Linus Yale, Jr.

Linus Yale, Jr. (4 April 1821 - 25 December 1868) was an American mechanical engineer and manufacturer, best known for his inventions of locks, especially the cylinder lock.

Linus Yale, Jr. was born in Salisbury, New York. Yale's father, Linus Yale, Sr., opened a lock shop in the 1840s in Newport, New York, specializing in bank locks. His son joined him in the business in 1850, and introduced some combination safe locks and key-operated cylinder locks around 1862. Then in 1868, he and Henry Robinson Towne founded the Yale Lock Manufacturing Company in the South End section of Stamford, Connecticut to produce cylinder locks. Yale died later that year.

Yale & Towne Lock Company later became so successful that Stamford was later nicknamed "Lock City."

Yale's cylinder lock, also called a pin-tumbler lock, was based on a principle similar to that of the first key-operated lock invented by the Egyptians around 2000 B.C.

Inventions patented by Linus Yale, Jr. and his estate from the [http://www.uspto.gov/ U.S. Patent and Trademark Office] :

Patents

* 6 May 1851 Pat. #8,071 - Newport, New York
* 19 October 1852 Pat. #9,350 - Newport, New York
* 21 December 1852 Pat. #9,497 - Newport, New York
* 12 July 1853 Pat. #9,850 - Newport, New York
* 12 July 1853 Pat. #9,853 - Newport, New York
* 3 June 1856 Pat. #15,031 - Newport, New York
* 19 October 1858 Pat. #21,861 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
* 9 November 1858 Pat. #22,048 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
* 12 June 1860 Pat. #28,710 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
* 29 January 1861 Pat. #31,278 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
* 14 May 1861 Pat. #32,331 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
* 27 June 1865 Pat. #48,475 - Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts
* 27 June 1865 Pat. #48,476 - Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts
* 6 February 1866 Pat. #52,484 - Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts
* 19 November 1867 Pat. #71,110 - Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts
* 7 January 1868 Pat. #73,152 - Cooperstown, New York
* 4 February 1868 Pat. #74,025 - Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts
* 15 September 1868 Pat. #82,192 - Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts
* 4 January 1870 Pat. #98,536 - Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts
* 19 September 1871 Pat. #119,212 - Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts
*24 October 1871 Pat. #120,177 - Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts ----

He was the inventor of the Yale Magic Bank Lock, Yale Double Treasury Bank Lock, Monitor Bank Lock, Yale Double Dial Bank Lock, and the yale lock.

Publication

* R. H. Yale, "Yale Genealogy and History of Wales" (Beatrice, Neb., 1908)