben, and Tompkins Counties.

Theodore was probably in Meridian (then still called Cato Four Corners) by 1831. His father, and his older brother Augustus R Timby, were in the area and were both baptized that year in the village Baptist Church. Theodore was baptized there eight years later. Two other siblings, Benjamin, and Emaline, were baptized there in 1851. [2]

In 1844, Timby married Charlotte Ware (Wears), who was born in Madison County. Her father, Newman Ware, a cooper, moved to the Meridian area with his family by 1835, when he became a member of the Baptist Church. Newman was from Middlefield, Massachusetts, from whence many Meridianites emigrated in the 19^th century.[3]

Theodore and Charlotte had four children: Theodore, Cecelia, Judson, and Mary. Both sons died young. In addition to Augustus, two other siblings of Theodore were in the area: Benjamin and Emeline. There were also baptized in the Baptist Church.[4]

The Cato Citizen reported that he was remembered “by old settlers” as being “very suave and of striking appearance,” and that he introduced climbing roses to the community. He was also said to have planted currant cuttings “bottom side up so they grew like trees instead of bushes.” [5]

As an inventor, Theodore Ruggles Timby started early, designing a floating dry dock while he was just seventeen. While living in Meridian, he was granted at least seven patents: an apparatus for raising sunken vessels, a stone dressing machine, a manner of connecting the body with the runners of sleighs, two improvements on water wheels, a removable handle for sad-irons, and a method for changing the diameter of a water wheel. (A list of his inventions is at the end of this document.)

                                        

                           

Timby was a force to be reckoned in the community. He was raising a family, paying his slip tax at the Baptist Church, getting involved in politics, and dreaming up new inventions at the same time he was declaring himself a farmer in census records. He built at least one house. It still stands on the west side of the Bonta Bridge Road, the third house south of the main street.

 

Timby’s home in Meridian (from the collection of CIViC Heritage, Cato, NY)

 

Timby’s home in 2022 (author’s collection)

 

Before he left the village under a cloud in 1855, he served in 1853 as the Inspector of Elections for the Town of Cato[6] and was one of nine delegates from Cayuga County to the Whig Senatorial Convention, 24^th District.[7]

In January 1843, Timby had filed a caveat with the US Patent Office for a “revolving tower to be used on land or water.”  A caveat, now no longer used, was an official notice of intent to patent an invention, was in force for a year after its filing, and could be renewed. The document included a description of the invention and drawings but was not an actual patent claim. That he filed the caveat, which was not renewed, but never the patent, would cause controversy for decades to come, and eventually cost him dearly.

Between 1851 and 1855, he appears to have taken a break from inventing things. In 1853, he had become the Secretary of, and agent for, the newly created Tempest Insurance Company of Meridian. This turned out be a turning point in his life in Meridian.

The Tempest Insurance Company was created in early 1853 by a group of Meridian businessmen. Many other groups throughout New York State created similar companies following the passage of New York’s general insurance law in 1849.

An insurance journal reported, “During the years from 1849 to 1853, about sixty different mutual fire insurance companies came into existence…infesting the land like frogs in Egypt…for nearly eighteen months they apparently waxed fat, and everything went on swimmingly; but as soon as losses began to happen the defects of the system showed themselves.”[8]

At that time in American history, the economy was booming. The California Gold Rush expanded the supply of money. Railroads were transporting substantial numbers of settlers westward and making huge profits while doing so. Credit was readily available, and the economy was rapidly expanding.[9]

People in rural America operated on credit during those years, and did not often have cash. The capital of the Tempest Insurance Company consisted entirely of promissory notes. Even the premiums paid by policyholders were promissory notes.[10]  When they began doing business in 1853, their capital consisted of $100,000[11], all basically IOUs. By the next year, they claimed that their capital had grown to $250,000.[12]

 

One of many advertisements in the Genesee Farmer throughout 1854.

 

In their second year of business, they instituted a public relations effort by donating a $3,000 policy to William H. Seward, then a U.S. Senator from New York. The policy covered Seward’s home in Auburn, and was referred to as a “compliment,” since “such a manifestation from an Incorporated Institution is rare, inasmuch as all Incorporated Companies have always been considered as soulless.” 

In the letter to Seward that accompanied the policy, T.R. Timby, as Secretary of the firm, stated,

The Directors of the Company are, many of them, personally known to you. The Company is perfectly reliable, as they are established on a reliable basis; and we take none but first-class risks. You will please accept of this Policy from us, as a remuneration in part, for the many favors received from your generous hand. Be assured, sir, should you meet with a loss, our portion of the same would be paid, while the walls were smoking, should you notify us in time. [13]

All this self-promotion appears to have worked; the company did a lot of business throughout New York State, and even had clients as far away as Michigan, whence many central New Yorkers had moved during that period. Records in the collection of the CIVIC Heritage Museum in Cato, New York, tell of a busy company that issued hundreds of insurance policies.

Collection of documents and policies of The Tempest Insurance Company in the collection of the CIVIC Heritage Museum, Cato, NY

In the company’s third year, the State of New York was eager to examine the books, as they did for all such companies chartered in New York. By the end of 1854, the company had not made the required reports to the state.[14] This effort was to ensure that the company was still solvent and conducting business in an orderly manner. The effort did not go well.

William Barnes, Superintendent of the state’s Insurance Department, sent James Henderson, Special Commissioner, to do the inspection. He arrived in Meridian on May 21, 1855. His report began:

In compliance with my commission to investigate the affairs of the Tempest Insurance Company, Meridian, I went there on Monday, the 21^st… for that purpose. The Secretary, T.R. Timby, was absent. I then went two miles to the residence of the President, Parsons P. Meacham and laid before him my business. We then found the secretary’s clerk, [E.H.] Northrup, and proceeded to the office. There seemed to be evident confusion at once, as they were almost entirely ignorant of the concerns of the Company. When I called for the capital, assets, etc. they said they were locked up and Mr. Timby had the keys, and the only fact that I could establish, that the number of policies issued from January 1^st to 18^th, 1855, inclusive was 124.

 

Mr. Meacham told Mr. Henderson that the company was planning to re-organize, and implied that to issue a report at the time “would make no difference.”  Henderson realized that he was getting nowhere, and said he would be back on Wednesday. On Tuesday, the clerk, Mr. Northrup, sent him a note that Timby was not going to be home on Wednesday, so coming then would be fruitless. (It was later discovered that Northrup had met Timby in Auburn on Tuesday, and that Timby then headed for Albany.) Henderson said that he would be back in Meridian on Friday, and that he would tolerate no further delay.

He arrived in the village on Friday, only to learn that Timby had gone to Rochester “for the purpose of getting up a new company.” He headed back home to Weedsport, but Mr. Meacham followed him and asked him, as a “special favor to wait until next Monday, 28^th, before reporting; said that Timby would probably succeed at Rochester, and whether he did or not, something would be done, and he would see me on Monday.”

