Joseph Shepard Hayden was an American inventor and businessman. In company with his father, he commenced the manufacture of cloth buttons by machinery.
Background
Joseph Hayden was born on July 31, 1802, in Foxborough, Massachusetts, United States, the son of Daniel and Abigail (Shepard) Hayden. He was descended from John Haiden who emigrated from England to America about 1632 and settled ultimately in Braintree, Massachusetts. His father was an ingenious mechanic.
Education
Joseph obtained education at the local schools of Foxborough, Massachusetts.
Career
Joseph took up mechanical work, first with his father and later with relatives in Haydenville, Massachusetts. He shortly moved with his family to Waterbury, Connecticut, which offered greater opportunity. The brass industry, then in its infancy, centered more or less in the vicinity of Waterbury. Among the many brass products being made were brass and gilt buttons as well as cloth-covered buttons - the latter made by hand. Joseph and his father, who had preceded him to Waterbury, became interested in the possibility of designing a machine to make cloth-covered buttons and about 1828 succeeded in building some crude machinery for this purpose. They thereupon started a small button factory in Waterbury and prospered, for, with their crude machine, they were able to make as many as forty gross of cloth-covered buttons a day. This was a phenomenal increase in output over that possible by the old hand methods. No record exists that the Haydens, father and son, applied for or received a patent for their invention.
The result was that around 1830 Josiah Hayden, a cousin of Joseph, who was a button manufacturer in Haydenville, Massachusetts, incorporated the essential features of Joseph’s machine in one of his own design and with it established an extensive cloth-covered button industry in Haydenville. Joseph presumably did not continue to improve his machine but turned his attention to other things. Then with his father, he began the manufacture of wire-eyed buttons and enjoyed considerable success. By 1838 they were employing over 200 operatives and the following year they added the manufacture of steel pens to their line. Very little information concerning Hayden’s activities is available after this time. He seems to have been a mechanical genius, more interested in invention and machine design than in managing a button factory.