Welcome! 

Register :: Login
Manufacturers Index - Hazard Knowles

Hazard Knowles
Washington, DC; New York, NY, U.S.A.
Manufacturer Class: Wood Working Machinery

History
Last Modified: Aug 5 2008 8:53PM by Jeff_Joslin
If you have information to add to this entry, please contact the Site Historian.

Hazard Knowles is best known for making the first American cast iron hand planes: see Patented Transitional and Metallic Planes in America, Vols. I and II, by Roger K. Smith. But he also invented and manufactured other items, including a reciprocating saw mill and a mortising machine.

Knowles lived a somewhat peripatetic life. Here is a list of known locations and times for him:

  • 1825-1833: Colchester, CT.
  • 1836-1850 Washington, DC.
  • 1852-1859 New York, NY.

Information Sources

  • A law-suit affidavit from Knowles, dated 1858, indicates that he was a machinist in the U.S. Patent Office in Washington from 1836 to 1848. Other information on his years of residence primarily comes from patent records.
  • Besides the patents listed below, Knowles was granted a couple of other patents that were lost in the 1836 patent-office fire and not restored.1825-11-04, "Springs for carriages"; 1828-10-11, "Mode of covering buildings".
  • An 1856 article in Scientific American favorably describes the performance of Knowles's reciprocating sawmill; the good performance is credited to his patented sawblade.