Waterman Lily Ormsby (September 9, 1809 – November 1, 1883) was an American engraver and inventor who founded the

Continental Bank Note Company ABCorp is an American corporation providing contract manufacturing and related services to the authentication, payment and secure access business sectors. Its history dates back to 1795 as a secure engraver and printer, and assisting the newl ...

and invented a pantographic engraving machine called the grammagraph to produce "roll-die" engraving on metal.

Early life

Ormsby was born in Hampton, Connecticut and became an apprentice in an engraving shop at a young age. In 1829, he attended the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the ...

in New York City. Upon graduating he 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 Cit ...

where he engraved over his own name for a few years then to

Lancaster, Massachusetts Lancaster is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, in the United States. Incorporated in 1653, Lancaster is the oldest town in Worcester County. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 8,441. History In 1643 Lancaster was first ...

, where he worked for the firm of Carter, Andrews & Co. Eventually, he settled in New York City where he founded the

New York Bank Note Company The New York Bank Note Company was an engraver of stock certificates in New York City. History The company was founded in 1877 as the Kendall Bank Note Company. In 1892 George H. Kendall replaced Russell Sage as president of the company. See al ...

and became one of the founders of the

. He married Julia Ann Brainard in 1830 and they divorced in 1846.

Engraving

Ormsby was an excellent line engraver and was called upon for a great deal of work for

bank note A banknote—also called a bill ( North American English), paper money, or simply a note—is a type of negotiable promissory note, made by a bank or other licensed authority, payable to the bearer on demand. Banknotes were originally issue ...

s were in wide use by the Government at the time of the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polici ...

. He designed the five-dollar note, intended to prevent

counterfeiting To counterfeit means to imitate something authentic, with the intent to steal, destroy, or replace the original, for use in illegal transactions, or otherwise to deceive individuals into believing that the fake is of equal or greater value tha ...

and was the author of several pamphlets, including, "Cycloidal Configurations" or the Harvest of Counterfeiture, and a volume on paper-money engraving entitled, "A description of the Present System of Bank Note Engraving that was published in 1852.

''The Columbian Magazine''

Ormsby provided engraving plates for illustrations for ''The Columbian Magazine, a journal known for printing the stories of

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wid ...

along with political and technological stories, from its first issue. He purchased controlling interest in the magazine in 1847, but readership declined and the magazine eventually failed.

Inventions

Dedicated to stopping counterfeiters, Ormsby invented the “grammagraph", a machine used to copy medals and medallions onto bank note dies in order to give the illusion of a

bas-relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

. The device was later used as a pantographic engraving machine to produce "roll-die" engraving on metal. The machine automated an existing engraving technique that varied spaces between parallel contour lines to give the impression of depth to a print. In Ormsby's case this was most famously used on the cylinders of revolvers made by

Samuel Colt Samuel Colt (; July 19, 1814 – January 10, 1862) was an American inventor, industrialist, and businessman who established Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company (now Colt's Manufacturing Company) and made the mass production of ...

Colt Firearms Colt's Manufacturing Company, LLC (CMC, formerly Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company) is an American firearms manufacturer, founded in 1855 by Samuel Colt and is now a subsidiary of Czech holding company Colt CZ Group. It is the succ ...

. Ormsby produced half a dozen engraving scenes for Colt as early as 1839 and these were featured on models such as the

Colt Walker The Colt Walker, sometimes known as the Walker Colt, is a single-action revolver with a revolving cylinder holding six charges of black powder behind six bullets (typically .44 caliber lead balls). It was designed in 1846 by American firearms in ...

Colt Dragoon Revolver The Colt Model 1848 Percussion Army Revolver is a .44 caliber revolver designed by Samuel Colt for the U.S. Army's Regiment of Mounted Rifles. The revolver was also issued to the Army's "Dragoon" Regiments. This revolver was designed as a solution ...

, Colt Model 1849 Pocket Revolver,

Colt 1851 Navy Revolver The Colt Revolving Belt Pistol or Navy Pistol, sometimes erroneously referred to as "Colt Revolving Belt Pistol of Naval Caliber" or "of Navy Caliber" (Naval is heavy gun and Navy Size Caliber was termed later for another Colt model), is a cap and ...

, and

Colt Model 1855 Sidehammer Pocket Revolver The Colt Model 1855 Sidehammer, also known as the Colt Root Revolver after engineer Elisha K. Root (1808–1865), was a cap & ball single-action pocketrevolver used during the American Civil War and made by the Colt's Patent Fire Arms Manufactu ...

. Other inventions by Ormsby included a refined transfer press, medal-ruling machines and

geometric lathe A geometric lathe was used for making ornamental patterns on the plates used in printing bank notes and postage stamps. It is sometimes called a guilloché lathe. It was developed early in the nineteenth century when efforts were introduced to com ...

s that took engraving from human hands to machinery. This was because for the majority of his career he worked alone or with one assistant. Ormsby is said to have helped

Samuel Morse Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was an American inventor and painter. After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph ...

in the creation of the Morse alphabet.

Later life

Ormsby died in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, on December 8, 1883. He was the father of Waterman L. Ormsby a reporter for the ''

New York Herald The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the '' New-York Tribune'' to form the '' New York Herald Tribune''. Hi ...

''.

Works by Ormsby

File:FrankP-mounted.jpg, Engraving of

Franklin Pierce Franklin Pierce (November 23, 1804October 8, 1869) was the 14th president of the United States, serving from 1853 to 1857. He was a northern Democrat who believed that the abolitionist movement was a fundamental threat to the nation's unity ...

File:Thomas hamblin.PNG , Engraving of Thomas Hamblin File:Rip is Identified.jpg, Engraving of

Rip Van Winkle "Rip Van Winkle" is a short story by the American author Washington Irving, first published in 1819. It follows a Dutch-American villager in colonial America named Rip Van Winkle who meets mysterious Dutchmen, imbibes their liquor and falls aslee ...

from ''The Columbian Magazine'' File:Mariamonk.jpg, Fictionalized engraving of

Maria Monk Maria Monk (June 27, 1816 – summer of 1849) was a Canadian woman whose book ''Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk,'' or, ''The Hidden Secrets of a Nun’s Life in a Convent Exposed'' (1836) claimed to expose systematic sexual abuse of nuns and infa ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ormsby, Waterman 1809 births 1883 deaths People from Brooklyn American engravers