Background
Janney was born on November 12, 1831, in Loudoun County, Virginia, the son of Daniel and Elizabeth (Haines) Janney.
Janney was born on November 12, 1831, in Loudoun County, Virginia, the son of Daniel and Elizabeth (Haines) Janney.
Janney's youth was spent on his father's farm and it was in the local country school that he obtained his primary education. Upon completing this, he was sent to the Oneida Conference Seminary, Cazenovia, New York, where he was a student from 1852 to 1854.
After the graduation, Janney returned to his home, engaged in farming for several years with his father, and eventually acquired a farm of his own. With the outbreak of the Civil War, he enlisted in the Confederate army and served throughout that struggle as a field quartermaster, first on the staff of General Lee and then with General Longstreet, rising to the rank of major. The war left Janney penniless - too poor to operate his farm - and he moved with his family to Fairfax County, just outside of Alexandria, Virginia. Here he found employment as clerk in a drygoods store. In 1865 his attention was turned to the necessity of improving the method of coupling railroad cars automatically. Converting his ideas into small models whittled with his penknife - for Janney had no mechanical experience - he obtained his first patent for a coupler on April 21, 1868. The succeeding years found him at work on improvements of his original idea, and on April 29, 1873, he obtained his second patent for what was the basic invention of the railroad car couplers of the present day. With the financial aid of friends, he had some couplers made in Alexandria, Virginia, which were applied to two cars on what is now the Southern Railroad. They worked so successfully that he was able shortly afterward to organize the Janney Car Coupling Company, of which he retained control until the expiration of its last patent. During the first fifteen years of the company's life little progress was made toward having the Janney coupler adopted by the railroads. Exhaustive tests were made by the Pennsylvania Railroad between 1874 and 1876 and its adoption was decided upon, but it was not until the Master Car-Builders' Association in 1888, after many tests, made the Janney coupler, as improved by Janney's patents of 1874, 1879 and 1882 the standard for the railroads, that Janney's company prospered. Even so, the railroads were reluctant to make a standard of a patented device until Janney, acting for his company, agreed to waive the patented rights on the contour lines of the coupler. The company did not make the couplers but entered into contracts with manufacturers on a royalty basis. Upon the expiration of his first patents Janney retired from active part in the work of introducing the coupler but continued to invent improvements, and at the time of his death had pending a patent known as the "knuckle pin-protector. " Janney died in Alexandria, Virginia, on June 16, 1912.
On January 6, 1857, Janney married Cornelia Hamilton of Loudoun County, Virginia, and at the time of his death, he was survived by three children.