John Good was born on December 20, 1841, in County Roscommon, Ireland, and was left fatherless in very early infancy. His mother, after struggling along for a few years, hopefully emigrated to the United States and settled in Brooklyn, New York.
For a time, Good attended a parochial school, then, at the age of twelve, he went to work in a ropewalk - an establishment where rope was made by hand. In the course of four years, after he had gained a thorough knowledge of rope-making, he turned to the machinist’s trade. He served a four-year apprenticeship with James Bulger in Brooklyn and then returned to the ropewalk of Henry Lawrence & Sons, Brooklyn, this time as foreman.
In 1861, every operation of rope-making was done by hand, and Good with his four years’ experience with machinery began to apply his knowledge in an effort to devise rope-making machinery to replace the hand operations.
He experimented continuously at home and in his spare time for eight years.
On October 5, 1869, Good was rewarded by receiving his first patent for a machine called a breaker, designed to draw flax and other fibers into slivers. Although it was a labor-saving device, Good was unable to induce any cordage manufacturers to buy the machine. He, therefore, in 1870, established a machine-shop of his own in Brooklyn and manufactured his breaker there.
He also sold the patent rights to Samuel Lawson & Sons of Leeds, England, who introduced the breaker in the British Isles. Within a few years his breaker had replaced the old hand operation in every hard-fiber rope plant in the world.
For fifteen years, from 1870 to 1885, Good continued the manufacture of his breaker, patented and manufactured other rope-making machines, and built up an enormous business.
On October 7, 1873, he was granted a patent for his famous “nipper” for a spinning-jenny, and for the first time rope- yarn was spun without cutting. This was done by means of rollers. He also devised a regulator for his hemp-drawing and spinning machine, patented on June 15, 1875, and made a third improvement on this same machine with a “measuring stop motion, ” patented February 10, 1885.
In addition to these inventions, between 1885 and 1900, he obtained many patents for other modifications of his “breakers, ” “nippers, ” “spreaders, ” and “regulators. ” Until 1885, Good had confined his attention wholly to the manufacture of rope machinery, but in that year he began the construction of a large rope plant at Ravenswood, Long Island, preparatory to entering the field of cordage manufacture.
He also acquired manufacturing sites and erected two plants near London, England. In these he planned to manufacture what he called “new-process” rope, based on the patent No. 33°. 318 granted to him on November 10, 1885.
He had devised a method of making a rope so much stronger than that which had formerly been made that lower quality and cheaper grades of fiber could be used and still yield a product ample in strength for any need.
All rope sizes could be made, too, of hemp, sisal, or jute. Before his factories were ready, however, the rope manufacturers of the United States formed a combination or association for the purpose of controlling the manufacture and sale of rope and twine. Instead of entering the association when his plants were ready to begin operations in 1888, he accepted an offer of $150, 000 annually to keep them closed.
Upon the termination of this agreement a second and similar contract could not be arranged. Good thereupon made a contract in 1891 with the National Cordage Company to manufacture cordage and machinery exclusively for that company for the consideration of $200, 000 annually.
In April 1892, this contract was canceled and Good became an aggressive competitor in the cordage industry but went down in 1897 with the industrial depression which did not end until after the Spanish-American War.
In 1898, the John Good & Jennings Patent Machine Cordage Company, was organized with Good as president, but this, too, passed out of existence. Good not only managed his various enterprises but continued with his experimental work as well.
Good was an autstanding inventor and manufacturer. His inventions in rope-making machinery involved well over one hundred patents, the last of which was granted after his death, and constituted the basis of the machinery for manufacturing cordage in fully seventy-five per cent of the factories of the world. On April 19, 1888, he received the title of “Count of the Holy Roman Empire, ” an honor conferred upon him by His Holiness the Pope for his benefactions to the Catholic Church.
Good was married on June 1, 1881, to Julia E. Durand of Brooklyn, who with two sons and a daughter survived him.
