Inventing Years
Ezekiel House left Owego in the spring of 1854 as he had taken a contract to build a county court house in the suburbs of Rockford, Illinois. Henry and his brother went to Rockford in the fall and started in business with their father. In 1857 Henry took a position with his father who was superintending the raising and reconstructing of the old city hall in Chicago. 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. This incapacitated his doing any carpentry work for several months. During this enforced idleness, he designed and patented an automatic gate.
Read more about this topic: Henry Alonzo House
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