Lorenzo Dow was an American businessman and inventor, known for creating a waterproof cartridge and establishing in New York the Dow Composing Machine Company of West Virginia.
Background
Lorenzo Dow was born on July 10, 1825 in Sumner, Maine, United States. He was the eldest child of Huse and Zilpha (Drake) Dow. He was one of many thousand children named for Lorenzo Dow, the irregular preacher and inventor of camp-meetings. His father was a Methodist minister and one of the first circuit riders, who died at the age of forty years from overwork and privations.
Education
Dow received his primary education in Sumner, prepared for college at the typical "academy, " and won the scholarship to Wesleyan University awarded to the oldest son of any Methodist minister. In 1853 he returned to the East and after teaching school for a few months in Alabama he went to New York and began the study of law. In 1854 he went to Topeka, Kansas, completed his law studies in 1857.
Career
Following Dow's graduation in 1849 he taught school in Vermont and New Jersey for a year and then went "around the Horn" to California where he remained from 1850 to 1853. He entered politics, and in 1858 was elected a judge of the supreme court under the Leavenworth Constitution. The following year he was elected mayor of Topeka and also served as editor of the Kansas Tribune.
With the outbreak of the Civil War, he turned his attention to improvements in ordnance and on October 1, 1861, obtained his first patent for a waterproof cartridge. The waterproofing substance used was collodion. Upon the adoption of this cartridge by the federal government, Dow went to New York and became associated with the Remington Arms Company, in whose plant the cartridges were to be made. Here he continued his experiments and was granted four additional patents on waterproofing cartridges and shells. This work continued except for one interruption of a business trip to Europe in 1862-1863, until 1866, when Dow went to South America and took up engineering work and business in Colombia. He cleared the old Spanish dike leading from the Magdalena River to Cartagena and established a steamboat service thereupon to the interior. Upon completing this work in 1870, he moved with his family to Port of Spain, Trinidad, and for the next three years engaged in mining in various parts of Venezuela.
In 1873 he returned to the United States and for nine or ten years engaged in mining work in Colorado, after which he took up his residence in New York City, remaining there for the balance of his life. In 1896 he organized in New York the Dow Composing Machine Company of West Virginia to develop and market the type-distributing and typesetting machines invented by his son Alexander Dow, patents for which were granted November 24, 1896, and November 28, 1899, respectively. Dow continued as president of this company until his death, which occurred on October 12, 1899.
Achievements
Connections
Dow was twice married: first on December 25, 1853 he married Elizabeth Penfield of Middletown, Connecticut, and after her death Mrs. Sabrina (Smith) Anderson, on October 2, 1862. He was survived by a son and a daughter of his second marriage.