1. Thaddeus Fairbanks was an American businessman, mechanic, and engineer.
19 Facts About Thaddeus Fairbanks
1. 2.
Thaddeus Fairbanks invented furnaces, cooking stoves, cast iron steel plows, and other metal items related to farming.
3.
Thaddeus Fairbanks invented and manufactured the first platform scale, the Fairbanks scale, that allowed the accurate weighing of large objects.
4.
Thaddeus Fairbanks's scales revolutionized farming and manufacturing and were sold worldwide, and he received numerous honors and awards for his development of the technology.
5.
Thaddeus Fairbanks was educated in the schools of Brimfield while working on the family farm in his spare time, and showed a natural inclination toward mechanics.
6.
Thaddeus Fairbanks made a woodworking shop above his father's sawmill and gristmill, which were powered by the Sleepers River in St Johnsbury, where he made carriages until 1824.
7.
Thaddeus Fairbanks was the mechanical technician behind the company's inventions while Erastus was the businessman who marketed the products.
8.
In 1826, Thaddeus Fairbanks was granted a patent for a refrigerator and a cast iron plow.
9.
In 1830, Thaddeus Fairbanks patented a hemp-and-flax-dressing device called a Haynes machine and became the general manager of the Saint Johnsbury Hemp Company.
10.
Thaddeus Fairbanks received a patent on the platform scale, which his brothers advised him to produce and sell.
11.
Thaddeus Fairbanks scales were displayed at ten international expositions including London, Paris, Vienna, Philadelphia, Chicago, Buffalo and St Louis, where they were awarded gold and silver medals for technological advancement.
12.
Thaddeus Fairbanks received many foreign awards, including a knighthood and the Imperial Order of Franz Joseph from the Emperor of Austria.
13.
Thaddeus Fairbanks received a gold medal from the King of Siam, and medals and honors from the Bey of Tunis.
14.
Thaddeus Fairbanks received over forty patents in his lifetime, the forty-third one being granted to him at the age 90.
15.
On March 31,1886, Thaddeus Fairbanks fell and broke his hip and it did not heal properly.
16.
Thaddeus Fairbanks died on April 12,1886, and was buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in St Johnsbury.
17.
Thaddeus Fairbanks was involved in numerous charitable and civic endeavors, including the 1842 founding of the St Johnsbury Academy.
18.
Thaddeus Fairbanks originally paid $50,000 for the construction of a red brick building of Norman-Gothic Tudor style.
19.
In 1872 Thaddeus Fairbanks erected larger modern brick structures at a cost of $200,000.