Home › L › Locke, Sylvanus Dyer

Locke, Sylvanus Dyer

inventor, was born Sept. 11, 1833, in Richfield, N.

Y. In his youth he was a civil engineer on the Mississippi river, and on the Wisconsin Central railroad. In 1861 he was admitted to the bar; and during the war received a lieutenant's commission in a company of Wisconsin volunteers.

He was county surveyor, and city engineer of Janesville, Wis., for eight years.

He was the inventor of the automatic grain binder, which was first manufactured in 1870 at the W. A. Wood Company's manufactory at Hoosick Falls, N. Y. Eleven distinct features embraced in this machine are now used by all manufacturers of binders. He owned seventy-four patents on harvesters and binders, besides thirty patents on other inventions, including hop-pickers, car-couplers, railway cross-tie, snow melting apparatus for city streets, self-closing gas burner, and vote recorder, and mail bag. In 1883 he was elected assemblyman from his district. His. last invention, just completed when death claimed him, was the automatic steel link drive chain machine.