Richard Jordan Gatling
Richard Jordan Gatling (born September 12, 1818 in Hertford County , North Carolina , † February 26, 1903 in New York City ) was an American inventor.
Richard Jordan Gatling was born on a North Carolina farm. He showed great talent for machine construction at an early age and invented a machine for sowing rice . This was later, converted into a combine harvester , enormously successful. Later he studied in La Porte and in Cincinnati on the Ohio Medical College Medicine , but never as after graduation doctor practiced. In 1849 he settled in Indianapolis , where he invented a flax breaker in 1850 and a steam plow in 1857 .
Gatling was best known for the " Gatling Gun " named after him , the first operational automatic firearm. It was supposedly his desire for a quick end to the Civil War that inspired his invention. He lived in Indianapolis near a freight yard, where he often saw the bodies of soldiers recovered from the battlefield. He once saw 19 dead, only three of whom had died from gunshot wounds. The others had apparently died from side effects of the war such as disease or malnutrition. Of his invention, he said: "Their rate of fire enables a man to do as much in combat as a hundred men." Therefore, he concluded, mass armies were outdated and disease could no longer spread in them. Gatling originally wanted to make his weapon so powerful that fear of it would end war and mass death. Of course, he also had a commercial interest, and weapons were in great demand during the Civil War.
In 1862 he patented his invention and founded the Gatling Gun Company that same year. In 1870 Richard Gatling moved with his family to Hartford, Connecticut , where his Gatling Gun was manufactured under license by Colt . The Gatlings stayed in Hartford until they moved to New York City in 1897. Richard Gatling's inventiveness never ebbed, but without building on the success of his combine and Gatling Gun. He lost money through careless investments, but died a rich man in February 1903, at the age of 84.
Honors and memberships
Richard Jordan Gatling was a member of the Freemasons Association ( Center Lodge No. 23 in Indianapolis ).
In honor of his services, the US government named the destroyer USS Gatling after Richard Jordan Gatling in 1943 .
literature
- Julia Keller : Mr Gatling's Terrible Marvel: The Gun That Changed Everything and the Misunderstood Genius Who Invented It . Viking, 2008, ISBN 978-0-670-01894-9
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gatling Freemason on the homepage of the Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon "A Few Famous Masons" (accessed January 29, 2013)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gatling, Richard Jordan |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American inventor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 12, 1818 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Hertford County , North Carolina |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 26, 1903 |
| Place of death | New York City |