Inventor - William Chester Ruth

Born: July 19, 1882 in Ercildoun, Pennsylvania

Died: April 3, 1971, age 88 in Gap, Pennsylvania

Inventions: Mechanical Cinder Spreader, Automatic Baler Feeder, and holder of 52 patents.

William Chester Ruth was the son of Samuel Ruth, a slave who was born on the South Carolina plantation of Robert Frederick Ruth. Samuel was liberated as a teen when the 54th Massachusetts Infantry occupied Savannah George and he was working for them as a regimental water carrier.  Then Lt. Stephen Atkins Swails took him as his body servant.

After the war, Samuel and two Union Army friends went to Pennsylvania where he met and married Louisa Pinn, the sister of one of the two Army friends. Her father ws Reverend Robert A. Pinn who was a Union soldier during the Civil War who received the Medal of Honor for his actions at the Battle of Chaffin's Farm.

Samuel and his new wife Louisa saved up their wages to buy a farm outside of Ercildoun, Pennsylvania where they raised ten children.  

William Chester Ruth worked on the family farm and trained as a blacksmith from age 12 while going to school part of the year.  He was naturally curious about machinery, always taking apart machines and putting them back together again. He went to school up to eighth grade.

In 1906, he married Gertrude Miller and raised one son, Joseph.  In 1914, he took over his father's duties as spiritual leader of the Ercildoun's Church of Christ, a church founded by his father shortly after buying his farm.

In 1917, he and Gertrude moved to Gap, Pennsyvania, located in Dutch Country of Amish and Mennonites. In 1922 he opened a blacksmith shop "Ruth's Ironworks" on Route 30 in Gap where he shoed horses and repaired farm machinery for Amish folks.  Soon he began designing his own devices to improve machinery performance.

In 1924, he patented his first invention - the Combination Baler Feeder - a device that collected straw that exited out of a thresher and fed straw safely into the baler chamber.  By 1930, he had two more patents for improvements to the Baler Feeder.  He received patents for 47 of the machine's 87 parts.

Among his other inventions were a cinder-spreading truck bed called the Mechanical Cinder Spreader, which the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PENNDOT) bought for treating icy roads.

During WWII, he helped design a bombsight for warplanes which were used to build the Trident Missile. By 1950, he was earning over $50,000 a year just from his inventions. He hired six assistants and invested $65,000 to convert his blacksmith shop into a machine and welding shop. 

He partnered with a local white man named Howard Rutter who helped him to market products to white manufacturers and white farmers who wouldn't normally buy from him, as a black man.  

William continued to be spiritual leader and lay preacher at the Church of Christ in Ercildoun, right up until his death on April 3, 1971. While walking on Lincoln Highway to his shop in Gap, William Chester Ruth was hit by a car and died of his injuries. He was 88.  He was buried at Ercildoun Cemetery next to the Church of Christ.