Elijah McCoy

    Ever heard the expression is that the "real McCoy?" If you have, you've been talking about Elijah McCoy without even knowing it. Elijah McCoy, prolific inventor,  helped trains and all things with engines, move more smoothly and safely.                               

                                       About Elijah McCoy 

    Elijah McCoy was born in Colchester, Ontario, Canada in 1843. His parents were George and Mildred McCoy. They had both been slaves in Kentucky.  They had escaped to Canada riding the underground railroad. This was before the Civil War. When McCoy was young his family returned to America and moved to Ypsilanti, Michigan where his father worked in the logging industry.                    

                                                Elijah's Engineering Dream

    Early on Elijah was fascinated with mechanical things He attended grammar school until he was fifteen. His his parents sent him to Edinburgh with the money they had saved up. Edinburgh is a city in Scotland that Elijah served as an apprenticeship in mechanical engineering. When he returned he was a full fledged engineer but he couldn't find work. 

                                                        A Little Help For Trains

       The only job that he could seem to get was as a fireman (the person who put wood in the furnace) for the Michigan Central Railroad. Part of his job was to oil the moving parts when the train stopped. It didn't take him long to figure out that this was quite a dangerous job since moving trains would often run into trains that were stopped on the tracks for oiling. (Remember the trains didn't really have any way to communicate with each other until Granville T. Woods invented the induction telegraph system in 1887.) To make matters worse, the need to stop the train for oiling was time consuming and very expensive. He began to work on automatic devices to solve this problem and in 1872 he received his first patent for a lubricator for steam engines. His device allowed machines to be oiled automatically while the train was moving. 

                                                From Zero To Hero                            

    In the beginning, his device wasn't to be trusted  because a black man had created it but this didn't last long. His invention worked so well that people insisted that Elijah be in their engines not some other device designed to do the same thing. He continued to invent both improving his automatic devices and doing other things. (He patented an iron board and a lawn sprinkler, to name only two). By the end of his life he had received 57 different patents. He had patents all over the world. And his inventions were being used in all kinds of machinery including trains, steam ships, ocean liners and machinery in factories. To further his success he established his own firm, the Elijah McCoy Manufacturing Company, in Detroit, Michigan in 1920 to make and sell his inventions. 

                                   Elijah's Life Long Obsession 

    Elijah never stopped inventing.. At 77, he patented an improved air brake lubricator and when he turned 80 he patented a vehicle wheel tire. His creative spirit just kept pushing on and we are all the better for his example.    

 

Copyright 1999