The first English patent granted to a resident of the American Colonies was given to a woman from Pennsylvania. Except it was formally granted to her husband because women were not allowed to hold patents at the time. Her name was Sybilla Righton Masters, and the patent was for a corn mill.
Sybilla Righton immigrated from Bermuda with her sisters and Quaker parents. Sometime between 1693 and 1696, she married a Quaker named Thomas Masters. Thomas came from a prestigious family and was very involved in the civic life of the Pennsylvania Colony. He served on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania from 1701 to 1703 and was the mayor of Philadelphia between 1707 and 1709. Sybilla, like most women of her time, kept house and raised their four children.
One of the staples of the new world was a type of grain that was unknown in Europe. It was maize, an integral component of the Native American diet, which along with squash and beans was part of the food grouping called the “three sisters”. Maize, or Indian Corn, as the Europeans called it, could be ground into meal called “hominy”. The women would grind the corn between stones made for grinding wheat, a very tedious process. Sybilla noted that the indigenous women would grind corn by pounding it with wooden posts. Sybilla invented an animal- or water-powered device that consisted of a long wooden cylinder with projections which drove a series of heavy pestles into mortars filled with corn kernels.
On June 24, 1712, Sybilla left her family and sailed to London to pursue a patent for her invention. The Pennsylvania colony did not grant patents at this time; those were granted by King George. It took three years for Sybilla to make her case to the king and obtain her patent. While she waited, she kept busy weaving straw and palmetto leaves into hats and bonnets. She sold her wares in a shop in London. Finally, on November 25, 1715, King George I granted a patent for the process of “Cleaning and Curing the Indian Corn Growing in the several Colonies of America”. The king granted the patent to Sybella’s husband, Thomas. But Thomas was an honest man and stated on the patent submission that it was his wife’s idea. Sybilla, through her husband, secured a second patent for her method of weaving straw hats.
After securing the patents, she returned to her home in Pennsylvania. Thomas built a mill that used her design and they produced a hominy product that they called “Tuscarora Rice”. The product did not sell well in England, people there did not have a taste for corn meal. But it sold quite well in the colonies, especially in the south. Today it is a staple in the American south where today it is commonly called “grits”. Sybilla died in 1720.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybilla_Righton_Masters
https://pennsylvaniapeople.weebly.com/sybilla-masters-level-2.html