Monday came with no word from anyone at the company. On Tuesday, Henderson went to Conquest to take a statement from H.F. Hale, formerly the clerk of the company, and Rev. Goss, a local minister, who was formerly a director of the company.

Henderson’s report said that Hale and Goss “hope…that now Timby will succeed in getting up the new Company, which will assume the assets and liabilities of the old Company, and thus spare them the disgrace that they feel is settling upon them.”

Hale’s statement indicated that while he had worked for the company for about two years, he had resigned in January, feeling that he “was doing wrong to continue in the service of a Company whose business was carried on so illegally and unjustly.”  He told Henderson that the January report had stated the premium notes on which policies had been issued amounted to $100,000, but that they were not more than $800 or $900. The same report had indicated that there was $20,000 on deposit in the Cayuga County Bank, but Hale said that such a sum had never existed. When Timby returned from Auburn, Hale asked him if Henderson had managed to get the information he sought. Timby replied, “I guess not much. I had the key in my pocket.” He told Hale he did manage to get $20,000 from the bank. Hale’s final comment was “I consider the whole matter unsound and dishonorable.”

Goss indicated that “he was grossly imposed upon by Timby and deceived” and that he was “satisfied that a majority of the board of directors, were, and have been all the time, led along by Timby, and relied upon what he said, more than upon their own knowledge or judgment.”

Henderson’s report concluded: “I know some of the board to be men of high standing, and feel that they have been caught in bad company. I have endeavored to give you in detail what I have done, or could do, trusting I may be honorably discharged from a very unpleasant duty,”[15]

That spelled doom for the company.

Timby eventually resigned from the company, but not until December.

Timby’s Letter of Resignation from The Tempest Insurance Company
from the Meacham family papers collection at the CIVIC Heritage Museum, Cato, New York

Timby had left town by the fall of 1855[16], moving to Syracuse, where he engaged in another company with a similar name.[17]

From an Auburn newspaper:

Tempest Insurance Company

 

The following letter is in reply to one from F.A. Rew, Esq., making inquiries with regard to the above named company. We understand that quite a number of persons in this vicinity have taken policies of insurance in that concern:

 

Comptroller’s Office, Albany, March 6, 1856

 

F.A. Rew, Esq.:

 

Sir: The Tempest Ins. Co., formerly at Meridian, in Cayuga Co., was examined under the direction of the late Comptroller Cook, and the result of such examination proves it to have been under the management of a smart Secretary, by name Timby. It is bogus, or in other words, good for nothing. There is no company of that name in any part of the State Lawfully authorized to do business.

 

Respectfully, A.W. Lee, Ins. Clerk[18]

 

Eventually, the company did reorganize as “The Tempest Insurance Association,” in December 1855, as a “joint partnership in which…the entire individual responsibility of the Partners is pledged for its liabilities.” 

 

 

When Timby decamped, in the fall of 1855, he was heavily in debt. Possessions left behind were taken by the county sheriff.[19]  Where he went is not documented, but he and his family boarded in Syracuse for as long as a year. A Mrs. Charles L. Chandler remembered meeting Timby, his wife, and their two children when she and her husband were boarding at the same place. She remembered the date as being 1850. She called Timby “a gentleman of the old school, brilliant and quite able to put out the line of literary work of which he is the author.” [20]  Her memory was certainly faulty as to the date, since Timby had remained in Meridian until 1855, according to US and New York State censuses, newspaper accounts, and other records.[21]^, [22]

Timby filed his next two patent applications, for a mercury barometer and a traveling casket, from Medina, in Orleans County, in 1857 and 1858. During that time, many family members, including his parents, his brother Benjamin, and sister, Emaline Schuyler, were all living with 15-20 miles of Medina, so that is the likely explanation for his moving there. The next evidence for Timby’s location came in 1862, when he was applying for patents from Worcester, Massachusetts. It is unknown why or when he moved there.

His inventiveness continued. His next patent was granted in August 1863, for a solar time-globe. By then, he was living in an upscale neighborhood (in a brick house valued at $10,000)[23] in Saratoga Springs, New York, where his occupation was listed in censuses and city directories as “inventor.” He lived there until his wife Charlotte died, probably in late 1870. That year’s census, early in the year, showed only Charlotte living in Saratoga Springs with her daughters and her son-in-law, Frank H. Walcott, a druggist. Theodore’s name showed up in Manhattan in that census, living in a boarding house with his occupation listed as “paper mfg.” One can conjecture that after his wife died and his daughter married, he moved on alone. Where his daughter Mary was remains a mystery.

His life in New York City was only a temporary thing. By the end of 1870, he was applying for patents from Tarrytown, New York. It is likely that is when his daughter Clementina Cecelia Timby Walcott moved to Nyack, New York, directly across the Hudson River from Tarrytown. So, Timby is again moving near family. In 1879, patent applications, when he was sixty years old, were coming from Nyack.

Six years later, he was living in a boarding house on F Street NW, three blocks from the White House in Washington, DC. He filed a dozen applications while living there. Some newspaper accounts indicated his whereabouts as Chicago in 1893[24] and Philadelphia in 1898.[25]

His final destination was Brooklyn, New York. That was where he filed his final seven patents beginning around 1904. A 1900 newspaper account says that Timby was a guest of Mrs. Virginia Chandler Titcomb,[26] and he appears to have remained her guest until his death in 1909.

After Timby’s death, the Brooklyn (NY) Times Union told of their meeting:

Timby came to live in Brooklyn a little more than ten years ago. It was through a meeting he had had with Lady Alice Carolyn Carvell in the Hotel Astor. She spoke to her friend, Mrs. Virginia Chandler Titcomb…regarding the man and how he had been cheated out of the credit for his invention. Mrs. Titcomb, well-known and brilliant artist, looked him up and found him walking the streets, and hungry. She took him and after learning his story began to work to get him recognition from the Government.

She spent all her money, and she was a rich woman when she found him, in this endeavor. She even mortgaged her property from which indebtedness she was relieved by friends. She sold even her most prized paintings to aid him.[27]

Mrs. Titcomb was an interesting character in her own right. She was a member of the Hudson River school of artists and painted in oils. One of her paintings was of the Civil War battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac. A firebrand in the cause of women’s rights, she was president of the National Industrial Union, which gave women employment, and provided classes in the fine arts, music, and the domestic arts.[28] A political activist and friend of Henry Ward Beecher [29], she served as president of the Women’s Republican Union League in Brooklyn,[30] and fought for women’s suffrage, even speaking at the national convention of the National Council of Women on the same panel as Susan B. Anthony.[31] Her role as founder and president of the Patriotic League of the Revolution[32] gave her the podium that she used to advocate for Theodore Timby from the time of his arrival in Brooklyn until his death.

