[2][5] He moved away from home at the age of 19, eventually settling in Troy, New York, where he lived for five years employed as a wagon driver.

Later that year, Otis suffered a terrible case of pneumonia which nearly killed him, but he earned enough money to move his wife and three-year-old son to the Vermont Hills on the Green River.

[5] The factory needed a hoist to lift heavy equipment to the upper floor, but this posed serious safety issues.

[4] After giving a public demonstration of his new invention at the New York Crystal Palace in 1854, demand for the safety elevator began to rise.

An Otis Elevator Company worker coined the term "escalator" to refer to continuous-loop moving staircases that could either ascend or descend.