Last Modified: Aug 5 2008 8:53PM by Jeff_Joslin
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The information here came from PM&MinA, plus an ad in 1855 SA. John Gibson was one of three "well-heeled" investors who bought most of the rights to Woodworth's planer patents. See the entry under William Woodworth for details. Gibson appears to have been the most rapacious in a very rapacious group: there is some suggestion that he spearheaded the efforts to obtain the 1849 and 1856 patent extension, and he spent $250,000 each time. The effort to extend the patent beyond 1856 was defeated, and the syndicate was disbanded immediately thereafter. Gibson then "commissioned a lawyer to badger operators of molders and surfacers for royalties previously unclaimed. His conduct was so odious that Gibson found his Albany plant stuck with a huge inventory of planers which nobody would buy, simply because they were built by Gibson." Gibson ultimately sold his business to Daniel Doncaster, who ran it for several years and made a number of improvements to the planers.