In 1844 a man named Anson, from Norwich, CT, applied for a patent on a planing machine he had developed. His claim was rejected. In 1848 Joseph Page Woodbury, of Boston, also applied for a planing-machine patent and was likewise rejected. Woodbury had claimed the use of yielding pressure-bars in front of and behind the cutter-head, an idea that Anson had first. But Anson had not claimed the idea in his patent application.

In 1849 Woodbury did receive a planing-machine patent, for a fixed-knife planer with moving beds both above and below the stock. Like essentially every planer patent of the day, it was an attempt to circumvent the Woodworth planing-machine patent monopoly. It appears that Woodbury did manufacture and sell this machine for a time.

In 1873 Woodbury re-applied for, and was belatedly granted, the pressure-bar patent. He died and his heirs formed the Woodbury Patent Planing-Machine Co. During the ensuing court battle over the granting of the patent, a working version of Anson's 1844 planer was introduced as evidence and was instrumental in Woodbury's patent being overturned.

Information Sources

• Ad in the 1849-05-12 issue of Scientific American:

  Great Improvements in Planing, Tongueing and Grooving Lumber.
  JOSEPH P. WOODBURY'S PATENT PLANING MACHINE.
  THE Subscriber having received Letters Patent for a Stationary Cutter Planing, Tongueing and Grooving Machine, now offers for sale the right to use the same.
  
  This machine will plane six thousand feet of Boards to an uniform thickness in one hour, producing a better finished surface than it is possible to plane by any other moans now known, not excepting the hand plane, and is peculiarly adapted to plane and joint clapboards or weather boarding, and will do the work faster and bettor than any machine heretofore invented.
  
  This machine is so arranged that it planes the board with an unbroken shaving the whole width and length of the material, and does not take more than two thirds the power that is required to do at equal amount of work by the rotary cutting cylinder now in common use. The construction and organization of this machine different from any now in use.
  
  Communications for further particulars cheerfully responded to by addressing the subscriber (post paid,) Boston, Mass. One of the above planing machines may be seen in operation by calling on the patentee.
  
  JOSEPH P. WOODBURY,
  Border street, East Boston, Mass.

• The 1850-11-02 issue of Scientific American listed the award winners from that year's Fair of the American Institute, including Joseph P. Woodbury, "for best Stationary Cutter Wood-Planing Machine."
• From article in the February 1879 issue of Manufacturer & Builder. In the article, about the decision on the Woodbury planing-machine patent suit, it says, "...the invention of Woodbury had been anticipated by a machine built by one Anson, at Norwich, Conn., three years before, the patent having been applied for in 1844. There was no doubt that the Anson machine had bars instead of rollers. It has been running ever since, and was produced in court." Thus, it appears that Mr. Anson designed and built a single machine around 1844, which was used for many years afterward. No patent has been found for a planing machine in the name of Anson. The above-mentioned article references an earlier article in the November 1875 issue of the same journal; the earlier article does not mention Anson or his planer.