Hiram W. Hayden

Hiram W. Hayden was the first person to successfully engrave metal buttons. He was also responsible for the manufacture of all of the important dyes for buttons and metals manufactured by the Scovill Company.

A noted inventor, he developed the processing methods that led to the development of quality American brass. He registered 58 patents with the U. S. Patent Office including the process of spinning brass to make rounded objects, an operation first used to make kettles. Among other inventions he patented were a breech-loading rifle and breech-loading cannon.

Hayden wrote an unpublished scientific article on the subject of the daguerreotype in 1851 entitling him to consideration as an independent discoverer of the photographic process. He holds the honor of being one of the independent discoverers of the photographic process, having produced three paper photographs of landscapes and delivering them to the Waterbury American newspaper in 1851. His future work in the photographic area led him closer than anyone else of the era to producing a colored photograph.

Family

Spouse: Pauline M. Migeon Hayden (1820–1873), married 1844

Children: Lena Migeon Hayden Brown (unknown–1938), Edward Simeon Hayden (1851–1899)

Parents: Joseph Shepard Hayden (1802–1877) and Ruhamah Guilford Hayden (1804–1840)