Henry Rose
Waterman, Illinois
Illinois State Museum collection

Henry Rose was an agricultural inventor who owed his own company in Sandwich, Illinois. When an inventor applied for a patent on a new invention, he or she made and sent in a model of the invention with the application. This model is about one foot wide.

Rose’s barbed wire features special tongs that wrap the wire into a pattern. The prickly barbs of barbed wire deter farm animals from breaking through the fence of a pasture. It was very important as the number of farms increased, and property boundaries were marked with fences.