The Real Real McCoy

His efforts oiled the way for others who would follow.

George and Mildred McCoy could have remained as slaves in Kentucky. Instead, they found the courage in 1837 to flee to Ontario, Canada, via the Underground Railroad. They had 11 children, and they certainly picked the right name for their son Elijah, named after the prophet in the Bible.

He grew up to be a modern-day miracle worker, an inventor who held 57 patents.

When he was about 15, his family moved to Ypsilanti, Michigan. Seeing promise in Elijah, his parents sent him to the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, where he studied to become a mechanical engineer.

When he returned home degree in hand, the only job he could find was as a Fireman-Oiler on the Michigan Central Railroad. He shoveled coal into the locomotive’s steam engine and tended to its boiler to make sure it didn’t explode. But being an oiler inspired McCoy.

In those days, trains had to make regular stops so that their bearings, cylinders, and levers, and other moving parts could be lubricated by hand. This meant that every train had an man aboard like McCoy whose job it was to walk from one end of the train to the other carrying a long-necked oil can and applying oil where it was needed. This meant delays and extra labor costs for railroad companies. What’s more, other industries also needed oilers to regularly service their machines.

McCoy had a workshop in his home, and in 1872 he won patent #129,843 for an automatic lubricator. It could be used to oil all manner of steam engines in trains, ships, factories, mines, oil-drilling rigs, and elsewhere.

Other inventors had created similar devices. These were basically container that had a tiny stopcock that insured a regular, continuous flow to oil to gears and axles in motion. McCoy’s proved far superior, so much so that it was derided as a “nigger oil cup.”

Such talk did not last long, for McCoy’s invention won acclaim. He was often called on to personally supervise its installation. Soon enough when engineers and mechanics bought or examined lubricating equipment, they would ask “Is this the real McCoy?” The highest praise, though, came when competitors studied his design and copied it.

Today there is some dispute over whether the expression began with McCoy’s invention. Suffice it to say that no less of an authority than the Smithsonian Institution believes McCoy’s ingenuity is the source of the expression. In 1989, it named an exhibition on African American Invention and Innovation, 1619-1930—“The Real McCoy.”

McCoy went on to patent improved tire treads and rubber heels, a new gauge, and most notably three patents for automatic lawn sprinklers and the collapsible ironing board.  (His wife had complained to him about how hard it was to iron clothes on uneven surfaces.)

He stayed active in his field into old age. When he was 72, he filed a patent for a graphite/oil lubricating system to service modern engines which ran at far higher speeds than steam engines. (It allowed for a solid lubricant such as graphite to be suspended in a lubricating liquid without clogging under high temperatures.) He also served as a consultant to major corporations and offered career counseling to young men.