L. Hamilton McCormick

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L. Hamilton McCormick, author, inventor and scientist, was born in Chicago, May 27, 1859. He was the youngest of the family of four of Leander James and Henrietta Hamilton McCormick and the grandson of Robert Hall McCormick of Walnut Grove, Rockbridge County, Virginia. He was an inventor of harvesting machinery of various kinds and for different purposes. His father, Leander J. McCormick, came to Chicago in 1848 and was a partner with his brothers, Cyrus and William S. McCormick, for many years, in the manufacture of harvesting machinery. In 1874 he presented what at the time was the largest refracting telescope in the world to the University of Virginia.

Hamilton McCormick received his education principally at Phillips Academy, Andover, and at Amherst College, graduating in the class of 1881. He afterwards took a course in law at Columbia Law School in New York City and subsequently studied architecture, also in New York City. After finishing his education he traveled extensively in the United States, Europe, northern Africa, Mexico, Central America, Yucatan, the West Indies and the Bermudas. In 1886, while touring Europe, he met Miss Constance Plummer, the daughter of Edward Plummer, Esq., of "The Firs," Canterbury, England, whom he married, February 15, 1887. They had three sons.

Mr. McCormick was an inventor from childhood and was also an art collector and sculptor. He was the author of Characterology, published by Rand McNally and Company, Chicago, 1920, and of a Student's Course in Characterology, 1921. He also wrote extensively upon various philosophical and psychological topics.

At the age of fourteen he invented a non-pickable door lock. While at college he invented two automatic car couplers and a ballot box to register votes and prevent fraud at the polls. His principal sport in youth was boxing. He was one of the founders of the Amherst chapter of the Beta Theta Pi Society. After graduating from Amherst he resided for several years as a bachelor in New York City, where in addition to taking law and architectural courses he devoted his time to his life-long study of Character Analysis. He also varied his work by forming a large and important collection of paintings, curious, old armor, ancient pottery, old ivories, primitive glass ware and objets d'art while living in London, where he passed seventeen years subsequent to his marriage.

His art collection was of the Italian, the early English and the old Dutch schools, of which he possessed about 200 examples. During his life he made over a hundred inventions and took out many preliminary and some final patents. He enjoyed inventing, but having inherited amply meant he did not seek pecuniary profit thereby. Among his inventions might be mentioned aeroplanes and an aerial torpedo, motorcycles, eyeglasses for looking backward while motoring, a watch which records the time the world over, an electric rotary brush, an electric rotary razor, an apparatus for locating the approach of vessels in a fog at sea, a boat which will not rock in rough water, a quadricycle to lessen vibration upon rough roads, an hydroplane for skimming over the surface of the water, an ambulance to prevent shock or vibration to its occupant, an audiophone for theatre use, a water cycle, a scheme to bridge the English Channel, and finally at the end of the Great World War an improvement in war tanks, which invention was offered to the Government, but too late for acceptance owing to the Armistice which ended hostilities.

During the war he conferred with the executive departments of the government at Washington regarding various matters of moment, financial, military and naval, such as amortizing the national loans and placing Liberty Bonds on a currency basis, an improvement in submarines, a proposal for government subsidy of ships passing through the German war zone, etc.

In sculpture his principal works were a three-quarter-life sized statue entitled "Sapho" and one of "Victory," also a figure emblematic of "The Birth of a Spirit." Among other topics which the author has dealt with in his writings are Longevity, Genius, Criminology, Education, Insanity, Ethnology, Music, Poetry, Dual Personality, Power of the Will, Wealth, Politics, Philosophy, and Religion.

He died on February 2, 1934 and is entombed at Woodlawn Park Cemetery - North in Miami, Florida.

His mansion, near downtown Chicago, has been the home of the Chicago Lawry's restaurant since the mid-1970s. [1] [2]