342 JOHN A. BOSHARD 



piercing the goods, which were fed beneath upon a flat table. 

 The needle was depressed by a treadle and cord and returned 

 by a spring. This needle, which was a barbed or crochet 

 needle, plunged through the goods, caught a lower thread 

 from a thread carrier and looper beneath, and brought up a 

 loop which it laid upon the upper surface of the cloth; de- 

 scending again, it brought up another loop and enchained it 

 with the one last made, forming a chain stitch consisting of a 

 series of loops on the upper side. 



Thimonnier's efforts to introduce his sewing machine 

 were made very difficult on account of his poverty, and the 

 repeated destruction of machines built with money solicited 

 from friends, wearied at last even the admirers of his genius 

 and energy, and he was left, in 1857, to die in poverty. 



In England, in 1841, Newton and Archbold patented a 

 chain stitch machine, using the eye pointed needle. The 

 needle passed the thread through the cloth and formed a 

 loop which was seized by a hook and carried forward. On its 

 next trip the needle would pass through the loop thus made 

 and form a single chain stitch. 



The great advantages of the eye pointed needle, however, 

 were never fully appreciated until the invention of the lock 

 stitch, which is made by passing the thread through the 

 fabric by means of an eye pointed needle, and then passing 

 another thread through the loop thus formed, the second 

 thread interlocking with the first in the middle of the fabric. 

 This idea was first conceived about 1834 by Walter Hunt, 

 of New York. He built a machine embodying the eye pointed 

 needle and the shuttle, which, so far as is generally known, 

 was never sufficiently perfected for practical use. He failed, 

 however, to protect his ideas by patents, as required by law, 

 and consequently failed to reap the reward of his genius. 

 Hunt never fully appreciated the importance of the oppor- 

 tunity he had allowed to slip by until years later, when Elias 

 Howe, jr., patented a machine which was similar in the re- 

 sults accomplished to his own. He then attempted to assert 

 his prior claims to a patent, which was denied him on the 

 ground of abandonment. 



