Joseph R. Winters has been credited with inventing the fire escape ladder, which has been disproved by historians. On this day however, Winters did patent an improvement on the ladder and his subsequent tweaks were applied to the escape ladders used on modern fire engines.
There are conflicting dates on what year and date Winters was born, which has been listed as either August 1816 or August 1824. His birthplace, however, is generally understood to have been Leesburg, Virginia. Born to a Black brick maker, and Shawnee Indian mother, Winters relocated to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania with his mother when he was a teen, becoming a farmer and mechanic.
The observant Winters noticed that the horse-drawn wagons that carried wooden ladders for firefighters was a bulky, time-consuming act. With his invention, the ladder was rendered into metal and affixed to a wagon, making it easier for firefighters to hoist the device up, place it alongside a burning building, and grant rescue to citizens in need. Winters designed the device for the Chambersburg Fire Department.
In 1879 and 1882, Winters improved upon his inventions and the use of the technique spread across other city fire departments. However, Winters never saw fame or much in the way of recognition for his invention. Beyond inventions, Winters was an instrumental member of the Underground Railroad and once famously said he arranged a meeting between Frederick Douglass and John Brown ahead of the ill-fated Harpers Ferry raid in 1859.
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