[Geo. P. Rowell & Co's American Newspaper Directory, containing Accurate lists of all the newspapers and periodicals published in the United States and Territories, and the Dominion of Canada, and British Colonies of North America; together with a description of the towns and cities in which they are published, 1870] Page: 73

                                
THE MEN WHO ADVERTISE.

There was living at Cambridge a young friend and schoolmate of the inventor,
named George Fisher, a coal and wood merchant, who had recently
inherited some property, and was not disinclined to speculate with some of it.
The two friends had been in the habit of conversing together upon the project
of the sewing-machine. When the inventor had reached his final conception,
in the fall of 1844, he succeeded in convincing George Fisher of its feasibility,
which led to a partnership between them for bringing the invention into use.
The terms of the partnership were these: George Fisher was to receive into
his house Elias Howe and his family, board them while Elias was making the
machine, give up his garret for a workshop, and provide money for material
and tool: to the extent of five hundred dollars; in return for which he was to
become the proprietor of one-half the patent, if the machine proved to be
worth patenting. Early in December, 1844, Elias Howe moved into the
house of George Fisher, set up his shop in the garret, gathered materials
about him, and went to work. It was a very small, low garret, but it sufficed
for one zealous brooding workman, who did not wish for gossiping visitors.
All the winter of 1844-45 Mr. Howe worked at his machine. His conception
of what he intended to produce was so clear and complete that he
was little delayed by failures, but worked on with almost as much certainty
and steadiness as though he had a model before him. In April he sewed a
seam by his machine. By the middle of May, 1845, he had completed his
work. In July he sewed by his machine all the seams of two suits of woolen
clothes, one suit for Mr. Fisher and the other for himself, the sewing of both
of which outlasted the cloth. This first of all sewing-machines, alter crossing
the ocean many times, and figuring as a dumb but irretftable witness in
many a court, may still be seen at Mr. Howe's office in Broadway, where,
within these few weeks, it has sewed seams in cloth at the rate of three hundred
stitches a minute. It is agreed by all disinterested persons (Professor
Renwick among others) who have examined this machine that Elias Howe,
in making it, carried the invention of the sewing-machine farther on toward
its complete and final utility than any other inventor has ever brought a
tirst-rate invention at the first trial. It is a little thing, that first machine7
which goes into a box of the capacity of about a cubic foot and a half Every
contrivance in it has since been improved, and new devices have been added;
but no successful sewing-machine has ever been made, of all the seven humdred
thousand now in existence, which does not contain some of the essential
devices of this first attempt.
Toward the close of 1850 we find him in New York, superintending the
construction of fourteen sewing-machines at a shop in Gold street, adjoining
which he had a small office, furnished with a five-dollar desk and two fiftycent
chairs. One of these machines was exhibited at the fair in Castle Garden
in October, 1851, where, for the space of two weeks, it sewed gaiters,
pantaloons, and other work. Several of them were sold to a boot-maker in
Worcester, who used them for sewing boot-legs with perfect success. Two or
three others were daily operated in Broadway. to the satisfaction of the purchasers.
We can say, therefore, of Elias Howe, that besides inventing the
sewing-machine, and besides making the first machine with his own hands, he
brought his invention to the point of its successful employment in manufacture.