HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY                      101

ington township, by John T. Smith, while all other parts were written
by traveling representatives of the publishing house.
    The Encyclopedic Directory of Clay County, issued in 1896, was
edited and published by Weilman & Thiery, non-residents of the county.
    Gayle Hoskins, son of W. A. Hoskins, of Brazil, has won some
distinction as an artist, in the special line of illustrations for current and
popular publications. His executions in designs for title pages have been
accepted and used by Success and other magazines.

    Joshua A. Hadley, the Brazil tinner, to whom are to be credited more
inventions and patents than to any other one man in the county, is a
native of the state of New York, of Quaker ancestry, was left an orphan
at the age of ten years, without a home or anyone upon whom be could
depend for protection and support. After having been buffeted about
from “pillar to post,” not knowing, much of the time, where to lay his
head for the night, he was given a home on the farm by Martin H.
Kennedy, of Center Point, with whose family he lived until twenty-one,
when he learned the tinner’s trade. He has lived at Brazil many years
and maintains a shop at his place of residence, 339 East Vermont street.
Patents have been issued to him on the following enumerated devices and
within the several years named:
            1890—Improved Coffee-Pot.
            1892—Window-Shutter Fastener.
            1894—Stove-Pipe Fastener.
            1894—Miner’s Lamp.
            1896—Fastening for Stovepipe Sections.
            1904—Banana Crate.
            ... .—Flue-Stop No. 2.
            .... —Combination Miner’s Lamp.
            .... —Toy Marble Gun.
There are other and more recent inventions to his credit, which have not
yet gone through the patent office.
    To R. L. Keith of Brazil, known in trade circles and relations as
“The Cuff-Holder Man,” have been issued six patents, enumerated under
the following designations, which were taken out within the years given:
            1883—An Extension Buggy-Top.
            1888—Common- Sense Cuff-Holder.
            1889—Belt and Skirt Supporter.
            1890—Gent’s Hose Supporter.
            1893—Wagon-Bed Lifter.
            ....—Electric Poison Cabinet.
                (For Druggists.)
    One of the first patents issued to a Brazilian was on the invention
of an improved shoe-maker’s awl, of which the Scientific American said
at the time: “Mr. Samuel Babbitt, of Brazil, Indiana, has recently
patented an awl constructed with an eye for withdrawing the thread or
bristle from the inside of a boot or shoe in the process of sewing. The
eye of this awl is made so that it can be opened or closed by a slide
which, coming in contact with the leather when the awl is thrust in,
automatically opens the eye, the slide being actuated by a spring to close
the eye when the awl is withdrawn. The thread, entering the open eye,
is held therein by the closing of the slide, and is thus withdrawn.”