Virginia Chandler Titcomb,
from Women in Music and Law, by Florence E.C. Sutro, 1895

In addition to dreaming up new inventions, Timby tried his hand at writing. In 1888 he founded a magazine, the “Congress Magazine,” in Washington DC.  He published four books, including “Bridging the Skies” (1883), “Beyond,” (1889), “Stellar Worlds and other Didactic Literature” (1896), and “Lighted Lore for Gentle Folk,” (1902). Some of these are still available, in both in original and reprint editions. The “Lighted Lore” is a collection of uplifting aphorisms and poetry. His classical references therein indicate that the “common school education”[33] attributed to him must have been excellent – or he managed to educate himself throughout his lifetime. One of the items is of especial interest, considering his activities as Secretary of the Tempest Insurance Company:

Bridging the Law.

Bridging an honest and lawful route to final success, even in this world, is a failure and a crime. Many have made the experiment, and as many efforts have failed. There is no success minus self-respect.[34]

Timby received praise for his inventive genius and was awarded three honorary degrees: the A.M. degree from Madison University in 1866, the Sc.D. degree by the University of Wooster (now the College of Wooster in Ohio) in 1882, and the LL.D. degree from the University of Iowa in 1890.

The reason for Mrs. Titcomb’s ascending the podium to shout out the praises of Theodore Timby was his most important invention, a “revolving tower to be used on land or water.” 

The whole thing began in 1841. Timby was 21 years old and living in Cato Four Corners (In some of his narratives about the visit, he said he was nineteen.).[35]

 He visited New York City for the first time and took a ferry across the harbor to Jersey City to catch a train for Washington, DC, his ultimate destination. In one of many interviews about that trip, he told this story about the day the idea came to him and the subsequent events. This story was repeated, nearly word for word, in multiple interviews over the years:

It was a clear bright day, and as the ferry glided smoothly over the water I stood at the bow and scanned every passing object with minute scrutiny.

At last we came in sight of old Castle Williams. Somehow the round brick structure fascinated me strangely. Even after the queer old fortress, pierced for three tiers of guns, had been left far behind me my thoughts were still upon it. Suddenly it occurred to me that if the structure were so built as to revolve upon a vertical center, the guns pointing arbitrarily up stream could be used at will down stream or at any point of the compass at which an enemy might chance to present itself. Of course, in order to do this it would have to be of iron construction.

This idea clung to me so persistently that the next day but one after my arrival in Washington I made a rude pencil sketch of the revolving turret, illustrating but little more than the bare principle.” [36]

By this time I was full of boyish enthusiasm over what I dreamed might prove to be a great invention. At first I was at a loss what to do. Then came the thought that I would enlist the interest and influence of the great and powerful members of Congress.

The fame of John C. Calhoun, then in the United States Senate [and former Secretary of War in the cabinet of James Monroe], had made his name familiar in every country town, and guided by some freak or fancy, I determined to seek an audience with the eloquent southern statesman.

I…went to the..Senate, with a heart beating like a triphammer. Almost to my surprise, the Senator at once responded in person and gave me an attentive and patient hearing, carefully examining my crude sketch… He not only acknowledged the originality and possible importance, but asked me if I could not produce something better in the way of an illustration than the rude sketch…

When I went down those stairs - well - I walked on air! The following day I went to Baltimore and hunted up an ivory turner. He agreed to make me a model, which he did by aid of the drawing and personal suggestions as I stood by him and watched my conception take material form under his skillful chisels.”

 

Castle Williams on Governor’s Island in New York Harbor
(ChrisRuvolo, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>,
via Wikimedia Commonsused under license)

He returned to Washington with the model and presented it for Calhoun’s examination.

After a close scrutiny of the little model, which I have always carefully kept and still have, he sent for Senator William G. Preston of South Carolina. Then they introduced me to other Senators of their acquaintance. Without an exception they all approved of the probable practicality and importance of my invention and suggested that I submit it to the chief of ordinance and chief of engineers.” [37]

Timby did so, presenting his idea and the model to George Bumford, Second Chief of ordnance for the US Army Ordnance Corps, as well to the chief engineer, who both appear to have thought it was an excellent idea. Later on, Timby’s model also was presented to a committee from the army and the navy, who determined the cost made it impractical. [38] 

In 1842, he decided that a larger model, in iron, was necessary. The model was built in the Phoenix Foundry on East Water Street in Syracuse, next to the Erie Canal,[39] at a cost of $5,000 (nearly $160,000 in 2021 dollars).

This was to be an expensive endeavor, so he developed a partnership with three men to build it: a Mr. Beard of Fayetteville, Mr. Pitcher of Syracuse, and a Mr. Stiles of Baldwinsville. The men who did the work were George Herrick (superintendent under Timby’s direction), Samuel Stapely, Alfred Dunk, a Mr. Poole, Mr., Duel, Charles Herrick, and Richard Dudgeon. Joel C. Northrup, a fellow inventor from Syracuse, remembered the building of the model and its later exhibition in New York City:

The machine was built upon a platform about seven feet square. On it was a circular track on which the turret rested and it was equipped with segments of cog gear that were connected with cog pinions on shafts in the floor of the platform and were driven by two small engines. This turret was made of boiler plate, and was about seven feet in diameter. It had a narrow deck on which the cannon were placed. Of guns there were a number and they were discharged each in their turn.

These cannon were of bronze metal, in fact both the guns and the carriage. The guns were about six inches long and the wheels were three inches in diameter. There was a center part in the platform, which passed through the hub at the spider which was connected with the segment rear at the base of the turret. The turning of the turret was like the turning of the swing bridge in Salina Street, except that it was turned by an engine.

Mr. Stiles procured a platform car and the machine was loaded onto it at the shop door. It was taken to New York and placed on the balcony of the City Hall on exhibition. George Herrick went with it as engineer.

“The Franklin Institute was in progress that week, and I went down to exhibit a press which I had built there on my patent and which entered in the name of Wheeler & Young, the builders.

“Mr. Herrick got me to assist him in the exhibit at the City Hall on the day that President Tyler was escorted through the city on his way to Boston to celebrate the Bunker Hill monument.”[40]

In June of 1843, the exhibition of the model was described as “a new instrument of warfare, or rather an old instrument on a new principle…a fort containing one hundred guns, in four rows…of twenty-five guns each… The whole arrangement was pronounced by several military men...present to be perfect so far as this experiment was concerned; should the plan succeed on an extended scale, it would be one of the most tremendous and effective engines of defense ever invented.”[41]  This description doesn’t sound like the model described by Mr. Northrup, but perhaps the writer also looked at drawings, or was just exaggerating.

