(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
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Ralph Emerson the son of the Rev. Ralph and Eliza (Rockwell) Emerson and a distant cousin of Ralph Waldo Emerson, was born in Andover, Massachusetts, where his father was professor of ecclesiastical history at the Andover Theological Seminary.
He graduated from the Phillips Academy at Andover.
After going through Phillips Academy at Andover, Emerson began teaching school, first in New England but subsequently in Bloomington, and Beloit, Wisconsin. He also undertook to study law but soon gave that up upon the advice of Abraham Lincoln with whom he had made a lasting friendship. In 1852, the year he was twenty-one, he went from Beloit to Rockford, and became a partner in a hardware store. Part of his business was furnishing metal stock and supplies to John H. Manny, pioneer inventor and manufacturer of a reaper. Payment for the supplies thus furnished was made in shares of stock in Manny’s business. In 1854 Emerson and his partner became members of Manny’s company, and in 1857, after the death of Manny, Emerson acquired control of the reaper business. He was only twenty-six years old at the time but took hold of the enterprise vigorously and successfully. On May 26, 1857, he obtained a patent for an improvement on the tongue and castor wheel of the reaper, and on January14, 1862, a second one, relating to the lever board and attachment of guards on the improved machine. The company’s business under his direction was gradually enlarged to include the manufacture of mowers, binders, and harvesters, as well as reapers. As early as 1861, twelve hundred binders were manufactured after the Burson patents, and in 1867 the first successful Marsh harvester was built. Furthermore, had twine been cheap enough, Emerson would have introduced the Behel twine binder in 1870. As the business enlarged and other people were taken into the firm, its name was changed to Emerson, Talcott & Company in 1876; Emerson Manufacturing Company in 1895; and the Emerson-Brantingham Company in 1909, when Emerson retired from the presidency, retaining the chairmanship of the board of directors. During this development he found time to engage in other business activities, and built up the great Burson Knitting Company of Rockford, and other knitting concerns in that city. Through his influence Abraham Lincoln was retained in 1855 to defend Manny & Company in the suit brought by C. H. McCormick for alleged infringement of certain reaper patents. Manny & Company won the suit (see A. J. Beveridge, Abraham Lincoln, 1928, I, 576-83).
He died in his eighty-fourth year, survived by his widow and five children.
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
On September 7, 1858, he married Adaline Elizabeth Talcott of Rockford.
