Notwithstanding this, the Commissioner was forced to refuse Hunt’s belated application, for the reason that an Act of Congress in 1839 had provided that inventors could not pursue their claims to priority in patents unless application was made within two years from the date when the first sale of the invention was made. Hunt had sold a machine in 1834, and had neglected to make application for his patent till 1853. [Illustration: THE SINGER COMPANY’S STEAMER, “EDWARD CLARK.” ] Thus it was that one of the grandest opportunities of the century was missed by the man who should rightfully have enjoyed it; the honors and emoluments of the great sewing machine invention passed to a man who neither had invented a single principle of action, nor applied a practical improvement to principles already recognized; and Elias Howe, Jr., acquired the power, by simply patenting another man’s invention, to obstruct every subsequent inventor, and finally to dictate the terms which gave rise to the great Sewing Machine Combination about which the world has heard—and scolded—so much. Howe’s machine was not, even in 1851, of practical utility. From 1846 to 1851 he had the field to himself, but the invention lay dormant in his hands. He held control of the cardinal principles upon which the coming machine must needs be built, and planted himself squarely across the path of improvement—an obstructionist, not an inventor—and when, in 1851, Isaac M. Singer perfected the improvements necessary to make Hunt’s principles of real utility, Howe, after long and expensive litigation, laid Singer and all subsequent improvers under heavy contribution for using the principles of Hunt, patented by himself. Morey & Johnson procured a patent February 6, 1849, for a single-thread machine, making a stitch by a hook acting in combination with a needle. Lerow & Blodgett patented a machine October 2, 1849, the peculiar feature of which was that the shuttle was driven entirely around a circle at each stitch. This took a twist out of the thread at every revolution, and was soon abandoned, but not before Howe had sued the proprietors and laid them under tribute. Allen B. Wilson invented a double-pointed shuttle, making a stitch at each passage of the shuttle, which he patented November 12, 1850. Grover & Baker, February 11, 1851, obtained a patent for a machine using two needles, one passing through the goods and the other operating beneath the cloth. [Illustration: THE OLD AND THE NEW. ]