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WHISTORY
Joseph John Edward O’Rielly, 1872 – 1933
Established 1897 Joseph J. O’Rielly was the owner and editor of The Chief Publishing Company. ( Also a director )
Address was 13 Spruce Street, New York
Published:
- Fire Extinction 1911 ( 199 pgs. )
- Fire Fighting – a school and college course for firemen everywhere
- The Chief The Government Weekly –
5 Beekman street, corner Nassau New York
WHISTLE ARCHEOLOGY
On July 11, 1913 J.J. O’Reilly applied for a whistle patent in the USA. It was granted April 21st 1914. Its most distinguishing mark was a slight variation of air exiting the disc sides through the window openings, varying the pitch.
The whistles were stamped The Chief. Initially some were manufactured with the stamp Pat. Appl’d. for. It is unknown who manufactured them.
Progressively the O’Rielly patented whistle would improve from a very rustic start and a very heavy hand wrought steel ring to a fine rounded wire loop. The lengths would increase from :
- 81 mm
- 78 mm
- 80 mm
- 82 mm
When the top rings are closely examined for comparison one sees the change from crude to machined application.
The O’Rielly patent includes details of the disc and tine arrangement. Much like the very early Hudson dual tines, they point toward the mouthpiece.
See point 13 in the diagrams to follow.
Interestingly, J.J.O’Reilly filed a suit against The Benjamin Harris Company January 26th 1918.
He lost. Nothing has been unearthed as to what whistle that the Benjamin Harris Company was manufacturing that was thought to be infringing on The Chief which was made to the O’Reilly patent. Two patents, one by Burt and one by Hatch were described in the proceedings shown as follows:
TWG
Posted March 05, 2018
Bibliography, online:
New York Times
The Postal Service
The Trow
Governing New York City
Obituaries
The Chief Leader Newspaper
Google patents
