| 18th Century History |
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Articles and Products of History Elisha Otis Elisha Otis was born on August 11, 1811 outside Halifax, Vermont. He was the youngest of six children, and from the time he was very young, suffered from ill health. Despite his poor health, Otis was an industrious young man, and was able to save up enough money to purchase some land in Green River, Vermont. Initially, he built a gristmill on the land. However, when that was unsuccessful, he rebuilt it into a sawmill, which he operated until 1845 when he once again succumbed to ill health.
Later that year, Elisha Otis moved his family to Albany, New York where he took a job as a master mechanic for O. Tingley & Company, a bedstead factory. While employed at Tingley, he invented a railway safety brake to be used in their manufacturing process. That brake would prove to be fortuitous indeed. In 1852, Elisha Otis and his family moved once again, this time to Yonkers, New York where he was hired by Maize and Burns, another bedstead firm. The owner of the company was looking for some kind of a hoist that would enable heavy equipment to be lifted safely to an upper floor of the building. Otis, who had already tested out his safety brake on the railways when he was working at Tingley, came up with the solution, and thus, the elevator safety brake was invented. In 1854, Elisha Otis went to the Crystal Palace Exposition in New York, where he conducted a dramatic demonstration of his invention. As a large crowd watched, Otis rode up the side of the building, and halfway up the shaft, he instructed that the rope used to hoist the elevator be cut. Fully expecting to see him plunge to his death, the crowd was stunned when Otis’ safety brake held the elevator in place. He later patented this device. Elisha Otis lived long enough to witness the installation of the first elevator designed to transport people in 1857. He died on April 28, 1861. After his death, his sons took over his business, and in 1867, established Otis Brothers and Company. Further Reading
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