Dr. Robert Thomas Hornby requests a patent for his "Horizontal Wind Machine," used for "the beating of rice, manufacturing Indigo, Grinding Wheat [into] the Flour, sawing Lumber, supplying Land with water & Draining Land when overflowed, Drawing Shingles &c." He asserts that the machine's benefit would be recognized by "those Gentlemen who are too well acquainted with the heavy expence and labour (not to mention the mortality of Negroes) attending the usual mode of beating rice & Indigo which will be saved by this machine." Hornby therefore "only requests the Honble House will grant him Letters Patent to secure an exclusive right for fourteen years to Him his Heirs Execrs Adms or Assigns."
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Repository: North Carolina Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina
