1800-1854

American inventor who in 1848 developed an improved toggle harpoon that revolutionized the technology of whaling. An African-American born into slavery in Richmond, Virginia, Temple became a shipsmith and whalecraft manufacturer. In 1829 he arrived in Massachusetts and, by 1836 had his own waterfront blacksmith shop, where he specialized in whalecraft. Temple's toggle substantially improved the efficiency of the whale hunt and the innovative device became the standard harpoon of the whaling industry by the middle of the nineteenth century.