In this dilemma, he applied to a friend, Mr. George Fisher, a coal and wood merchant of Cambridge, who was a man of some means.  He explained his invention to him, and succeeded in forming a partnership with him.  Fisher agreed to take Howe and his family to board with him while the latter was making the machine, to allow his garret to be used as a workshop, and to advance the five hundred dollars necessary for the purchase of tools and the construction of a model.  In return for this he was to receive one-half of the patent, if Howe succeeded in patenting his machine.  About the first of December, 1844, Howe and his family accordingly moved into Fisher’s house, and the little workshop was set up in the garret.  All that winter he worked on his model.  There was little to delay him in its construction, as the conception was perfectly clear in his mind.  He worked all day, and sometimes nearly all night, and in April, 1845, had his machine so far advanced that he sewed a seam with it.  By the middle of May the machine was completed, and in July he sewed with it the seams of two woolen suits, one for himself and the other for Mr. Fisher.  The sewing was so well done that it outlasted the cloth.

It has been stated by Professor Renwick and other scientific men that Elias Howe “carried the invention of the sewing-machine further on toward its complete and final utility than any other inventor has ever brought a first-rate invention at the first trial.”  Those who doubt this assertion should examine the curious machine at the corner of Broadway and Fourth Street, and their doubts will be dispelled; for they will find in it all the essentials of the best sewing-machine of to-day.

Having patented his machine, Howe endeavored to bring it into use.  He was full of hope, and had no doubt that it would be adopted at once by those who were so much interested in the saving of labor.  He first offered it to the tailors of Boston; but they, while admitting its usefulness, told him it would never be adopted by their trade, as it would ruin them.  Considering the number of machines now used by the tailoring interest throughout the world, this assertion seems ridiculous.  Other efforts were equally unsuccessful.  Every one admitted and praised the ingenuity of the machine but no one would invest a dollar in it.  Fisher became disgusted, and withdrew from his partnership, and Howe and his family moved back to his father’s house.  Thoroughly disheartened, he abandoned his machine.  He then obtained a place as engineer on a railroad, and drove a locomotive until his health entirely broke down.