In 1881, Samuel Males patented a foot- and hand-powered drag saw used for cutting firewood. There is no direct evidence that he manufactured and sold this invention, but earlier he had patented and successfully manufactured a cider mill, so we think it likely he did make his drag saw.

Information Sources

• Sketches and Statistics of Cincinnati in 1859, by Charles Cist, has this writeup in its section on manufacturers:

  Samuel Males, 96 Everett street, makes, as one apparatus, a convertible cider mill, corn-sheller, and vegetable grinder, susceptible of being, in one minute, changed from any one to any other of these purposes. A press is connected with this machine, capable of pressing cider, lard, or cheese. The apparatus will grind five bushels of apples in a minute. Although it has not been more than fourteen months before the public, it obtained at twenty-four national, State, county, and mechanics' fairs, fifty-five first premiums, silver cups, silver medals, or diplomas. Raw material, 60 per cent., value of annual product, ninety-six thousand dollars.

• The Report of Premiums Awarded at the Twenty-Seventh Annual [New York] State Fair, held at Buffalo in October 1867, lists Samuel Males as winning a diploma for "Best portable cider and wine mill".
• The Report of Premiums Awarded at the Twenty-Ninth Annual [New York] State Fair, held at Elmira in September 1869, lists Samuel Males as winning a commendation:

  Samuel Males, Cincinnati, Ohio; American Wine and Cider Mill, feeds, crushes and discharges the fruit with the same motion, and the quantity of wine or cider produced is twenty-five per cent more than ordinarily secured. Will grind from forty to sixty bushels of apples per hour.

• From Report of the Tenth Annual Fair of the St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Association, 1871:

  Cider Mill and Presses.—...second premium, bronze medal, to Samuel Males, Cincinnati, Ohio, represented by Somple, Birge & Co., St. Louis.

• Thirty-First Annual Report of the Indiana State Board of Agriculture, 1881. Awards of Premiums at State Fair, 1881.

  Samuel Males, Cincinnati, Ohio, showed a hand cider or grape mill and press of the common style
  Also, a drag saw operated by hands and feet—a very economical way of applying human force to do hard work—indeed, a new departure in the division of labor.