The Colored Inventor | Page 8

in the art of handling this machine.
Some years before his death Matzeliger became a member of a white church in Lynn, called the North Congregational Society, and bequeathed to this church some of the stock of the company he had organized. Years afterward this church became heavily involved in debt, and remembering the stock that had been left to it by this colored member, found, upon inquiry, that it had become very valuable through the importance of the patent under the management of the large company then controlling it. The church sold the stock and realized from the sale more than enough to pay off the entire debt of the church, amounting to $10,860. With the canceled mortgage as one incentive, this church held a special service of thanks one Sunday morning, on which occasion a life-sized portrait of their benefactor looked down from the platform on the immense congregation below, while a young white lady, a member of the church, read an interesting eulogy of the deceased and the pastor, Rev. A. J. Covell, preached an eloquent sermon on the text found in Romans 13:8--"Owe no man anything but to love one another." Let us cherish the hope that the spirit and the significance of that occasion sank deep in the hearts of those present.
There are those who have tried to deny to our race the share that is ours in the glory of Matzeliger's achievements. These declare that he had no Negro blood in his veins; but the proof against this assertion is irrefutable. Through correspondence with the mayor of Lynn, a certified copy of the death certificate issued on the occasion of Matzeliger's death has been obtained, and this document designates him a "mulatto."
Others have tried the same thing with reference to Granville T. Woods, a too kind biographer, writing of him in the Cosmopolitan in April, 1895, stating that he had no Negro blood in him. But those who knew Mr. Woods personally will readily acquit him of the charge of any such ethnological errancy.
Another effort to detract from Matzeliger's fame comes up in the criticism that his machine was not perfect, requiring subsequent improvements to complete it and make it commercially valuable. Matzeliger was as truly a pioneer, blazing the way for a great industrial triumph, as was Whitney, or Howe, or Watt, or Fulton, or any other one of the scores of pioneers in the field of mechanical genius. The cotton gin of to-day is, of course, not the cotton gin first given to the world by Whitney, but the essential principles of its construction are found clearly outlined in Whitney's machine. The complex and intricate sewing machine of to-day, with its various attachments to meet the needs of the modern seamstress, is not the crude machine that came from the brain of Elias Howe; the giant locomotives that now speedily cover the transcontinental distance between New York and San Francisco bear but slight resemblance to the engine that Stephenson first gave us. In fact, the first productions of all these pioneers, while they disclosed the principles and laid the foundations upon which to build, resemble the later developments only "as mists resemble rain;" but these pioneers make up the army of capable men whose toil and trial, whose brawn and brain, whose infinite patience and indomitable courage have placed this nation of ours in the very front rank of the world's inventors; and, standing there among them, with his name indelible, is our dark-skinned brother, the patient, resourceful Matzeliger.
In the credit here accorded our race for its achievements in the field of invention our women as well as our men are entitled to share. With an industrial field necessarily more circumscribed than that occupied by our men, and therefore with fewer opportunities and fewer reasons, as well, for exercising the inventive faculty, they have, nevertheless, made a remarkably creditable showing. The record shows that more than twenty colored women have been granted patents for their inventions, and that these inventions cover also a wide range of subjects--artistic, utilitarian, fanciful.
The foregoing facts are here presented as a part only of the record made by the race in the field of invention for the first half century of our national life. We can never know the whole story. But we know enough to feel sure that if others knew the story even as we ourselves know it, it would present us in a somewhat different light to the judgment of our fellow men, and, perhaps, make for us a position of new importance in the industrial activities of our country. This great consummation, devoutly to be wished, may form the story of the next fifty years of our progress along these specific lines, so that some one in the distant future, looking down the rugged