The Biographical Dictionary of America/Adams, Isaac

ADAMS, Isaac, inventor, was born in Rochester, N. H., 1803. He had little opportunity for education, and when a boy went early to work in a factory. Later he learned the trade of a cabinet-maker, which he abandoned to go to Boston, where he became employed in a machine shop. In 1828 he invented the Adams printing press, which he improved in 1834, and as then improved the press continues to be sold in thirty different sizes and was universally used for book work in America for more than a quarter of a century. By the manufacture of these presses he accumulated considerable wealth. In 1840 he was elected to the Massachusetts senate. He died July 19, 1883.