Samuel Slocum (March 4, 1792 - January 26, 1861), was an American inventor from Poughkeepsie, New York.
While in England, he invented a machine for the production of wrought iron nails.
A short time later he moved back to the United States, and formed a pin manufacturing company, Slocum and Jillson, which invented a "Machine for Sticking Pins into Paper", which is often believed to be the first stapler. In fact, this patent from September 30, 1841, Patent #2275, is for a device used for packaging pins.