Born in 1816, Arcalous (AR-kuh-lus) Wyckoff was granted about a dozen patents, several of them relating to the manufacture of wooden eavestrough. Wyckoff owned and operated an Elmira eavestrough manufacturing business. One of his more important patents was for a boring machine that used centerless augers, presumably for boring downspouts. The center of the auger contained a helical worm that was rotated independently of the auger, to remove chips. The patent was licensed to various others, and extended. We do not know if Wyckoff manufactured and sold the machines, or if his licensees had to build their own machine.

Information Sources

• The Annual Report of the New York State Agricultural Society, 1861 lists the results of the 1860 State Fair, including "Tubular boring machine, Wycoff, Hobbie & Co., Elmira S. M.", and "Wooden water pipe, Wycoff, Hobbie & Co., Flmira ..Dip."
• RE: patent 13,606: The original patent specification does not contain any information on assignment. The reissue, dated 1856-10-14, assigned the patent entirely to Wyckoff. Wyckoff assigned some rights (probably the territory of Michigan) to one I. J. Merritt. The extended patent reverted to joint ownership of the original inventors, who then assigned it to Thomas B. Farrington (a local lawyer) and others not yet identified.

  The case of Thomas B. Farrington et al. v. The Board of Water Commissioners of the City of Detroit, heard before Judge J. Longyear of the Eastern District of Michigan in September 1870, involved a request for an injunction against the defendants for infringing this patent. They had legitimately purchased a patent boring machine before the extension but then had put in new cutter bits into the machine, this being the novel thing patented. The judge found that "when the thing patented was part only of a machine, but was of such a character as to be soon destroyed or irreparable: Held, that the sale of an entire machine carried with it the right to replace the parts, which, in their relation to the whole structure, were temporary in their nature, although such parts might be the valuable thing covered by the claim of the patent. The right to use the specific machine, after an extension, is guaranteed by section 18 of the act of July 4, 1836, and the right to replace such parts as are temporary depends upon the right to use the machine. Such parts may therefore be replaced after an extension of the patent."

  The above-mentioned court case provides some details on the machine in question. The novel part of the invention was the use of a centerless hollow auger that did not follow the grain of the wood as an auger with a leadscrew would. In addition, a "worm" was placed in the hollow portion of the auger to extract the chips. The worm could be run at as high a speed as necessary to avoid clogging. The cutting tips on the auger lasted about forty days when in constant use, and they are attached to the auger body by screws for convenience in sharpening or replacing them. The "device for taking off and putting on" the cutting tips was not part of the invention. The judge referred to the case of Wilson v. Simpson, which was eventually decided by the Supreme Court. In that case, the holder of the Woodworth planer patent argued that the defendant was not entitled to replace the planer knives. But the Supreme Court held that because the knives are inherently short-lived and the licensed, patented machine was useless without them, that the license must necessarily include the right to replace the knives. Judge Longyear found that this boring machine's cutting tips were directly analagous to the Woodworth planer's knives, even if the Woodworth planer knives were not covered directly by the patent and the boring machine's cutting tips were so covered. The motion was denied.

  In the case of Thomas B. Farrington et al. v. Milton K. Gregory, also heard before Judge Longyear of the Eastern District of Michigan in September 1870, the plaintiffs again asserted infringement. In this case, the defendant "asserted his right to use the patented machine under a conveyance from the original patentees to one I. J. Merritt and certain mesne conveyances from Merritt down to the defendant. It appeared, however, that none of these conveances, except that to Merritt, had been recorded in the Patent Office at the time when the complainants became the assignees of the patent, for a valuable consideration, in good faith, and without notice of such conveyances. Merritt had granted to one Arnold (or Allen) the right to use and sell machines in Calhoun and Kalamazoo counties, and Merritt supervised the making of a machine for Arnold, who in turn sold the licensed machine, the machine eventually coming into the ownership of the defendants. The plaintiffs argued that this license was void because only the assignment to Merritt was registered with the Patent Office, and none of the subsequent conveyances were. But the court found that only assignments need be registered in this way, and only the exclusive right to make and use the invention in a particular district constituted an assignment. Non-exclusive conveyances, or conveyances only to use and "dispose of", i.e., re-sell, were merely licenses, which need not be registered. The motion for injunction was denied.

• A page on Arcalus Period Design's website on the origin of their name provides a history of their namesake, Arcalous Wyckoff.
• In 1857, one La Fayette Stevens, of Elmira, was granted a patent for a boring machine that would seem to compete with Wyckoff's design; Steven's boring machine used a length of gas pipe as the center of the auger, with an annular cutterhead and a length of "flat wire" wrapped spirally around the pipe and brazed in place, so as to form the helix. This design left a solid core of wood that went into the gas-pipe center, and leaving this core uncut presumably reduced the power required to turn the auger. The Chemung Valley History Museum has in its collection a document, "Letters of Assignment granting Arcalous Wyckoff rights to the boring-machine improvement invented by LaFayette Stevens, September 22, 1868."