Elisha Graves Otis (August 3, 1811 – April 8, 1861) was an American industrialist, founder of the

Otis Elevator Company Otis Worldwide Corporation (trade name, branded as the Otis Elevator Company, its former legal name) is an American company that develops, manufactures and markets elevators, escalators, moving walkways, and related equipment. Based in Farming ...

, and inventor of a safety device that prevents

elevator An elevator or lift is a wire rope, cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or deck (building), decks of a building, watercraft, ...

s from falling if the hoisting cable fails.

Early years

Otis was born in

Halifax, Vermont Halifax is a town in Windham County, Vermont, in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 771. History Halifax was the second town chartered, west of the Connecticut River on May 11, 1750 by New Hampshire Governor Benni ...

, to Stephen Otis and Phoebe Glynn. He moved away from home at the age of 19, eventually settling in

Troy, New York Troy is a city in the U.S. state of New York and the county seat of Rensselaer County. The city is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany a ...

, where he lived for five years employed as a wagon driver. In 1834, he married Susan A. Houghton. They had two children, Charles and Norton. Later that year, Otis suffered a terrible case of

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...

which nearly killed him, but he earned enough money to move his wife and three-year-old son to the Vermont Hills on the

Green River Green River may refer to: Rivers Canada *Green River (British Columbia), a tributary of the Lillooet River *Green River, a tributary of the Saint John River, also known by its French name of Rivière Verte *Green River (Ontario), a tributary of ...

. He designed and built his own

gristmill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and Wheat middlings, middlings. The term can refer to either the Mill (grinding), grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist i ...

, but did not earn enough money from it, so he converted it into a

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimensi ...

, yet still did not attract customers. Now having a second son, he started building wagons and carriages, at which he was fairly skilled. His wife later died, leaving Otis with two sons, one age 8 and the other in infancy. Elisha OTIS 1854

Success and setback

At 34 years old and hoping for a fresh start, he married and moved to

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York City ...

. He worked as a doll maker for

Otis Tingly Otis may refer to: Arts and entertainment Characters * Otis (Superman), in the films ''Superman'' and ''Superman II'' and related DC Comics media ** Otis Graves, in the TV series ''Supergirl'' * Otis (''The Walking Dead''), in the Image Comics ...

. Skilled as a craftsman and tired of working all day to make only twelve toys, he invented and patented a robot turner. It could produce bedsteads four times as fast as could be done manually (about fifty a day). His boss gave him a bonus. Otis then started his own business. At his leased building, he started designing a safety brake that could stop trains instantly and an automatic bread baking oven. He was put out of business when the stream he was using for a power supply was diverted by the city of Albany for its fresh water supply. In 1851, he first moved to Bergen City, New Jersey (now part of

Jersey City Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark.Yonkers, New York Yonkers () is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. Developed along the Hudson River, it is the third most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City and Buffalo. The population of Yonkers was 211,569 as enu ...

, as a manager of an abandoned

which he was supposed to convert into a bedstead factory.

Lasting success

At the age of 40, while he was cleaning up the factory, he wondered how he could get all the old debris up to the upper levels of the factory. He had heard of hoisting platforms, but these often broke, and he was unwilling to take the risks. He and his sons, who were also tinkerers, designed their own "safety elevator" and tested it successfully. He initially thought so little of it he neither patented it nor requested a bonus from his superiors for it, nor did he try to sell it. After having made several sales, and after the bedstead factory declined, Otis took the opportunity to make an elevator company out of it, initially called Union Elevator Works and later Otis Brothers & Co. No orders came to him over the next several months, but soon after, the 1853 New York World's Fair offered a great chance at publicity. At the New York Crystal Palace, Otis amazed a crowd when he ordered the only rope holding the platform on which he was standing to be cut. The rope was severed by an axeman, and the platform fell only a few inches before coming to a halt. The safety locking mechanism had worked, and people gained greater willingness to ride in traction elevators; these elevators quickly became the type in most common usage and helped make present-day

skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ris ...

s possible. After the World's Fair, Otis received continuous orders, doubling each year. He developed different types of engines, like a three-way steam valve engine, which could transition the elevator between up and down, and quickly stop it.

Last years and death

In his spare time, he designed and experimented with his old designs of bread-baking ovens and train brakes, and patented a steam plow in 1857, a rotary oven in 1858, and, with Charles, the

oscillating steam engine An oscillating cylinder steam engine (also known as a wobbler in the US) is a simple steam-engine design (proposed by William Murdoch at the end of 18th century) that requires no valve gear. Instead the cylinder rocks, or oscillates, as the cra ...

in 1860. The plough was not commercialy successful. Otis contracted

diphtheria Diphtheria is an infection caused by the bacterium '' Corynebacterium diphtheriae''. Most infections are asymptomatic or have a mild clinical course, but in some outbreaks more than 10% of those diagnosed with the disease may die. Signs and s ...

and died on April 8, 1861, at age of 49, He was buried in Oakland Cemetery in Yonkers, NY.

Legacy

worker coined the term "

escalator An escalator is a moving staircase which carries people between floors of a building or structure. It consists of a motor-driven chain of individually linked steps on a track which cycle on a pair of tracks which keep the step tread horizo ...

" to refer to continuous-loop moving staircases that could either ascend or descend. The company was acquired by United Technologies in 1976. Again in April 2020, Otis Elevators Company is spun off from United technology to be an independent elevator company.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Otis, Elisha 1811 births 1861 deaths People from Halifax, Vermont Otis family 19th-century American inventors Otis Worldwide 19th-century American businesspeople Infectious disease deaths in New York (state) Respiratory disease deaths in New York (state) Deaths from diphtheria