Another viewer of the model, displayed at the corner of Greenwich and Liberty Streets in New York, declared that “in no other way can so great a number of guns be brought to bear upon an object in so short a time.”[42]

In addition to presenting the idea to the US government, Timby shopped his idea internationally. Caleb Cushing, US Minister to China for a few months in 1844, presented the concept to the Chinese government (although Timby remembered it as happening in 1843), and later, in 1856, Timby himself went to France and the revolving turret was shown to Napoleon III,[43] returning to New York on the steamer Fulton from Le Havre on July 17, 1856, empty handed, less than a year after leaving Meridian in the autumn of 1855. In 1857, he applied for a new passport, saying “my old one was dated May 10, 1856 & is about extinct by hard usage.” [44]

About five years after Timby left Meridian, the Civil War began, and a year into the war, the Battle of Hampton Roads took place between the Ironclad Massachusetts-built Merrimac (renamed the Virginia by the Confederacy) and the Union’s ironclad, the Monitor. Neither won this battle, but the Monitor’s innovative design helped it hold its ground against the Merrimac. The Monitor later sank off Cape Hatteras in a gale. (Its wreck was found in 1973, and the gun turret was salvaged in 2002.)[45]

The revolving turret was the Monitor’s distinguishing feature. John Ericsson, the Swedish engineer, designed the ship, and he claimed credit for the entire ship. It was a major innovation in war vessels. The Monitor’s appearance initially generated laughter. It was called a “cheesebox on a raft” and “Ericsson’s folly,” but that strange new look gave it an advantage. Since most of the ship was at or below the water line, with only its turret in view, it was not much of a target for other ships’ guns.

 

Plans of the Monitor. (Public Domain)

Timby had continued to work on the revolving turret idea since filing his caveat in 1843. He must have been aghast when the Monitor was built with just such a turret. Months after the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac at Hampton Roads in March 1862, in July and September, he finally filed three patents concerning the revolving turret idea.

 

 

Improvement in Revolving Battery-Towers, July 1862, US Patent 35846

 

 

   

Improvement in Discharging Guns By Electricity, July 1862, US Patent 35847

 

  

            

Improvement in Revolving Battery-Towers, September 1862, US Patent 36593

 

 

Swedish engineer John Ericsson directed the building of the Monitor with his partners, C.S. Bushnell, John A. Griswold, and John F. Winslow, under contract to the U.S. government. The contract read that if they would build an “Ironclad Shot Proof Steam Battery” in one hundred days they would be paid $275,000 (about $8.5 million in today’s dollars). Ericsson’s motivation was clear when he stated to Thomas F. Rowland, who owned the shipyard where the ship was to be built, “You want money. I want fame. You can do the mechanical work on this vessel in your shipyard, but it is my conception, and it must be understood that it was built here in my parlor.”[46] Ericsson’s conviction of his superior skills as an engineer and ship designer, and the lack of any credit for the turret’s invention being given to Timby was the beginning of a controversy that continued for the next half century.

 

John Ericsson, 1803-1889
(Public Domain)

Several companies participated in the construction of the ship, including manufacturers of iron, engines, lumber, paint, boilers, anchor, propellor, and so forth. It was built at the Continental Ironworks, at Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York.[47]

The Monitor at sea. (Public Domain)

The ship was built as promised. Timby heard of the ship’s design and approached the partners, telling them that the primary design of the ship was his own. “In 1862, I entered into a written agreement with the contractors and builders of the original Monitor… for the use of my patents covering the revolving turret for which they paid me $5,000 [$135,797 in 2021 dollars] as a royalty on each turret constructed by them.”[48] Most accounts say that he was paid for three such turrets.

Photo of the Monitor, featuring Timby’s revolving gun turret. Photo from the National Archives.

In 1885, John F. Winslow supported Timby’s claim in a letter to Timby about “the two-gun turret invented and patented by you and first used on the original Monitor, built in 1862, under the supervision of Captain John Ericsson, engineer.”[49]

Nevertheless, Ericsson continued to receive praise for the ship that changed naval warfare forever. His supporters has remained strong, as a statue was built in 1903 to honor his achievements at the Battery in New York City.[50] Another memorial, authorized by the U.S. Congress in 1916, was dedicated in 1926. It is in Washington, DC near to the Lincoln Memorial.[51] There have been three warships in the US Navy honoring Ericsson, as well as a replenishment oiler.[52]

Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, January 1863.

Meanwhile, others were in Timby’s camp and doing whatever they could to give him the credit they thought he deserved. Less than a year after the Monitor and Merrimac fired on one another, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine January 1863 edition featured an article entitled, “The Revolving Tower and Its Inventor.” The article praised the turret, saying “a new and powerful element has been introduced into naval warfare.”  It went on to say that “the inventor of the Revolving Tower, as we shall show from unimpeachable documentary evidence, is Theodore R. Timby, an American citizen, a native of the State of New York.”

The article tells the story of the “mere boy” who came up with the idea, that he filed a caveat with the Patent Office for “a revolving metallic tower, and for a revolving tower for a floating battery to be propelled by steam.” It went one to say that “this document thus placed on official record, shows beyond all possibility of cavil that more than twenty years ago Mr. Timby had not only conceived the general idea of a revolving gun-tower, but had brought it into practical form, and laid public legal claim to his invention – a claim which has never been abandoned or legally contested.”

Timby’s reaction to the beginning of the Civil War was to create yet another model of his turret, and he exhibited it to the governors of Rhode Island and Maine, to the heads of federal departments, foreign ministers, and the Army and the Navy.[53]  But, as we have seen, these efforts led nowhere, and he eventually had to plead with the Monitor’s contractors for some little recompense for the use of his invention.

 

Broadside Championing Timby’s Cause, 1842
(Courtesy Aaron Noble, New York State Museum)

Timby’s inventiveness continued. He designed a wide variety of items, but later returned to turrets, both on land and sea. In the 1880’s, he filed more than fifteen patents for ideas relating to turrets and defensive installations. Other patents concerned ore processing, coffee roasting, aging wines and liquors, and he also returned to water wheels, which related to earlier inventions made when he was still in Cato Four Corners.

One patent during those years was for a heating, ventilating, and cooling system. Timby formed a company in 1889: The National Heating and Ventilating Company. It began with a capital of $3 million. Former Surgeon-General William Alexander Hammond was president, and Timby was second vice president. The company, using the “Timby System” could provide heating services to an entire town from one plant.[54]

Advertisements for the company touted the system’s merits: the system “cannot but be regarded as one of the greatest inventions of modern times…It heats in winter, cools in summer, thoroughly ventilates at all times, and deodorizes, fumigates, and disinfects when required so to do…The system has been in successful operation for nearly a year, winter and summer, in the Lawrence Building, 615 and 617 14^th Street, Washington, DC”[55]  There appears to be no further record of the company after 1893.

