IN THE UNITED STATES CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK. JAMES G. WILSON AND JOHN GIBSON, VS. GEORGE W. BEARDSLEE. Affidavits on the part of the Defendant, to oppose Application for Injunction. P. Cagger, Solicitor for Defendant. C.W. Newton, Solicitor for Complainants.

John Gibson was an early member of the syndicate which had initially purchased a large share of the patent rights to William Woodworth's Planing Machine. His co-complainant James G. Wilson was a speculator who later invested in the rights to the Woodworth Planing Machine and who, over 24 years, earned more than 2 million dollars in royalties from his stake in the patent.

The cash cow which Woodworth's Planing Machine represented was threatened by George W. Beardslee's design of his Beardslee Patent Fixed-Knife Planing Machine in 1851. From Buffalo, New York, Beardslee immediately found himself named as one of four defendants in a lawsuit which the holders of Woodworth's patent brought to court even though his fixed-knife planer was totally different than Woodworth's cylindrical-head design. Indeed, much of the pamphlet at hand compares the 2 planers, elaborating on their differences.

An article titled "Beardslee's Planing Machine" published in the October 16, 1852 issue of "Scientific American", states that "In the city of Albany, Ahijah Jones has invested a large amount of capital in dressing lumber, and has three of the Beardslee machines in active operation, each of which (as we learn by the Albany Argus) dresses 4,000 boards or planks in ten hours, including all stoppages. One of these machines has planed stuff for Messrs. Boardman Gray, of Albany -- the famous pianoforte makers -- which always was planed by hand heretofore, no power planing machine being able to do the work. The stuff was for the 'Tuning Boards' of pianos." "Scientific American" goes on to praise the machine and, in an article titled "The Beardslee Planing Machine Case" published in the November 20, 1852 issue, states that "The Planing Machine controversy, which has been so long pending between Wilson and Gibson, complainants, and George W. Beardslee, defendant, and in relation to which a mass of testimony (some 400 pages) has been taken, before a United States Judge, has finally been adjusted, the testimony adduced by the defendants being so conclusive that the application for an injunction fo restrain the use of Beardslee's machines had been abandoned."

RARE.