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Advertising handbill, 19 x 17.5 cm. Piece missing from upper left corner taking the first four letters of Richardson's name, two other small chips to lower edge, not affecting text. This broadside prints an article from the New England Telegraph of July 31, 1833: "On Friday last, we had opportunity to examine this [Fire Alarm] simple, but beautiful and useful piece of machinery, at the house of Capt. Ralph Arnold, of Braintree, proprietor of the Patent for this Commonwealth." Richardson's invention was designed to provide "an immediate alarm and the No. of the room on fire, in the most capacious building, without human assistance." It required that a small device be installed, designed to resemble a fashionable clock, connected to lines of twine saturated with nitre, each with a weight attached, leading from the machine to every apartment or room of the house. The newspaper article recommends the device as a great safe-guard against loss of life and property "that no famiy, especially inhabiting a large house, ought to be without one." The broadside ends with an advertisement, in bold letters: "The Self-Acting Fire Alarm is for sale by [blank] Proprietor of the Right for the town of [blank]," leaving space for a local merchant to notify customers of his supply. Ithiel S. Richardson of New Market, New Hampshire patented this device on Aug. 15, 1831. [see "List of Patents for Inventions and Designs, Issued by the United States, from 1790 to 1847," (Washington, DC: 1847), p.126]. He was an inventor of several other devices including an accelerated steamboat [a hovercraft-like device] (1841), and an atmospheric telegraph for the transportation of mail and packages [a kind of pneumatic tube Richardson proposed to construct between Washington DC and Baltimore] (1854). No listings found on OCLC.
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