Person:Jackson Shoop (1)

Erie County Death Records (Vol. 2, p. 169, #23) has General Jackson Shoop (General written in as an afterthought) dying April 16, 1891 at the age of 61. He was born in Ohio and died in Vermilion of heart failure. He was a widowed laborer.

Obituary Sandusky Register, 22 April 1891

Sudden Death Last Thursday morning, Mr. Jack Shupe, who has been in the employ of Dr. B.F. Bond for some lenght of time, was sent to the doctor's farm to repair a fence. As he did not make his appearance at the house at the noon hour as usual, the doctor drove out to see what was the cause for his non-appearance. On reaching the spot where the work was to be done, he discovered Mr. Shupe lying on the ground dead, grasping the handle of the ax he had been using in his hand. The supposed cause of death is heart failure. Mr. Shupe was a well known character about town, 60 years old and unmarried. The funeral was held from the residence of his sister, Mrs. Barber [Margaret], on Friday afternoon.

An Invention from Jackson's Lifetime

The inventor of the zipper was Whitcomb L. Judson, who came up with the fancy fastener to help out a friend. Judson's friend had a stiff back, and could not bend over to do up his shoes. Judson, a Chicago native, already owned over a dozen patents for mechanical items such as improvements to motors and railroad braking systems.

Judson came up with a slide fastener that could be opened and closed with one hand. On August 29, 1893, he patented his new "hookless fastener." The term "zipper" was coined as an onomatopoeia (named after the sound it makes) by B. F. Goodrich, whose company started marketing galoshes featuring the fastener in 1923.