In 1890, the New York State Legislature passed a resolution asking Congress to give Timby national recognition for his invention.[56]

Timby himself never stopped trying to get official recognition for his revolving turret. In 1898, General John H. Ketcham, a Congressman from Dutchess County, New York, presented a bill to Congress asking for an appropriation of $500,000 “as compensation for services rendered the government through the invention of the revolving turret for warships and harbor defenses.”[57]

The next year, Timby’s turret was one of the exhibits in the “vast museum” of the Patent Office in Washington. “One of the most attractive of them all is the model of the turret. We have been accustomed, all our lives, to believe that Captain John Ericsson invented the turret for the celebrated Monitor, which revolutionized naval warfare… But the fact is that Mr. Theodore R. Timby, then a young man, in 1841, invented and patented the turret which made the Monitor successful and gave Ericsson undying fame.”[58]

Another bill went before Congress in 1900, “for the relief of Theodore Ruggles Timby,” introduced by Congressman Bingham. It was referred to the Committee on Claims.[59]

Others became enmeshed in the effort. A group of women in Brooklyn who were members of the “Patriotic League of the Revolution,” gathered in 1900 “to correct an error… which is taught in the schools and academies throughout the country, and which has wrought a great injustice towards a benefactor and an American citizen.” Timby’s benefactor, Mrs. Virginia Chandler Titcomb began the League in 1887. The group planned to urge the US Senate to grant Timby credit.[60]  In addition, the group planned to author a book concerning the history of Timby and his turret, to be introduced into schools to “correct the omission in school histories.” The State Superintendent of Schools Skinner promised to assist in the effort.[61]

The League presented a memorial to Congress in 1902 requesting recognition of Timby for his invention. The memorial told the tale of the young man in New York harbor, his invention after seeing Castle Williams on Governor’s Island, and the meager $5,000 royalty paid to him. The memorial stated that “it was thus to Theodore R. Timby, the American, and not to John Ericsson, the Swede, that the defeat of the Merrimac and the revolution of naval warfare were due.”[62]

Portrait originally published in the January 1902, edition of Successful American magazine.
Original caption: “THEODORE R. TIMBY, M.A., S.D., LL.S., Inventor of the Revolving Gun Turret, now a Resident of Brooklyn, N, Y.”

Timby continued to press his case. In 1904, the New York Times said of Timby, “There is no fighter like an old fighter, especially when his fight is made in the courts or ‘agin’ the Government.” Timby was filing with the US Court of Claims, still upset that besides the royalties paid for the Monitor, he has received nothing for the use of his turret, nor for his 1862 patent of the device that fired guns with electricity. He stated that Ericsson did not apply for a patent for the Monitor’s turret, and that he was paid royalties for it. That was proof, he said, that Ericsson believed Timby’s caveat to be good. He was hoping for “a settlement soon,”[63]

Timby’s request before the Court of Claims:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That there is hereby appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, the sum of three hundred thousand dollars as compensation of Theodore R. Timby for the use of his invention and the infringement of said patent upon revolving turrets, and the sum of two hundred thousand dollars for the compensation of said Timby for the use of his invention and the infringement of his patent for the sighting and firing of guns by electricity, which said sum shall be in each case in full satisfaction of all claims for such use and infringement and that for the relinquishment of all right to claim any further compensation for the use of the same by the United States.

The claim, filed in December 1906, stated that the government built fifty-five ironclad vessels using sixty-eight turrets of Timby’s design during the Civil War and that the government also adopted and used his invention using electricity to discharge heavy guns. He claimed that he received no compensation for such use.

The efforts continued, but the Court of Claims was not on Timby’s side. The Court reasoned that since Timby “did not keep the caveat alive,” that the Monitor was constructed according to Ericsson’s plans, and that Timby had nothing to do with the ship’s construction. Additionally, the Court said that the “principle of a revolving turret was not a new idea when Timby filed his caveat, but that the principle of revolving towers or batteries  to be used in battle has long been known, and such towers or batteries were in use centuries since, and even before the invention of gunpowder…Guns were fired by electricity at least one hundred and fourteen years before Mr. Timby took out his patent.” So, in December 1907, the Court denied the claim.[64]

So that was that for Mr. Timby. He died two years later at the age of ninety in Mrs. Titcomb’s home in Brooklyn. His funeral was held there, with his coffin covered with an American flag, with a card that said, “From friends who know Timby-Turret-Truth and who will make it known to the world.” [65]

He left behind “an invalid daughter and a disabled granddaughter wholly without support.”[66] It is unknown what happened to that daughter, presumably Mary Timby, and her child. Mrs. Titcomb was credited with having “saved his daughter and granddaughter from pauperism,”[67] “having found that he had a daughter and a granddaughter living in want and she took her in also; she sacrificed all her property.” [68]

His death did not stop the controversy. Twelve days after his obituary appeared in the New York Times, The New York Sun reported on a meeting of “The Captain John Ericsson Memorial Society of Swedish Engineers,” at which Professor William Hovgaard of MIT delivered a paper. Hovgaard did not pull any punches. His paper tended “to disprove all of Timby’s claims except that did conceive of the idea of a freak turret.”  Hovgaard stated “The design, if such it could be called was amateurish and was nothing but an adaptation to guns of the revolving tower used in ancient and medieval warfare…Ericsson had been acquainted with the old idea of revolving turrets and had often speculated on its application to ship guns.” He asserted that Ericsson had presented the idea of a low-decked ship with a revolving tower to Napoleon III in 1854.[69] 

In Sweden, Ericsson is still revered. The Mosaic Ballroom in Stockholm City Hall, covered in millions of gold mosaic tiles, features designs commemorating events in Swedish history, and honoring Swedish heroes. One such design features Ericsson, with an Eagle, and the initials “U.S.” above him.

 

Stockholm City Hall, the Mosaic Ballroom, and Ericsson’s image
(author’s collection)

At the time of Ericsson’s and Timby’s pilgrimages to France, Napoleon III was establishing a modern French navy, with steam-powered armored ships. A revolving turret would have been useful, but the emperor was not interested.

Syracuse, which had long attempted to claim Timby as their own, even though he only had his model built there, took up Timby’s cause in 1910. Prominent Syracusans were “gathering evidence...which proves Syracuse man [sic] originated Revolving Turret.” A committee of New York state residents were working for Timby’s recognition, as well as “liquidating the accumulated obligations of Mr. Timby…and…have provided suitable temporary burial for his body.”[70] One of those committee members, W.B. Cogswell, was incensed that a U.S. battleship carried John Ericsson’s body back to Sweden and felt that such honors belonged to Timby instead.[71]

Mrs. Titcomb’s Patriotic League continued the fight. They called for a mass meeting to remove Timby’s body from his Brooklyn grave and arrange for a burial with honors in Washington, DC. The announced that that they had found documents that proved Timby’s claim.[72]

