The Inventive Mind(s) of Menzo Gates

Perhaps unwisely I have agreed to do a presentation in a few months on the topic of "Patent Medicine Men of Western Wisconsin".  It is an obscure subject, and while it affords plenty of opportunity to tell stories I'm not sure how general the interest will be.

But I agreed to do it, so it was off to my files.  I have notes on the subject going back decades.  And in some cases the random loose ends can now be better addressed with the wonders of this here Internet.

Consider the curious case of Menzo Gates.

I knew him from a passing reference on a roll of microfilm giving assorted copyright data.  Evidently he was marketing something called "Gate's Remedy for Diptheria" back in 1885.  At that time he was living in Cadott, Wisconsin.  This is a sleepy little village about ten miles east of where I live.  

Usually a small town patent medicine will be put up by the local druggist.  But applying for a copyright was quite unusual.  In general they just mixed things up, stuck a label on a generic bottle and called it good.

Imaging my surprise when a search for the highly distinctive name Menzo Gates came up with this 1899 US Patent.  Why, our pal Menzo looks to have upped his game over the intervening 14 years!

This seems like a terrible concept.  You teach your kid how to swim by setting up a guy wire across a body of water, then have the tyke go back and forth with some sort of ring around them.  The tyke on the left looks he has the harness around his neck!  

News articles with illustrations of this gizmo actually appeared quite widely in 1900....

Alas for my narrative there amazingly were two men named Menzo Gates.  The man who manufactured the obscure patent medicine died in Cadott Wisconsin in 1890.  He had one child, but it was a daughter, so there is no evident link to the inventor living over in Copemish, Michigan.

I am having difficulty tracking the further details of story down, and in fact there may have been yet another Menzo Gates living in New York at about the same time.