On June 1, 1805, John Hinman and John Bennock were separately awarded US patents for wood planing machines, the first such patents ever issued. Hinman's patent was for a "planing machine for sawing bellows boards." The patent was lost in the 1836 patent-office fire and was not restored. No information on his planing machine has ever surfaced, nor is there any evidence that he manufactured it.
Information Sources
- Although the EAIA Directory of American Toolmakers lists "Jinman" [sic], there is no indication of whether Hinman's design was ever manufactured.
- A Catalogue of the Names of the Early Puritan Settlers of the Colony of Connecticut, by Royal R. Hinman, 1852, lists a few different John Hinmans. One of them, the youngest son of one Abijah Hinman, was born in 1773 and moved to New Haven, Vermont, in May of 1798. He was still living there in 1852. Obviously Vermont is not Connecticut, and the latter state is consistently given as the location of the recipient of the 1805 patent. Nonetheless, this Vermonter is our most likely candidate to be our patentee.