The news of the search for documents reached Iowa, where Martin Van Buren, a former resident of Meridian and one of the original founding members of the Tempest Insurance Company, had settled. Van Buren’s daughter, Mrs. George Porter, remembered that Mr. Timby had visited her father several times in Iowa, most recently in 1870, and had given him some drawings relating to the revolving turret. Mr. Porter stated “Mr. Timby and Mr. Van Buren were well acquainted with each other when both resided in the east, and when Mr. Van Buren came west, he was still interested in the inventor’s work, and gave him assistance. Just how Mr. Van Buren came to be in possession of the old drawings I do not know, unless they were sent to him, and were never called for again.” The drawings showed “the working of the revolving turret, on both a ship and for coast defence [sic].”[73]

The movement to gain recognition for Timby also included raising funds to buy back Mrs. Titcomb’s home in Brooklyn, which she had lost in her efforts to support Timby. “We shall give back to the woman who cared for him in his last years the home she lost in so doing.”[74]

Timby’s supporters began to clamor for his body to be transported to Washington on a U.S. battleship,[75] but the Acting Secretary of the Navy disapproved the idea, which had been presented to Congress.[76]  Winthrop felt that providing a naval vessel for such purposes would be tantamount to endorsing Timby’s claims of being the inventor of the turret and that such claims had not been proved. Several members of Congress were ready to continue the fight [77], but the fight was in vain.[78]

Those who fought to have Timby’s body moved to Washington were eventually successful, although there were no naval ships involved. Ceremonies were held at the Battery in New York in October 1911, where the body lay in state close to Ericsson’s statue. A Dock Department boat carried his remains around Castle Williams, and speakers declared “that honor was due both to Timby and Ericsson” and that “there is glory enough for both.” One speaker, the poet Will Carleton, was not quite so even-handed: “The fact remains that the Monitor was never rebuilt for any length of time, bur the revolving turret has been used ever since in divers [sic] parts of the world.”[79]

Upon its arrival in Washington on 13 October 1909 a memorial service was held at the First Congregational Church, where General Nelson Miles and officers of the Army and the Navy were speakers. The coffin was draped in American flags. It was buried the next day.[80]

Timby’s body now rests in Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, DC alongside his wife, Charlotte, and sons Judson and Theodore.[81]

During his lifetime, Timby was always ready to talk about his life and his inventions. He often bragged about the important men he had known in his lifetime, claiming that such men as William H. Seward, Millard Fillmore, Jefferson Davis, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Abraham Lincoln, Commodore Vanderbilt, and General Grant, among others, had been close personal friends. Indeed, they may have met, but no records appear to indicate that there were any strong friendships.[82]

One man who never met him, but heard about him from Timby’s childhood friends, was Gilbert Purdy. He was the oldest member of the Navy, 71 years old and in charge of the hold of the USS Olympia. Such an achievement garnered him some recognition by the press, and he reminisced with reporters in 1899. Some of his facts were not totally accurate, but his characterization of Timby was interesting.

I was born back of Poughkeepsie, in Unionvale. Perhaps you didn’t know it, but Theodore Timby, a farm laborer’s son from Dover, the town next to mine, invented the Monitor turret. He patented it in 1841, but they said it would cost too much to build it and it lay there in the patent office until Ericsson saw it. I asked about Timby when I got back from the war, and they told me he was the biggest lunkhead that was ever in a schoolhouse. [83]

Timby was certainly not a lunkhead, but that farm boy grew up to be the most inventive and most famous Meridianite.

 

---

[1] Depending on the source, Timby was born in 1816, 1820, 1922, or 1823. Census records disagree, as do Timby’s own accounts.

[2] Meacham, Anna May, The Baptist Church at Meridian New York, 1810-1988: The Survival of a Rural Church, Havens, William H., editor, Salem, MA: Higginson Books, printers, 2006.

[3] Massachusetts Births and Christenings, 1639-1915, database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FCV5-HYW : 5 January 2021), Newman Wears, 1787.

[4] Meacham, Anna May, Ibid.

[5] Cato (NY) Citizen, 20 January 1927.

[6] Auburn (NY) Cayuga Chief, 25 December 1853.

[7] Auburn (NY) Journal, 19 October 1853.

[8] Dana, William, editor, The Merchants’ Magazine and Commercial Review, Volume 46^th, New York: William B. Dana, publisher, 1862.

[9] “Panic of 1857,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1857, accessed 3 October 2021.

[10] Meacham, Anna, quoted in “Local Business History Outlined Before Cato Rotary Club Meeting,” Weedsport (NY) Cayuga Chief and Chronicle, 5 December 1968.

[11] Barnes, William, New York Insurance Reports, Volume 3, 1899.

[12] Undated Advertisements, Niagara Falls (NY) Gazette, 1854.

[13] “Substantial Compliment,” Albany (NY) Evening Herald, undated issue, 1853.

[14] Barnes, William, New York Insurance Reports, Volume 2, 1860.

[15] Barnes, William, Ibid.

[16] Barber, Oliver L., Counsellor at Law, “Clute vs. Fitch” Reports of Cases in Law and Equity Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Vol. XXV, Albany (NY): W.C. Little & Co., Law Booksellers, 1858.

[17] “Theodore Timby, of Cato, Was Noted for Many Early Inventions”, Cato Citizen, 8 March 1962.

[18] “Insurance Companies,” Auburn (NY) Weekly Journal, 9 April 1956.

[19] Reports of Cases in Law and Equity determined in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Clute v. Fitch, p. 407.

[20] “Moving Turret Invented Here,” Syracuse Post-Standard, 10 May 1909.

[21] United States Census, Town of Cato, New York 24 July 1850.

[22] New York State Census, Town of Cato, New York, 7 June 1855.

[23] 1865 New York Census, Saratoga Springs, New York, 9 June 1865.

[24] Postville (IA), Graphic, 21 December 1893.

[25] Hermitage (MO) Gazette, 1 June 1898.

[26] “Timby’s Friends Claim He Invented Monitor, Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, 24 June 1900.

[27] “Timby’s Body to Go to Washington,” Brooklyn (NY) Times Union, 1 September 1911.

[28] “National Industrial Union. The Summer Branch Established at Asbury Park,” The Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, 7 July 1895.

[29] “Genius at Home,” Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, 15 July 1894.

[30] “Gold Vase for Mrs. McKinley,” Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, 17 November 1896.

[31] “Women’s Work – The National Council Enters the Second Week in Washington,” The Pensacola (FL) News, 26 February 1895.

[32] “In the State Departments,” Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, 9 April 1894.

[33] Meacham, Anna May, “Theodore Timby, of Cato, Was Noted for Many Early Inventions,” Cato (NY) Citizen, 8 March 1962.

[34] Timby, Theodore Ruggles, LL.D., Lighted Lore for Gentle Folk, New York: Morningside Publishing Co., 1902.

[35] “Invented the Turret – Theodore R. Timby, Now and Old Man, Tells How He Hit Upon It,” Washington (DC) Evening Star, 23 December 1893.

[36] “The Blue and The Gray,” Defiance (OH) Republican Express, 8 March, 1894.

[37] “Invented the Turret,” Washington (DC) Evening Star, 23 December 1893.

