Origins in Civil War Prison Camp
Robert Hanneman Avery (16 January 1840, Galesburg, Illinois - 13 September 1892, Peoria, Illinois) was heavily influenced during his childhood by his great-uncle Riley Root, who invented a rotary fan blower to clear railroad tracks of snow. Robert attended the Knox College and after finishing school, worked part time at the Brown Manufacturing Company, who built a line of corn planters.
After graduating from college, Robert Avery taught school before enlisting in 1862 as a Union Soldier in the American Civil War, in Company A, 77th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Robert was captured in 1864 and spent a number of months in various prisoner-of-war camps, before being sent to the now infamous Confederate Andersonville Prison for about eight months. There he passed the time devising an improved seed drill by sketching a design in the sand.
After the war he worked on a 160-acre (0.65 km2) farm his brother John had bought for the two of them. Robert continued to work on several inventions, and during the winters when the farm was idle, he worked in a Galesburg, Illinois machine shop. He used that money and the experience to design and develop patterns and castings for a riding cultivator.
Read more about this topic: Avery Company
Famous quotes containing the words origins in, origins, civil, war, prison and/or camp:
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“A mechanism of some kind stands between us and almost every act of our lives.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 3, ch. 2 (1962)
“Of course in war all madnesses come out in a man, that is the fault of war not of a man or a nation.”
—Frieda Lawrence (1879–1956)
“Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?
And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists?
And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air?
Oh they’re taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.”
—A.E. (Alfred Edward)
“Among the interesting thing in camp are the boys. You recollect the boy in Captain McIlrath’s company; we have another like unto him in Captain Woodward’s. He ran away from Norwalk to Camp Dennison; went into the Fifth, then into the Guthries, and as we passed their camp, he was pleased with us, and now is “a boy of the Twenty-third.” He drills, plays officer, soldier, or errand boy, and is a curiosity in camp.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)