Henry Alonzo House (April 23, 1840 – December 18, 1930) was an American inventor who developed machinery and processes that have had a lasting impact on several industries.
His father was an architect and builder, and at that time was assisting his brother Royal Earl House in perfecting and getting capital interest in his new Printing Telegraph.
In the spring of 1846 the House family moved to Little Meadows, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, where they built a home on the side of a hill which was known as the Castle.
There was a natural spring nearby, which was piped into the house to give running water, an unusual thing for those days.
At that time there was no railroad to that part of the country, so in order to move their household goods from New York, they boarded a barge which was towed by steam up the Hudson River to Troy where it was taken through the lock into the Erie Canal and towed by horses to Ithaca on Lake Cayuga, New York.
While working on a building in New York, Henry had the misfortune of having the extension muscle of his right hand severed by a chisel which dropped from a scaffold.
When the Civil War broke out and Henry was rejected as a volunteer on account of his slightly crippled right hand, he turned his attention to making a button hole machine.
[1] This caused hard feelings among the hand buttonhole workers, and one day during the noon hour they smashed the machine.
House left Wheeler and Wilson in 1869 and turned his attention to developing a machine that could knit various-sized goods, both flat and tubular.
Using existing processes, it took from two to two and a half days of hard labor to bring a large hide down to a flexible state.
While working the attachment in Philadelphia, House was asked if he could help one of Union's western branches in making the paper dishes, as they had trouble in drying them.
When House produced samples with a round flange, the design was accepted and he was given a contract to build a machine that would make twenty thousand paper dishes in 10 hours.
Late in 1878, in collaboration with hatter Dwight Wheeler, House invented and patented a machine for blocking felt hats in 28 seconds.
The patents were issued on February 25, 1879, and in the same year the House and Wheeler Hat Flanging Co., a joint stock company, was formed in Bridgeport.
Buffalo hides were getting scarce, and Castle wanted to use muskrat or beaver, but he found the pelts had to be picked of the outer long hair, a tedious job for an unskilled hand.
Ironically, these machines were never unpacked, leaving the entire control of the fur picking trade with the English market.
He invented a new form of box termed "a round square", particularly adapted for holding cartrages, as the corners were compressed in, not out, giving extra strength.
The Deoxidized Metal Co. of Bridgeport in 1885 secured a contract for the bronze balusters required for the Treasury building in Washington, D.C.
These balusters were an elaborate design incorporating leaves, beads and moulding, all intended to have a bright finish, which required a great deal of hand work.
At that time there was no machinery for polishing metals, the usual procedure was to immerse in acid, and hand work was too costly.
In 1885, Henry House Sr. became stockholder in the Postal Telegraph Co. of Binghamton, New York, and was made superintendent of their experimental department.
In due time the instruments were perfected, adjusted to all conditions and ready to manufacture, but some misunderstandings with the directors and stock holders of the company in Binghamton resulted in a lawsuit, which stagnated in the court process until the patents expired.
Following a disastrous fire in March 1889, which partly destroyed his factory, Henry House Sr. accepted a position with Hiram Maxim in England to construct a 300 horsepower flying machine at Bexley, Kent.
In the spring of 1891, House left the Maxim Syndicate and started a factory, at Teddington on the River Thames, to build fast motor launches using kerosene oil as fuel.
After the court trial in 1893, it was decided to move the works to East Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, where they formed the Liquid Fuel Engineering Co. (LIFU) trademark.
This company built high-speed launches for the Duke of St. Albans, Prince of Wales, the German Emperor, King of Belgium, Sir Thomas Lipton, and many other notables.
This system used high pressure copper tubular boilers, burning kerosene oil, compound steam engines and specially designed propellers.
In 1894, Henry House left his son in charge and returned to America and at Bridgeport, perfected the larger sizes of his kerosene burners.
The company built for House Sr. a high speed, 40 foot, 35 HP launch which he brought to America in August 1896.
In 1909, through George Mortson of Hartford, with whom had been associated on the Maxim Flying Machine, House became interested developing a paraffinized drinking cup.