PATENT DOCUMENTS
JOHN A. & HIRAM A. PITTS;
PITTS AGRICULTURAL COMPANY;
BUFFALO PITTS COMPANY;
AND BUFFALO STEAMROLLER COMPANY
INSTRUCTIONS: To view any patent listed below or on the other "Patents" pages just Crtl-Click on the name of the patent and a new tab will be formed to the right of the right-most tab currently open in your browser's window. Do this for all the patents you wish to view. Then open each tab to view the patent. Close the tab when you're done reading the patent.
Each patent is listed with:
- Year
- Patent Number
- Brief Description
- Inventor(s)
PATENT DOCUMENTS - EARLY
The first three patents listed are the earliest patents by twin brothers John and Hiram Pitts. The first one, although out of order chronologically, was by far their most important. Patent #542 was for their groundbreaking thresher (a.k.a. separator).
The other two patents listed were other early patents taken out directly by the firm-founding brothers. The fourth is an extension. Note that early patents were numbered within each category, that's why the newer patent has a lower number. Later, patents were all listed with the same numbering system, except for design patents which are numbered with a "D" before the number.
All in all, your webmaster has found over 120 patents that appear to be taken out by Buffalo Pitts et al or by their employees. Although patents today, when taken out by an employee and assigned to the firm that they work for, are typically owned outright by the firm, there were better deals offered to employees 100 years ago or more.
Some of these patents are marked as being owned ½ by the firm and ½ by the employee. Some are owned outright by the employee. The latter is confusing as your webmaster isn't sure how such a patents would work. That is, was it taken out by the firm and owned by the employee outright? Or, was it taken out by the employee and owned by the employee? Perhaps the latter example proves that engineers were better paid 100 years ago (if not thought of more highly, too?).
Because this page got to be too, too long, we've separated the various patent sections into distinct web pages, which are detailed in the navigation pane above, and on every page herein.
STEAM TRACTION ENGINE PATENTS - Click HERE
STEAMROLLER PATENTS - Click HERE
THRESHER AND IMPLEMENT PATENTS - Click HERE
AVIATION PATENTS - Click HERE