[38] “Local Inventor Forgotten Designer of Ship Credited with Saving Union,” Syracuse (NY) Post-Standard, 27 December 1954.

[39] “In Honor of Timby,” Syracuse Herald, 19 April 1911.

[40] Recollections of Joel C Northrup, in “Invented by Dr. Timby,” Syracuse Herald, 21 May 1909.

[41] “Revolving Steam Battery,” New York Herald, 7 June 1843.

[42] “A Novel Battery,” New York Evening Post, 7 June 1843.

[43] “Our Sea Coast,” Watertown (NY) Herald, 5 March 1887.

[44] United States Passport Applications, 1795-1905, Roll 65, vol 140141, 1957 Sep-Oct., familysearch.org.  accessed 22 October 2021.

[45] “Battle of the Monitor and the Merrimack,” Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-the-Monitor-and-Merrimack , accessed 2 October 2021.

[46] Church, William C., The Life of John Ericsson, 2 vols., New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1890.

[47] Thompson, Stephen, The Construction of the U.S.S. Monitor, New York: Page Publishing, 2019.

[48] “Navy, Covington,” Cincinnati (OH) Commercial Tribune, 21 March 1909.

[49] Untitled article, Syracuse (NY) Sunday Herald, 17 March 1889.

[50] “The Battery,” NYC Parks, https://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/battery-park/monuments/454, accessed 1 November 2021.

[51] “John Ericsson Memorial,” National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/nama/planyourvisit/john-ericsson-memorial.htm, accessed 1 November 2021.

[52] :YSS Ericsson,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Ericsson, accessed 30 March 2022.

[53] “The Revolving Tower and Its Inventor,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, No. CLII, Vol. XXVI, January 1863.

[54] “The National Heating and Ventilating Company,” The Rockland (NY) County Journal, 20 April 1889.

[55] National Popular Review, an Illustrated Journal of Preventive Medicine, several issues, 1893.

[56] “To Honor Dr. Timby,” Washington (DC) Post, 15 July 1910.

[57] “Seen and Heard in Many Places,” The Philadelphia (PA) Times, 13 June 1898.

[58] “Washington Letter,” Rome (NY) Semi-Weekly Citizen, 4 September 1889.

[59] Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, Washington, DC: United States Printing Office, 1900.

[60] “Women Take Up His Case,” Brooklyn (NY) Citizen, 24 June 1900; “Concerning Monitor Turret,” Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, 1 July 1900.

[61] “Women Writing a Book,” New York Times, 8 July 1900.

[62] “Inventor of Monitor Turret,” New York Sun, undated issue, 1902.

[63] “For 40 Years He Has Pressed His Claim, New York Times, 25 April 1904.

[64] “60^th Congress, First Session – Findings in Case of Theodore R. Timby.” Document 126, 19 December 1907.

[65] “Heap Honors on Timby Bier – Floral Turret Shows Friends’ Faith in Inventor’s Claim,” The Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, 13 November 1909.

[66] “Late Honors Paid to Inventor Timby,” New York Times, 3 October 1911.

[67] “Row Over Monitor’s Inventor Assumes Munchausen Proportions,” Jackson (MS) Daily News, 16 March 1911.

[68] “Movement to Honor Theodore Ruggles Timby,” The Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, 7 April 1911.

[69] “Three Story Timby Turret,” New York Sun, 24 November 1909.

[70] “W.B. Cogswell to Lead Fight for Dr. Timby,” Syracuse (NY) Post-Standard, 21 January 1910.

[71] “Timby, Inventor of the Turret,” Syracuse (NY) Post-Standard, 22 February 1911.

[72] “American, Not Ericsson,” Tipton (IN) Daily Tribune, 11 February 1911.

[73] “Original Drawings of Inventor Found,” Muscatine (IA) Journal, 11 February 1911.

[74] Movement to Honor Theodore Ruggles Timby,” The Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, 7 April 1911.

[75] “From Potter’s Field to Fame,” Wichita (KS) Beacon, 27 February 1911.

[76] “Disapproves Proposition,” The San Antonio (TX) Light¸ 14 August 1911.

[77] “Demand a Warship,” The Washington (DC) Post, 14 August 1911.

[78] “No Warship to Carry Body of Dr. Timby,” Syracuse (NY) Herald, 26 August 1911.

[79] “Full Honor is Paid T.R. Timby’s Memory,” Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, 13 October 1911.

[80] “Memory of Dr. Timby to Be Honored Tonight,” Washington (DC) Evening Star, 13 October 1911.

[81] Memorial ID 23639069, Findagrave.com, accessed 4 November 2021.

[82] “John Brown’s Secret Motive,” The New York Sun, 13 May 1904.

