e was not a commercial
success. (Smithsonian photo 45505-D.)]

[Illustration: Figure 46.--IN ADDITION TO MECHANICAL PATENTS, a number
of design patents were also issued for sewing machines. These fall into
a separate series in the Patent Office's numerical records. This unusual
example featured two semidraped female figures holding the spool of
thread, a mermaid holding the needle, a serpent which served as the
presser foot, and a heart-shaped baster plate. The design was patented
by W. N. Brown, October 25, 1859, but no examples other than the patent
model are known to have been made. (Smithsonian photo 45504-A.)]

[Illustration: Figure 47.--THE SQUIRREL MACHINE was another interesting
design patent. S. B. Ellithorp had received a mechanical patent for a
two-thread, stationary-bobbin machine on August 26, 1857. That same
month he published a picture of his machine, shown here as republished
in the _Sewing Machine News_, vol. 7, no. 11, November 1885. The machine
was designed in the shape of "the ordinary gray squirrel so common
throughout this country--an animal that is selected as a type of
provident care and forethought, for its habits of frugality and for
making provision for seasons of scarcity and want in times of
plenty--and the different parts of the animal are each put to a useful
purpose; the moving power being placed within its body, the needle stock
through its head, one of its fore feet serving to guide the thread, and
the other to hold down the cloth while being sewed, and the tip of its
tail forming a support to the spool from which the thread is supplied."

Although the design patent was not secured until June 7, 1859, the
inventor was reported to have been perfecting his machine for
manufacture in 1857. Ellithorp planned "to place them in market at a
price that will permit families and individuals that have heretofore
been deterred from purchasing a machine by the excessive and exorbitant
price charged for those now in use, to possess one." Patent rights were
sold under the name of Ellithorp & Fox, but the machine was never
manufactured on a large scale, if at all. No squirrel machines are known
to have survived. (Smithsonian photo 53112.)]

[Illustration: Figure 48.--HEYER'S POCKET SEWING MACHINE patent model,
November 17, 1863. This patent model is one piece, and measures about
two inches in height and two inches in length. It will stitch--but only
coarse, loosely woven fabrics. As can be expected,