27

The Product

McConnell included in his patent application a drawing of Bethel's invention as it

would be produced. He included a drawing of it attached to a bottle.

It wasn't until four years after the American Corkscrew Company was formed, that

McConnell applied for the patent on the machine to make the corkscrew.

The curious thing is that the Virginia Charter for the American Corkscrew Company

was stamped REVOKED in 1919! We were not able to find any documents telling us

why it was revoked. Was the company perhaps sued by Clough firm for copying their

corkscrew and adding a bottle clamping device? Did the company go bankrupt?

Clough's Machine

By the time Bethel patented his corkscrew design, the Clough medicine corkscrew had

already been produced by the millions over more than a quarter of a century. Clough

applied for his patent on March 17, 1875 and claimed:

‖

A corkscrew formed of a wire of iron,

steel, brass, or other metal, twisted

spirally ... for a portion of its length,

the remaining portion being bent into

an angular or polygonal shaped loop

to form the handle, the free end being

secured to the wire immediately at the

termination of the spiral.

‖

Machines were built to produce the

corkscrews at the Clough facility in

Alton, New Hampshire.

In an 1884 patent application, William

Crabb refers to the Clough patent and

several others as expensive to produce