Payday for Hathorn

John Hathorn was Warwick's leader of the militia during the Revolutionary War, and his home still stands on Hathorn Rd; information about him is available in several sources, yet he remains a sketchy figure because his personal papers were destroyed by the family sometime after his death.

However, he was a literate man and in his roles as community leader, and a New York and U.S. Congressman, he would have written many letters and papers to others. These are slowly being sought out, and this week the Warwick Historical Society was fortunate to obtain one of these manuscripts -- his request for pay for attendance at the New York Legislature in 1783, as the war was winding to a close.

The Society also owns a few of his books-- as Independance was declared and he took on his role as military leader, he purchased a British military manual, printed in 1776:


Other Hathorn manuscripts, including a scan of his report on the Battle of Minisink, and be seen on the Warwick Valley History website.

Home of Inventions

Recently I became aware that Google had made the old U. S. Patents database searcheable by keyword. One of the problems with searching for local patents is that you had to have a patent number for any of the older patents, in order to find it. I don't know how Google's going to sustain developing valuable information like this at a substantial cost and then giving it away for free, but for now, what a great tool: http://www.google.com/patents

I did a search for Warwick and her hamlets and villages, and came up with an amazing number of patents and downloaded them; one day I'll make an index to them, but in the meantime, here's a sampling:

The "most inventingist" Warwickian was James Gillespie, the owner of the Fabric Fire Hose Company, with 16 patents related to fire hoses and equipment. Here's one of them (click on the image to go to the patent page)

There are lots of practical items like:

Shutter closers by W. W. VanDuzer, no. 697297
http://www.google.com/patents?id=jrVMAAAAEBAJ&dq=697297

Knife design by R. L. Shepard, no. 943174 http://www.google.com/patents?id=tgR-AAAAEBAJ&dq=969303

A wrench by J. L. Finch, no. 378299
http://www.google.com/patents?id=_fNZAAAAEBAJ&dq=378299


And lots, lots more! The more recent patents, after 1960, tend to be very high-tech, on behalf of major corporations like Georgia Pacific, International Paper, etc. Don't go crazy trying to find them all, unless you are having fun-- I can make a CD of them on for any Warwick researcher that would like it, just leave a message for me at the library.