Burt’s Writing Machine

Linda’s Monday Morning Moaning’s

While researching my ‘Washington Township’ book, I came across a very interesting story, in the inventor of the first ‘typographer’. William Austin Burke, was born in Petersham, Massachusetts, on June 13, 1892. William would acquire much of his knowledge from borrowed books read by the light of a burning pine knot. William and wife Phebe and their four sons would come to the Detroit area then follow the Indian trails to an area north of Stoney Creek village in Macomb County. The settlement was known as Mt Vernon, located in Washington Township 26 mile north of Detroit. He had purchase 160 acres for $320. in 1822. A log cabin would be their first home. On December 19, 1832 William was appointed Mt Vernon’s first postmaster. There would be few letters written as few could afford the 25 cents postage. He went on to become a millwright, surveyor and inventor to support his family.

In 1840 he built this home on 28 Mile Rd in Washington just east of Mt. Vernon Rd. This was only one of the four houses William Burt built in the Mt. Vernon community, and this would be the one he lived in while living in this area. The homes that William built for his son’s and their families where called “Burts’ chalets”.

In 1809, William devised a system of shorthand to aid in a more rapid note-taking, but letter writing could never be simplified. Unlike many who would invent for wealth, William invented the first (topographer) typewriter out of a genuine need to resolve a problem. Many of the parts and tools were forged in his own workshop. There William would complete a crude but simple machine. This mechanism was housed in a small wooden box measuring 12 inches wide by 12 inches high, and 18 inches long. On July 23, 1929, President Andrew Jackson signed the Letters Patent for William’s Typographer. For the next 14 years, William had “the full and exclusive right for making, constructing, using and vending to others” America’s first writing machine.

Below one of the first type written letters to his ‘Dear Companion’ dated March 13, 1830.

William became a governmental surveyor, and then began constructing a new compass that incorporated the principles of astronomy, called a Solar Compass. There would soon be a period of time surveying the Michigan Upper Peninsula, were his Solar Compass would play an important role in establishing the township lines. Later would come his Equatorial Sextant.

In 1857, after 32 years in Macomb County, William and wife Phebe would leave Mt. Vernon and move to Detroit, were a couple of their sons had already relocated. While instructing a group of sea captains on the use of his Equatorial Sextant, he would be stricken with a heart attack. William Austin Burt died in 1858, and was originally buried in the Mount Vernon Cemetery, but in 1888 he was reinterred in Detroit’s Elmwood Cemetery with other Burt family members.

On that ‘wee’ note, till next week.

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Images courtesy of the Greater Washington Area Historical Society, and ‘They Left Their Mark’ by John S Burt.

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