13 Facts About Elijah McCoy

Elijah J McCoy was a Canadian-American engineer of African-American descent who invented lubrication systems for steam engines.

Elijah McCoy was born in 1844 in Colchester, Ontario, to George and Mildred Goins McCoy.

Upper Canadian schools were segregated under the Common Schools Act as amended in 1850, and McCoy was educated in black schools of Colchester Township.

At the age of 15, in 1859, Elijah McCoy was sent to Scotland.

When Elijah McCoy arrived in Michigan, he could find work only as a fireman and oiler at the Michigan Central Railroad.

Elijah McCoy invented an automatic lubricator for oiling the steam engines of locomotives and ships, patenting it in 1872 as "Improvement in Lubricators for Steam-Engines".

Elijah McCoy continued to refine his devices and design new ones, and was noted in periodicals of the time, including the Railroad Gazette.

Elijah McCoy continued to invent until late in life, obtaining as many as 57 patents; most related to lubrication, but others included a folding ironing board and a lawn sprinkler.

Elijah McCoy married for the second time in 1873 to Mary Eleanora Delaney.

The couple moved to Detroit when Elijah McCoy found work there.

Mary Elijah McCoy helped found the Phillis Wheatley Home for Aged Colored Men in 1898.

Elijah McCoy died in the Eloise Infirmary in Nankin Township, now Westland, Michigan, on 10 October 1929, at the age of 85, as a result of injuries suffered in a car accident seven years earlier in which his wife Mary died.

Elijah McCoy is buried in Detroit Memorial Park East in Warren, Michigan.