By February 1828, Nathan West was manufacturing a hand-powered mortising machine that had been patented by John McClintic of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania "first practical contrivance of the kind". (Quoting from John Leander Bishop, 1864). West supplied these innovative machines to the furniture makers of Baltimore and area.

The Mortising Machines of John McClintic

John McClintic of Chambersburg, Pa., was a notable maker of Windsor chairs, active between at least 1807 and 1828. He was also an inventor who was granted patents for a bedstead (1825), paper cutters (1825 and 1827), mortising and tenoning machines (1827 and 1835) and veneer slitting machines (1829). The mortising machine is particularly notable; in 1864 it was said that this mortiser "is regarded as the first practical contrivance of the kind, and the parent of the foot mortising machine for wood, since universally adopted in workshops, and the subject of numerous patented improvements."

Considerable research has not revealed any evidence that McClintic manufactured any of his inventions himself. In 1829 he was paid $700 by the US Navy to license his mortising and tenoning machine. In 1847 he petitioned the government that they purchase another license to his mortising and tenoning machine. His petition was referred to a committee and seems to have gone nowhere.

Information Sources

• 1829 Executive Documents of the Twenty-First Congress—First Session, Document No. 30 page 7, a payment of $700 to "John McClintic, assignment of patent right for a mortising machine, to the use of the United States' Navy Department".
• 1847 Journal of the United States Senate, for January 27, 1847, page 136.

  Mr. John M. Clayton presented the petition of John McClintic, praying that the United States may purchase, for the use of the several navy yards and arsenals, the right to use his mortising and tenoning machine: which was referred to the Committee on Military affairs.

• 1864 book, John Leander Bishop's A History of American Manufactures from 1608 to 1860, volume II, page 320, in a listing of patents issued in 1827.

  John McClintic, Chambersburg, Pa., Oct. 8, mortising and tenoning machine: this, though not the earliest patent, is regarded as the first practical contrivance of the kind, and the parent of the foot mortising machine for wood, since universally adopted in workshops, and the subject of numerous patented improvements.

• 1975 issue of The Magazine Antiques, Volume 107, page 901.

  Traditional techniques remained basic to furniture production during this period, but innovations were not unknown. A machine to make mortises and tenons was invented by John McClintic of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. In 1827 this device was inspected and recommended by a group of Baltimore furniture makers including John and Hugh Finlay and John Needles. Nathan West acquired the right "to build, use, vend to others, to be used" the McClintic invention, and it was operating in Washington by February 12, 1828."

• See our entry for Fergus Purden, who in the early 1850s was making a foot-powered mortiser; both Purden's and McClintic's mortisers could be seen at the 1851 Exhibition of the Maryland Institute, and, as detailed in the Information Sources of our Purden entry, the judges described the relative merits of the two machines.