Fay Oliver Farwell


Fayette Oliver Farwell, co-creator of the Adams-Farwell automobile manufacturing company, was a prolific American inventor with at least thirteen patents credited to his name.

Patents

Lesser known was Farwell's development of a timing device that allowed machine gun bullets to be fired through the whirling propellers of airplanes without striking the blades. Near the time of World War I, Farwell was called to Washington, D.C. by the War Department to further refine his ideas. Farwell left Dubuque in 1921 to demonstrate a merry-go-round he had patented. He sold a phonograph invention to the Victor Talking Machine Company. He returned to the gear-cutting business in Toledo. Three sons-Jay, Ray, and Fay survived him.