He was a founder of Lamson, Goodnow, and Yale, an American manufacturer of bank locks, and served as the first Mayor of Newport, New York.

His family were notable gun-machine makers in Vermont and Massachusetts during the American Civil War, supplying Lincoln's Union Army with muskets and interchangeable parts.

Toward the end of his life, Yale's enterprise obtained from the US Treasury Department the contract to become the sole supplier of all the new bank locks, mints, sub-treasuries and custom-houses in the United States.

[7][8] Around 1858, they acquired the bankrupt Robbins and Lawrence Armory with Eli Whitney and Samuel Colt, a long time associate, and produced weapons such as the Springfield Model 1861.

[10] They had received a special government contract from the Lincoln administration for this model, and was accepted by the Senate, under the personal request of Secretary of War Simon Cameron and Edwin Stanton, and with the approval of Joseph Holt, Robert Dale Owen, Peter V. Hagner, and General James Wolfe Ripley.

[11] LG & Yale was one of the companies that shaped the American Civil War itself, as they produced gun-making machinery to supply most of the factories making rifles, carbines, and pistols for the Union Army.

[12][13] Mr. Lamson, fervant abolitionist and head of the company, was one of the ten historical representative American manufacturers of the Civil War period.

[14] His home was a station on the Underground Railroad network, hosting many African Americans at his table on their way to Canada.

[15] An exhibition named "Arming the Union" can be seen at the American Precision Museum, where the factory of Lamson, Goodnow & Yale was located.

[17] In addition to bank locks, he produced a number of locks for use on doors and drawers.Through his career as an inventor, Linus Yale Sr. registered 14 patents under his name at the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and were signed by the President of the United States Andrew Jackson as early as 1837.

He was in the dry goods business, co-proprietor of Townsend & Yale, one of the oldest and largest commission house in the U.S., with offices on Fifth Avenue, New York, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia.