David Lennox was an American inventor and businessman. A furnace manufacturing business he founded in 1895 in Marshalltown, Iowa evolved into what is today known as Lennox International, a global corporation specializing in air conditioning, heating, and commercial refrigeration. Lennox helped to develop the first riveted-steel furnace in 1895.
Background
David Lennox was born on April 15, 1856, in Detroit, Michigan, United States. He was the first of four children born to immigrant parents Martin and Ellen Lennox.
At the time of David’s birth, Martin, a machinist, worked in a Detroit railroad shop. In the late 1850s, the family moved to Aurora, Illinois. During the Civil War, Martin Lennox enlisted in Company H, 124th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment, and was killed on May 16, 1863, at the Battle of Champion Hill, Vicksburg, Mississippi. Young David Lennox was sent to the Soldiers’ Orphans Home in Springfield, Illinois, to attend public school.
Education
After his father Martin Lennox was killed on May 16, 1863, at the Battle of Champion Hill, Vicksburg, Mississippi during the Civil War, young David Lennox was sent to the Soldiers’ Orphans Home in Springfield, Illinois, for two years, where he attended public school. A few years later, he attended Bryant and Stratton Business College (now Bryant & Stratton College (BSC)) in Chicago.
Career
After reuniting with his mother in Aurora, Illinois, David Lennox gained employment as a rivet beater in the shops of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, earning 50 cents per day. In 1868 the family moved to Chicago, where David helped his mother operate a small grocery store. In addition, he sold newspapers to supplement the family’s meager income.
The Lennox family’s economic opportunities evaporated as a result of the Panic of 1873. David Lennox eventually found employment as a lather s assistant and repaired sewing machines in the back of his mother’s grocery store. Following the recommendation of two store customers, in July 1880 he moved to the burgeoning central Iowa city of Marshalltown. Arriving with his tools, David Lennox rented a room and a building for a machine shop. He struggled to support himself during his first few months in Marshalltown until he was hired by the Iowa Steel Barbed Wire Company to make barbs for their barbed wire fencing. He fabricated a custom machine that rapidly cut the steel barbs.
Assisted by his brother Talbot Lennox, David Lennox continued to develop his machine shop and began to manufacture boilers and steam engines. In 1884 the shop moved to a larger facility and, with two other investors whom Lennox later bought out, incorporated as the Lennox Machine Company.
In 1895, Ernest Bryant and Ezra Smith, two businessmen from Oskaloosa, Iowa, shared with Lennox their plans for a furnace using riveted steel for the heating surface. The furnaces used to heat homes at that time were made entirely of cast iron, which had a tendency to warp and crack after extended use and could cause smoke and coal gases to seep into houses. Bryant, Smith, and Lennox entered into an agreement in which Lennox made the iron castings used for the grates, fronts, and other parts of their steel furnaces. When Bryant and Smith were unable to pay Lennox for the iron castings after losing their financial backing, they sold the furnace company and patents to Lennox in 1898 and assisted in the production of the furnaces. After several modifications, David Lennox began production of the "Torrid Zone" steel furnace. The furnaces were immediately successful and sold throughout the United States, with 1,500 furnaces produced in 1903. In 1904 David Lennox sold the Lennox Furnace Company to local investors for $57,000. The company later became the largest furnace manufacturer in the world.
Following the sale of his furnace business, Dave Lennox continued to manage the Lennox Machine Company in Marshalltown, employing more than 100 people locally in the manufacture of portable gasoline engines, boilermakers' tools, wagon scales, and pressured pipe taps. Lennox sold the Lennox Machine Shop in 1912 to the Ryerson Brothers of Chicago for $110,000.
David Lennox enjoyed an active retirement, working in a small machine shop behind his home. There he manufactured replacement parts for some of his products and experimented with new manufacturing designs and techniques while maintaining active correspondence with other inventors, designers, and machinists.
Personality
David Lenox was accurately described in his obituary as the father of the Marshalltown industry.