[83] “Veteran of Three Wars,” Milford (IA) Mail, 5 October 1899.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Timby's Inventions	Date	Residence Given on Patent Application
Designed Floating Dry Dock (age 17), not patented	1836	n/a
US2572 Apparatus for Raising Sunken Vessels and Other Submerged Bodies	4/21/1842	Auburn, NY
US2582 Machine for Dressing Stone	4/23/1842	Auburn, NY
US2613 Manner of Connecting the Body with the Runners of Sleighs	5/7/1842	Auburn, NY
Filed a Caveat with the US Patent Office for a Revolving Tower for Land or Water	1/18/1843	Cato, NY (Assumed)
US3763 Improvement in Water-Wheels	9/27/1844	Cato, NY
US4845 Improvement in Water-Wheels	11/10/1846	Cato Four Corners, NY
US7464 Water Wheel - method for Increasing or Diminishing its Diameter	6/25/1850	Cato Four Corners, NY
US7992 Removable Handle tor Sad-Irons	3/18/1851	Meridian, NY
US18560 Mercury Barometer	11/3/1857	Medina, NY
US21384 Traveling Casket	8/31/1858	Medina, NY
US35846 Improvement in revolving battery-towers	7/8/1862	Worcester, MA
US35847 Improvement in Discharging Guns in Revolving Towers by Electricity	7/8/1862	Worcester, MA
US36593 Improvement in Revolving Battery-Towers	9/30/1862	Worcester, MA
US36871 Improvement in Portable Warming Apparatus	11/4/1862	Worcester, MA
US36872 Improvement in Mercurial Barometers	11/4/1862	Worcester, MA
US38193 Improvement in Solar Time-Globes	7/7/1863	Saratoga Springs, NY
USRE1525 Improvement in Solar Time-Globes (re-issue ifUS38193 of 7/7/1863)	8/18/1863	Saratoga Springs, NY
US40519 Improvement in Solar Time-Pieces	11/3/1863	Saratoga Springs, NY
US47584 Improvement in Globe Time-Pieces	5/2/1865	Saratoga Springs, NY
US47585 Improvement in Globe-Clocks	5/2/1865	Saratoga Springs, NY
US62574 Improvement in Hoes	3/5/1867	Saratoga Springs, NY
US65451 Ventilating Door (House Ventilator)	6/4/1867	Saratoga Springs, NY
US73674 Paper-Cutter	1/21/1868	Town of Saratoga, NY
US87445 Improved Railway Car-Wheel	3/2/1869	Town of Saratoga, NY
US87446 Improved Case for Preserving Butter, Cheese	3/2/1869	Town of Saratoga, NY
US90134 Improved Umbrella-Fastening	5/18/1869	Saratoga Springs, NY
US90608 Improvement in Toilet Pin Cases	5/25/1869	Saratoga Springs, NY
US91580 Improvement in Turbine Water-Wheels	6/22/1869	Town of Saratoga, NY
US93449 Improvement in Toilet Pin-Case	8/10/1869	Town of Saratoga, NY
US96166 Improvement in Thimbles	10/26/1869	Town of Saratoga, NY
US102622 Improvement in Sash-Fasteners	5/3/1870	Town of Saratoga, NY
US102730 Improvement in combined Thread and Needle-Cases	5/3/1870	Town of Saratoga, NY
USD4499 - (design patent) Design for a Medal	11/29/1870	Tarrytown, NY
USD4622 - (design patent) Thread and Needle-Case	1/31/1871	Town of Saratoga, NY
US120552 Improvement in Railway Freight-Cars	10/31/1871	Tarrytown, NY
US120553 Improvement in Gun Carriages	10/31/1871	Tarrytown, NY
US121023 Improvement in Railroad Spikes	11/14/1871	Tarrytown, NY
US122682 Improvement in Construction at Railways	1/9/1872	Tarrytown, NY
Timby's Inventions	Date	Residence Given on Patent Application
US122683 Improvement in Water-Meters	1/9/1872	Tarrytown, NY
UA124174Improvement in Railway Rails	2/27/1872	Tarrytown, NY
US124175 Improvement in Railway Rails	2/27/1872	Tarrytown, NY
US131313 Improvement in Portable Wardrobes	9/10/1872	Tarrytown, NY
US135173 Improvement in Plant-Protectors	1/21/1883	Tarrytown, NY
US135386 Improvement in Car-Axle Lubricators	1/28/1873	Tarrytown, NY
US136284 Improvement in Springs for Vehicles	2/25/1873	Tarrytown, NY
US 136791 Improvement in Car-Axles	3/11/1872	Tarrytown, NY
US153691 Improvement in Cooking-Stoves	8/4/1874	Tarrytown, NY
US145258 Improvement in Railway Ties	12/02/1873	Tarrytown, NY
US171447 Improvement in Spikes	12/21/1875	Tarrytown, NY
US171448 Improvement in Spikes	12/21/1875	Tarrytown, NY
US168809 Improvement in Attachments for Cooking-Stoves	10/11/1875	Tarrytown, NY
US172798 Improvement in Attachments for Cooking-Stoves	1/25/1876	Tarrytown, NY
US181224 Improvement in Cooking-Stove Attachments	8/15/1876	Tarrytown, NY
US173690 Improvement in Attachments for Cooking-Stoves	2/15/1876	Tarrytown, NY
US173691 Improvement in Attachments for Cooking-Stoves	2/15/1876	Tarrytown, NY
US180962 Improvement in Apparatus for Manufacturing Solar Salt	8/6/1876	Tarrytown, NY
US198435 Improvements in Salt-Cellars and Napkin-Holders	12/18/1877	Tarrytown, NY
US217754 Improvement in Ore and Rock Crushers	7/22/1879	Nyack, NY
US224492 Cooking-Vessel	2/10/1880	Nyack, NY
US225665 Ore-Crusher	3/16/1881	Nyack, NY
US246345 Ore Separating & Amalgamating Machine	8/23/1881	Nyack, NY
US239203 Coast Defense	3/22/1881	Nyack, NY
US239202 Coast Defense	3/22/1881	Nyack, NY
US240786 Coast Defense	4/26/1881	Nyack, NY
US243007 Car-Axle	6/14/1881	Nyack, NY
US246987 Subterranean System of Coast Defense	9/13/1881	Nyack, NY
US273913, Steam Cooker	3/13/1883	Brooklyn, NY
US281651 Combined Amalgamator & Separator	7/17/1883	Nyack, NY
US296251 Apparatus for Treating Ores	4/1/1884	Nyack, NY
US312230 Tower & Shield System of Fortification	2/10/1885	Nyack, NY
US312231 System of Firing Battery Guns in Turrets by Electricity	2/10/1885	Nyack, NY
US312232. Revolving Tower and Shield System of Fortifications	2/10/1885	Nyack, NY
US330642 Revolving Tower System of Fortifications	11/17/1885	Nyack, NY
US330638 Revolving Tower System of Fortifications	11/17/1885	Nyack, NY
US330639 Revolving Tower System of Fortifications	11/17/1885	Nyack, NY
US330640 Revolving Tower Fortifications	11/17/1885	Nyack, NY
US330641 Revolving Tower System of Fortifications	11/17/1885	Nyack, NY
US344758 Gun Carriage for Revolving Turrets	6/29/1886	Washington, DC
US379744 Heat and Power Supply System	3/20/1888	Washington, DC
US465298 Apparatus for Heating, Cooling, and Ventilating	12/15/1891	Washington, DC
US418581 Revolving-Tower Fortification	10/22/1889	Washington, DC
US413582 Sighting Platform for Revolving Turrets	10/22/1889	Washington, DC
Timby's Inventions	Date	Residence Given on Patent Application
UA462602 Process of Purifying Iron and Steel	11/3/1891	Washington, DC
US475637 Apparatus for Evaporating Brine	5/24/1892	Washington, DC
US474271 Revolving-Tower Fortification	5/3/1892	Washington, DC
US485999 Process of and Apparatus for Aging Liquors	11/8/1892	Washington, DC
US486000 Apparatus for Aging Wines, Spirits, or Other Liquors	11/8/1892	Washington, DC
US496759 Process of and Apparatus for Aging Wines	5/2/1893	Washington, DC
US527564 Apparatus for Aging Wines or Distilled Liquors	10/16/1894	Washington, DC
US660602 Method of Ripening Coffee	10/30/1900	New York, NY
US673227 Apparatus for Seasoning Coffee	4/30/1901	New York, NY
US754943 Method of Roasting Coffee	3/15/1904	Brooklyn, NY
US749340 Coffee-Treating Machine	1/12/1904	Brooklyn, NY
US741389 Mechanism for Utilizing Wind-Power	10/13/1903	Brooklyn, NY
US769330 Machine for Aging Liquors	9/6/1904	Brooklyn, NY
US777569 Car-Wheel Axle	12/13/1904	Brooklyn, NY
US779978 Water-Wheel	1/10/1905	Brooklyn, NY
US857317 Lines for Vessels	6/18/1907	Brooklyn, NY