Theodore Tuttle Woodruff

Background

Theodore Tuttle Woodruff was born on April 8, 1811, in Watertown, New York, United States. He was the son of Simeon and Roxanna Tuttle Woodruff.

Education

Until Theodore Woodruff was sixteen years old he worked on his father's farm and attended the district schools. He was then apprenticed to a wagon-maker in Watertown, and three years later entered a local foundry and machine works as a pattern-maker. He remained there for many years, becoming an expert craftsman and something of an inventor.

Career

At 16, Theodore Tuttle Woodruff apprenticed himself to a wheel-wright in Watertown and two or three years later became a pattern maker for the Golding foundry. In December of 1856, he was granted two patents on the railway coach seat and couch. He became master car builder for the Terry Holt & Alton Railroad at Alton, Illinois., And probably while they're developed his ideas for a sleeping car, the first of which was built by T.W. Wasson company. of Springfield, Massachusetts. He put in service on the New York City and H.R. Railroad on the night run between New York City and Buffalo. He charged passengers $.50 for the use of the sleeping car acted as his own conductor and porter and in addition was required by the railroad to pay his own fair after indifference success there he made better arrangements with the Pennsylvania railroad through its general manager Andrew Carnegie.

In 1858 or 1859 with his brother Jonah, he began limited production of the sleeping car in Philadelphia. In the moral victory for Woodruff, while Pullman got control and apparently operated the company separately from his own. Woodruff had removed to Mansfield, Ohio where he was in the banking business, returning later to Philadelphia in the foundry business as Norris Iron Co., which failed during the depression of the 1870s.

Woodruff conducted his inventing on the reduced scale, designing a coffee hauler which "found use" in the plantations of Libya, and improved surveyors' compass, a steam plow, and a method of driving ships by means of screw propellers on either side.

Achievements

• Woodruff received two patents for a convertible car seat, which led to his invention of the sleeping car for railroads Among his later patents were those for the steam plow, an improved surveyor's the compass, and a method of ship propulsion by the use of screw propellers at the sides of the vessel.
  
  Theodore Tuttle Woodruff has been listed as a noteworthy inventor, manufacturer by Marquis Who's Who.

Connections

Theodore Tuttle Woodruff married Elizabeth Marin Hemenway and had 2 children.

Father:

Simeon Woodruff

1773-1853

Mother:

Rosanna Adams Woodruff

1777-1876

Brother:

Felix Woodruff

1801-1848

Brother:

Luther Woodruff

1803-1891

Brother:

Baldwin Woodruff

1805-1870

Brother:

Jonah Woodruff

1809-1876

Sister:

Mary Woodruff

1809-1891

Brother:

Chauncey D. Woodruff

1813-1884

Brother:

Charles Taylor Woodruff

1814-1894

Wife:

Elisabeth Marin Hemingway Woodruff

1816-1890

References

• The Manufactories and Manufacturers of Pennsylvania of the Nineteenth Century
  2017
• The Story Of The Pullman Car
  2015