Researching William Lyman

William Lyman was born in 1821 in Middlefield, Connecticut. At the age of 15 he was apprenticed to the local company Griswold & Couch, located in Meriden, Connecticut, to learn pewtersmithery, and worked there until 1844. After that, he continued working as a pewtersmith with various local companies until 1880. In 1849, he was appointed as State Representative in Meriden. On September 5, 1841 William married Roxanne Griswold Frary, a local woman one year older than he was. He died in Meriden in 1891 at the age of 70.

Lyman was a dedicated inventor, and was awarded several US patents. The most famous is his rotating wheel can opener, invented in 1870. Whereas previous can openers were basically variations of a knife, Lyman's design was the first attempt to facilitate the procedure (see picture). The can was to be pierced in its center with the sharp metal rod of the opener. Then the length of the lever had to be adjusted to fit the can size, and the lever fixed with the wingnut. The top of the can was cut by pressing the cutting wheel into the can near the edge and rotating it along the can's rim. The need to pierce the can first was a nuisance, and this can opener design has not survived. In 1925, a modern-style opener, equipped with an additional serrated wheel, was invented to improve Lyman's design.

His other patents were dedicated to improvements to various household food utensils such as a refrigerating pitcher (1858), fruit can lids (1862), tea and coffee pots, and a butter-dish. As an example illustrating the nature of those improvements, Lyman's fruit can lid relied on the physical principle that hot food placed in a jar and then allowed to cool would suck down the lid, provided with an elastic rim inside, thereby sealing the can.

Lyman was born in Northampton in the Province of Massachusetts Bay to Captain William and Jemima (Sheldon) Lyman. He graduated from Yale College in 1776. He was a militia veteran of the American Revolution. During Shays' Rebellion he was an aide to General William Shepard with the rank of major.

In about 1781, Lyman married Jerusha Welles, of East Hartford, Connecticut; they had eight children. Jerusha died at age 43, on June 11, 1803.Lyman served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1787 and in the Massachusetts State Senate in 1789.

Lyman was a candidate for the first congress and ran in the Hampshire Berkshire District as an Anti-Federalist against the Federalist candidate Theodore Sedgwick. Sedgwick was elected. Seventeen towns that were favorable to Lyman were late in sending in their returns; had these towns reported in a timely manner, Lyman would have been elected.

Lyman represented Massachusetts in the United States House of Representatives from March 4, 1793 to March 3, 1797.

In 1804 Lyman was appointed U.S. consul in London. He died while on duty in 1811 at Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England, U.K., and is interred in the Cathedral at Gloucester, England.