The prototype "real McCoy," Elijah McCoy patented over fifty inventions, most relating to lubrication of locomotives and earned the name "father of lubrication. " Born in Canada in 1843, McCoy was the third of twelve children of George and Mildred Goins McCoy, fugitive slaves who escaped bondage on a Kentucky plantation via the underground railroad. His father was a soldier who sacrificed to give him a better life. In 1859, after Elijah completed the local grammar school, his parents sent him to Edinburgh, Scotland, where he expanded his knack for tinkering into a degree in mechanical engineering. He returned to Ypsilanti, Michigan, yet found no jobs for black engineers, regardless of their expertise. He settled for a lowly position with the Michigan Central Railroad as coal-stoker and oiler.

Whiling away time, McCoy devised a method by which trains could lubricate themselves. At the age of twenty-six, he sold half interest in...