Among the first of Yankee inventors to
pursue the golden gum grail was a "polished, genial, broadminded" dentist
from Mount Vernon, Ohio. William F. Semple (not Simple or Williams &
Semple, as many accounts have it) has the signal honor of being the first
person anywhere to patent a chewing gum ("It took an American to attach
property rights to this universal and timeless pastime," one writer
notes). In 1869 Semple filed the patent reproduced here with the U.S.
Commissioner of Patents:
A rather vague all-encompassing patent this, though acceptable to the
Patent Office at the time, but, as the bubble gum industry later proved,
Dr. Semple was on the right track in using rubber as his primary base. The
trouble was that he did nothing further with his invention, which included
little flavoring and was to be used for jaw exercise and gum stimulation
as well as pure pleasure. The "industrious and frugal" Semple, who was
known for his "painful extractions" and his "midnight ramblings with a
small dog," went on to file several other patents based on rubber, and
patented a stove, never even attempting to market his gum, which might
have brought him a great many new patents if nothing else. In any event,
his idea became no more than an historical curiosity and for a time it
looked like the mouths of America might be forever sealed shut. Luckily,
however, another inventor had already made the connection that was to
provide the cornerstone for the modern gum industry.