thread with certainty and uniformity.... The baster-plate in the
Howe machine is very inconvenient and troublesome ... in my machine
... the clamp ... is a very simple and efficient device.... The
Howe machine is stationary, and the baster-plate or cloth-holder
progressive. The Bradshaw machine is progressive and the
cloth-holder stationary.

Bradshaw's patent accurately described some of the defects of the Howe
machine, but other inventors were later to offer better solutions to the
problems.

[Illustration: Figure 17.--MOREY AND JOHNSON sewing machine, 1849.
Below: The machine is marked with the name of its maker, Safford &
Williams. The number 49 is a serial number. Missing parts have been
replaced with plastic. (Smithsonian photo 48400; brass plate: 48400-H.)]

Although the Bradshaw machine was not in current manufacture, a machine
based on it received the seventh United States sewing-machine patent.
Patent 6,099 was issued to Charles Morey and Joseph B. Johnson on
February 6, 1849. Their machine (fig. 17) was being offered for sale
even before the patent was issued.

This was the first American patent for a chainstitch machine. The stitch
was made by an eye-pointed needle carrying the thread through the
fabric; the thread was detained by a hook until the loop was enchained
by the succeeding one. The fabric was held vertically by a baster plate
in a manner similar to the Howe machine. Although not claimed in the
patent description, the Morey and Johnson machine also had a bar device
for stripping the cloth from the needle. This bar had a slight motion
causing a yielding pressure to be exerted on the cloth. Although the
patent was not granted until February 6, 1849, the application had been
filed in April of the previous year. The machine was featured in the
_Scientific American_ on January 27, 1849 (fig. 18):

Morey and Johnson Machine--These machines are very accurately
adjusted in all their parts to work in harmony, without this they
would be of no use. But they are now used in most of the Print
Works and Bleach Works in New England, and especially by the East
Boston Flour Company. It sews about one yard per minute, and we
consider it superior to the London Sewing Machine the specification
of which is in our possession. It [Morey and Johnson] is more
simple--and this is a great deal.... The price of a machine and
right to use $135.[36]