That there are now almost untold thousands of patented inventions in the United States attests the fact that the genius of Americans has been applied to the construction of labor-saving machinery to a very great degree. That a large proportion of the machines have little practical value goes without saying. Of those that are useful and that subserve the purposes for which they were designed we find that many have brought little or no profit to the inventor, because, as a rule, he was not a business man and failed to properly protect his interests. It is pleasant to record, however, that some of the inventors of the most useful machines, implements and devices have by their forethought secured to themselves the profits as well as the credit of invention, and while their names have been made familiar to the public they have been rewarded also for their labors in a more substantial way. William P. Bettendorf of Davenport belongs to this class of inventors. He was born at Mendota, La Salle County, Illinois, on the first of July, 1857, and is the elder of the two sons of his parents. His father, Michael Bettendorf, was born at Coblentz, a town in one of the Rhine Provinces, at the confluence of the Rivers Rhine and Main. His mother, Katharine (Reck) Bettendorf, was born in Cologne. They came to America in 1853 and settled at La Salle, where Michael Bettendorf engaged in the grocery business, and remained until about the beginning of the War of the Rebellion, when he went to Missouri and afterward to Leavenworth, Kansas, where he was a clerk in the Government service and where William received the greater part of his education in the schools provided for the children of persons in the employ of the Government. He never attended the public free schools a day in his life. In 1871 he went to Peru, Illinois, and spent four years there as a clerk in the store of A. L. Shepard & Company, jobbers in hardware. In 1876 he entered the shops of the Peru Plow Company, where he spent four years and thoroughly familiarized himself with the business. He had been there only a short time when his inventive genius manifested itself and he patented in 1878 the first successful "power lift" applied to sulky plows, which was adopted by seven of the largest manufacturers in the country and paid the inventor a royalty of five thousand dollars. In 1880 he was in the employ of the Moline Plow Company of Moline for a short time, and then accepted the position of foreman for Parlin, Orendorf & Company at Canton, Illinois. In July of 1882 he went back to the Peru Plow Company, with which he had begun to learn his trade six years before at seventy- five cents a day, as superintendent. Soon afterward he invented the "Bettendorf metal wheel," composed of a malleable iron hub having steel spokes secured in the hub by being upset or headed on the inside of the hub. These and other improve-ments which others had long and vainly tried to obtain completely revolutionized the manufacture of wheels for farm machinery, and at once the Bettendorf wheel became popular on account of its points of excellence. The plow company paid for the first patent and had a half interest in the invention, but Mr. Bettendorf was not content to make wheels by any method then in use and proceeded at once to invent machinery to construct them. The company was unwilling to meet the cost of the construction of this machinery and through the influence of E. P. Lynch, president of the Eagle Manufacturing Company of Davenport, Mr. Bettendorf came here. The Bettendorf Metal Wheel Company was organized with an authorized capital stock of one million dollars, three hundred and fifty thousand being paid in, Mr. Bettendorf's patent rights entitling him to one-third the profits of the business. Becoming vice-president and general manager of this corporation, Mr. Bettendorf took charge of the factory which was provided at a salary of two thousand five hundred dollars per annum. The first year thirty-five men were employed, and wheels to the value of fifty thousand dollars were manufactured. In addition to the two machines first constructed Mr. Bettendorf had invented eleven more, making thirteen in all, so that the work was then or soon afterward performed entirely by machinery. In the year following new works of much greater capacity were erected at Fourth and Farnum Streets, and in the fall of 1890, at Springfield, Ohio, works of twice the capacity of those at Davenport were put up. At these two factories in 1892 nearly four hundred men were employed, and the value of the wheels turned out was half a million dollars. During the year 1891 Mr. Bettendorf invented the Bettendorf combined self-oiling hollow steel axle, bolster and stakes for farm wagons, and other devices to supersede the oldfashioned wooden kind. In September, 1892, he resigned his position as vice-president and general manager of the Bettendorf Metal Wheel Company, sold his interests in his patents to his associates, and gave all his attention to the perfection of machinery to manufacture axles, for which he invented and patented nine special machines, and after nearly a year's preparation and with the aid of fifteen machinists he had his works ready for business and started January 1, 1894, in the old Donahue foundry, where he had begun wheel making in 1886 and where the present business has been successfully inaugurated.
Mr. Bettendorf married Miss Mary Wortman, a native of Peru, Illinois, in January, 1878. They were the parents of two children, both of whom died of diphtheria about the first of the year 1894.
Mr. Bettendorf is a young man of good habits, is industrious, economical and energetic. His ability to see opportunities for the use of improved machinery, and his genius for inventing the same as well as the machinery for the construction of his devices, mark him as an inventor far above the ordinary, and give promise of future success and a rich harvest of profits. His inventions now number nearly sixty, and there is every reason to believe that many more will be added to this number.
BIOGRAPHIES