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Barbed
Wire Saga
Joseph F. Glidden was granted a patent
for "The Winner," one of the most-widely used types of barbed wire Nov. 24,
1874. It all began on the Glidden Homestead at 921 W. Lincoln Hwy., DeKalb.
It was reported that Joseph began searching for a better fencing method after
his wife, Lucinda, complained about livestock getting into the yard. Lucinda, in
her own later recollections, told about her large wire hairpins that began
disappearing from a milk glass dish on her dresser during the winter of 1872-73.
She questioned their 20-year-old daughter, Elva Frances, who denied taking them.
The puzzle bothered Lucinda until one evening after supper when she noticed her
husband reach in his shirt pocket and take out two of her missing hairpins.
"Joseph, what are you doing with my hairpins?" she asked. He replied that he was
working on an idea for a fence. He continued experimenting with the hairpins
whenever he had a little spare time.
When the weather improved, Joseph
purchased a reel of smooth fence wire from Isaac Ellwood's hardware store and
began experimenting in the barn or barnyard. At one point, he tried to form a
piece of wire into a small coil that would fit reasonably tight on a single
strand of wire. After being struck with a hammer, it would tightly clinch around
the wire and stay in place.
However, with only pliers and tools, Joseph found it
difficult to produce a coil small enough with sufficient uniformity for his
needs. He took his problem to his long-time friend, the
blacksmith Phineas
Vaughan. Together, they took apart an
old coffee mill and reassembled it,
utilizing the principle of a moving sleeve and a lug. With a turn of the crank,
the machine produced a small uniform-sized coil.
Joseph Glidden then returned to
his experiment of clinching the coils with their tangs and twisting it with
another smooth wire on the single strand. Thus, he came to invent the first
practical "barbed wire." This barbed wire became the template on which all of
the most successful barbed wire designs were based.
The idea of a thorny or
barbed wire fence, so constructed as to guard by its sharp spines or points
against the pushing of stock, was not then entirely new, according to The
History of DeKalb County. Michael Kelly had patented a barbed wire for
fencing Nov. 17, 1868, which was reissued April 4, 1876. But it consisted of a
flat wire, with the barbs inserted in holes made through it.
Glidden's first invention,
patented May 12, 1874, was a decided improvement on this, consisting of a round
fence wire and a barb formed of two short, pointed pieces of wire, secured in
place upon the fence wire by coiling between their ends, which were extended to
present four points in different directions. On Nov. 24, 1874, Glidden patented
still another improvement (The Winner), substituting for a single wire a double
twisted wire, upon which was fixed a piece of pointed wire coiled in the center,
forming two transverse points, in the words following: "A twisted fence wire
having the transverse spur-wire bent at its middle portion about one of the wire
strands of said fence wire, and clamped in position and place by the other wire
strand twisted upon its fellow."
From manufacturing a few of these by hand on his farm, Glidden got to making the
material in the city by horse-power, using at first a single horse to propel his
imperfect machinery, which over the years was improved until "its perfection is
a matter of astonishment to all beholders," according to The History of
DeKalb County.
"This machinery, together with the extensive establishment,
has all been created out of the raw material within the incredibly short period
of two years, during which time the large sums of money expended have been made
in the business itself; so that it has been self-developing and self-supporting,
and has created in addition a large surplus. The secret of its financial success
is the fact that it has met a want everywhere urgently felt all over the great
prairie country of the West; and the vast territory being of such varied climate
that the demand is as great in winter as in summer. At no time during any of the
seasons, is there not fencing going on in some portion of the great field in
which this fence is demanded--in Illinois or Iowa, in Texas or California,"
The History of DeKalb County reported.
Glidden first convinced his neighbors of the practicability of the invention by
making it with his own hands and setting about his farm portions of the fence.
As these experiments were gradually improved and exhibited, the demand for the
fence became urgent, and he was forced into its manufacture. In July, 1874,
Glidden entered into partnership with Isaac L. Ellwood, and commenced the
manufacture in the City of DeKalb. The business soon outgrew their facilities.
In the winter of 1874-75, they erected a larger building.
Today, the Joseph F. Glidden Homestead & Historical Center is working to
preserve the site where this important invention was made. Your membership and
support are important to the work of the Homestead.
Please visit the
Membership
Page for more information about how you can become involved.
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"BARB
WIRE"
by Josiah Willard Glidden
December, 1875
[This poem may have been printed in the DeKalb newspaper in 1875.
It was written on the occasion of Joseph Farwell Glidden joining in
partnership with Isaac L. Ellwood to manufacture Barbed Wire]
Who made the first fence,
and
what was it like?
'Twas made out of brush
without nail or spike.
It did very well in those primitive days,
When newly-fledged farmers
but little did raise,
When cattle were few and
hogs that now run,
Four footed and otherwise
scarcely were known.
Ah! yes: such a fence
might do very well
For those who had little to
buy or to sell;
But what would it be in the
times such as now?
Not more than a cobweb
to stop an old cow.
The next fence to speak of
was
mad out of rails;
It took lots of timber, but not any nails;
It took lots of pounding to
split up the logs;
But made a good fence
to stop cattle and hogs.
It must be laid crooked or else
wouldn't stand--
In this way it took a good
piece of the land.
With stakes and with riders
we
saw it displayed,
Somewhat like a fortress,
or strong barricade,
'Twas looked upon then with
much pride and joy,
I remember it well; when I was a boy,
From the heat of the sun it
offered a shade,
While hide-and-go-seek in
the corners we played.
The time-honored stone wall
must not be forgot,
For with it was bounded full many a lot,
There's one point where
memory never doth fail.
The ground was covered with
stones thick as hail.
With oxen and stoneboat we
gathered the stones.
It made our hearts ache, as well
as our bones.
It had to be laid up so wide
and so high,
And made just as true as
the squint of your eye;
So broad at the base, and
so narrow the top,
'Til over it you were not able to hop;
But over it sometimes
would go the bold sheep,
The stones rolling after
them all in a heap.
'Twas well for the genius
of man who invents
Who found out a way to
make a board fence;
And surely, most surely, it
was a good bit
To saw up the timber they
couldn't well split,
And everyone said, "What is
better than that?
"They could make it so tight
to stop even a rat."
And then they could make it
so straight on a line,
'Twould do for a noon-mark when sunbeams did shine,
And it took up so little room on the soil,
It paid for itself in the lightening of toil.
There's various hedges that
oft have been tried,
And some have done well, it
can't be denied.
Dame Nature hath shown
us full many a feat,
But now we must say she
herself has been beat.
The thorns on the hedges
supplanted have been
By the barbs on the wires,
so sharp and so keen;
The hedges themselves have grown tedious the while,
Since wires in a twinkling
stretch many a mile.
Then hail to the genius of this
present age,
That with a good will in good
works doth engage,
And Joseph and Isaac, now
joined hand in hand,
As the prophet foretold, shall
be great in the land.
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