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Inventor

During his lifetime, Granville Woods obtained some 50 patents, including on for an incubator which was the forerunner of present machines capable of hatching 50,000 eggs at a time.

Born in Columbus, Ohio. Woods attended school until he was 10. He was first employed in a machine shop, and continued to improve his mechanical aptitude by working on a railroad in 1872, in a rolling mill in 1874, and later by studying mechanical engineering at college. In 1878 Woods became an enginer aborad the Ironsides, a British stramer, and within two years was handling a steam locomotive on hte D&S Railroad.

In 1887 Woods patented the most advanced of his many inventions--the Synchronous Multiplex Railway Telegraph. This device was designed to abert accidents by keeping each train informed of the whereabouts of the train immediately ahead or following it by enabling communications between stations from moving trains.

Woods marketed this product, and others which followed, through his own company. A perusal of thepatent files in Washingtion, D. C., shows Woods to have been an extremely prolific inventor. In the 20-year span between 1879 and 1899, no less then 23 separate inventions bear his name. In 1887 alone, he registered seven separate inventions with the Patent Office, all of them connected with the ingenious railway communications system he devised.

Woods died in New York City.