Elijah McCoy
From open-encyclopedia.com - the free encyclopedia.
Elijah J. McCoy (2 May, 1844 - 10 October, 1929) was an inventor.
Elijah McCoy was born in Ontario, Canada, to runaway slaves from Kentucky in the United States, who escaped on the underground railroad. When he was three, McCoy's family moved back to the U.S., settling in Detroit, Michigan. He had 11 brothers and sisters. McCoy was fascinated by machinery. He studied engineering in Scotland from age 16 and on his return to the United States settled in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
While working as a fireman on the Michigan Central Railroad McCoy invented the automatic lubricator, which oils the engines of boats, trains, and so on. His "lubricating cup" for locomotives from 1872 was a great boon for the railroad industry, allowing trains to run faster and more profitably with much less need to stop for lubrication and maintenance. He also developed at least 56 other patented devices, including a folding ironing board and an automatic sprinkler. In 1920 he formed the Elijah McCoy Manufacturing Company.
McCoy married Ann Elizabeth Stewart in 1868; she died four years later. He remarried the next year to Mary Eleanor Delaney and moved to Detroit. Elijah McCoy died in Detroit in 1929 at the age of 85, still suffering from injuries from a car accident seven years earlier that killed his second wife. McCoy had been a resident of the Eloise Hospital, also known as the Michigan State Asylum before his death, suffering from dementia.
According to some sources, the saying the real McCoy, meaning the real thing, derives from Elijah: many of his inventions were the basis of inferior copies. Railroad engineers would enquire if a locomotive was equipt with "the real McCoy"; if so they knew it could be driven with confidence. Others dispute this account of the origin of the phrase.
See also
External links
- McCoy's automatic lubricator - disputes "Real McCoy" story
- World Wide Words's discussion of "the real McCoy"
