Elwood Haynes was an American inventor, metallurgist, automotive pioneer, entrepreneur and industrialist. He invented the metal alloy stellite and independently co-discovered martensitic stainless steel along with Englishman Harry Brearley in 1912. With the Apperson brothers, he formed the first company in the United States to produce automobiles profitably. Haynes ran an unsuccessful campaign in Indiana for the U.S. Senate in 1916 as a prohibition candidate.
About Elwood Haynes in brief
Elwood Haynes was an American inventor, metallurgist, automotive pioneer, entrepreneur and industrialist. He invented the metal alloy stellite and independently co-discovered martensitic stainless steel along with Englishman Harry Brearley in 1912. He is recognized for having created the earliest American design that was feasible for mass production and, with the Apperson brothers, he formed the first company in the United States to produce automobiles profitably. Haynes ran an unsuccessful campaign in Indiana for the U.S. Senate in 1916 as a prohibition candidate and remained active in the party until prohibition became law. Later, he became a philanthropist and served two terms as president of the YMCA, five years on the Indiana Board of Education, and was an active member of the Presbyterian church. After his death from complications arising from influenza, his Kokomo mansion was converted into the ElwoodHaynes Museum and is open to the public where many of his original inventions and automobiles are on display. His family was of English descent; he was a ninth-generation descendant of Walter Haynes who immigrated from Wiltshire, England to Sudbury, Massachusetts in 1638. As a child, Haynes built his first vehicle from scrap railroad car parts and destroyed it when a local railroad foreman did not approve of it. As he grew older he became an avid reader of books, including Principles of Natural Philosophy, and spent considerable time in forest catalogs and observing plants, insects, and animals.
His parents were dedicated Presbyterians and outspoken prohibitionists and educated their children from a young age to avoid liquor. His paternal grandfather was a gunsmith and mechanic, and tutored Haynes about metallurgy. In 1866, the family moved from their two-room house in Portland into the countryside outside of town where they purchased a larger home to better accommodate their growing number of children. At the age of 12, he built a smelting furnace and began working with copper, iron, bronze and bronze. He was nicknamed Wood because he spent so much time there, a nickname they used for most of his life. He successfully road tested his first car, the Pioneer, on July 4, 1894—eight years after the first automobile was patented in Germany. He formed a partnership with Elmer and Edgar Apperson in 1896 to start Haynes-Apperson for the commercial production of automobiles. He sold his patent for stainless steel to the American Stainless Steel Company in exchange for enough stock to gain a seat at the company’s board of directors, a position he held for 12 years. In 1920, he merged the Haynes Stellite company with Union Carbide in 1920. After passing through different owners, the company was renamed and is now called Haynes International. Haynes returned his focus to his automotive company, but in the economic recession of the 1920s the business went bankrupt and was liquidated. He died on October 14, 1857, in Portland, Indiana.
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