James Sargent: Bank Combination Locks and the Vault Time Lock

Early Life

The Library of Congress name authority record gives Sargent's birth as December 5, 1824, in Chester, Vermont, citing Who Was Who in America. Wikipedia gives December 1, 1824. Both agree on the year and town. He died at his home in Rochester, New York, on January 12, 1910 (Library of Congress; Wikipedia), and was buried at Mount Hope Cemetery (Wikipedia).

The earlier S&G company-information page describes the young Sargent as a sales agent for Yale & Greenleaf Lock Manufacturers before he went into business for himself. Yale & Greenleaf was the bank-lock firm of Linus Yale Jr. and Halbert Greenleaf (see Linus Yale).

The Magnetic Bank Lock (1857)

S&G dates its history to 1857, when Sargent set up the James Sargent Lock Company. His first major product was "Sargent's Magnetic Bank Lock." S&G calls it the first key-changeable combination lock. Its earlier company page says "first successful." Both pages say safe makers and the U.S. Treasury Department accepted the lock quickly. S&G's timeline states that the Treasury adopted it as its standard in 1860.

These are the company's own claims about being first. Others were working on changeable bank locks in the same years. The Lemelson Center at MIT, for example, credits Linus Yale Jr. with an 1851 "Infallible Bank Lock" whose owner could change the combination. So this article attributes the "first" to S&G rather than stating it as fact. For the wider picture, see combination lock.

Sargent & Greenleaf

In 1865, Sargent and Halbert Greenleaf became partners (S&G timeline). The company's earlier page calls Greenleaf one of Sargent's former employers and an equal partner. A factory was built in Rochester. Wikipedia's company article dates Sargent's move to Rochester to 1864. S&G's timeline adds a patent for "Sargent's Automatic Lock," which it dates to 1866. The older company page gives 1868 for the same lock. In 1869, S&G won a federal contract to supply safe locks to the Treasury Department.

The Time Lock

The bank-robbery problem in the 1860s and 1870s was not only picking or blasting. Robbers could seize a cashier, or his family, and force him to open the vault. A time lock answers that by putting a clock in charge of the bolt. Once set, it holds the vault shut until the chosen hour, whoever is asking.

S&G gives this account. In 1873, Sargent built a time lock using lock parts and two eight-day kitchen clock movements. Wikipedia's time-lock article notes that vault doors usually carry more than one time lock, so that a backup can still release the door if one fails. On May 26, 1874, he personally fitted it to the vault door of the First National Bank of Morrison, Illinois. The company says it served there for nearly forty years, until the bank remodeled and built a larger vault. A collector's history based on John and David Erroll's American Genius: Nineteenth Century Bank Locks and Time Locks also dates the first S&G time lock in use to 1874 at Morrison.

A U.S. Supreme Court decision gives the patent record. In Sargent v. Hall Safe & Lock Co., 114 U.S. 63 (1885), the Court recounts the following:

• On June 11, 1873, Sargent applied for a patent on combining a time movement with the lock-works of a combination lock.
• The Patent Office first rejected the claim, citing an earlier patent, No. 121,782, granted to S. W. Hollen on December 12, 1871. It rejected the claim again by citing an 1831 British patent (Rutherford's) and an 1858 U.S. patent (Holbrook's), both of which described double time movements.
• Sargent narrowed his claims. Patent No. 186,369 was granted on January 16, 1877.
• Sargent sued the Hall Safe & Lock Company for infringement. The circuit court dismissed the suit, and the Supreme Court affirmed.

The patent record shows that clock-controlled locks existed before Sargent's. S&G's description of his 1873 lock as "the first time lock" for bank vaults is therefore the company's claim, and this article does not state it as fact. What the sources do support is that Sargent's design was among the first time locks fitted to American bank vaults. The installation at Morrison in 1874 is well documented.

Time locks soon proved themselves. Wikipedia's time-lock article describes a May 29, 1875 attempt in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Robbers held a banker's family hostage, but a newly installed time lock defeated them. That source does not name the lock's maker.

The Time-Combination Lock (1880)

In 1880, according to S&G, Sargent connected one of his combination locks to a delay timer. The company calls the result the first time combination lock and the forerunner of its present "Timebination" products. Wikipedia repeats the 1880 date. The collector history notes that S&G's early Model 1 combined a combination lock and a time lock. Its Model 2, from 1874, was a stand-alone time lock that blocked the safe's bolt work, and that model went through many revisions up to 1927.

Later Life and the Company

Wikipedia says that later in life Sargent founded a railway-signal company, one of the predecessors of the General Railway Signal Company. S&G stayed in Rochester for about a century after the partnership. Its earlier page says the company remained there until 1975. Wikipedia gives 1974 for the move to Nicholasville, Kentucky, where the company is still based.

Legacy

Sargent's work added time to the list of things a vault lock checks. Knowing the combination was no longer enough; the hour had to be right as well. The same idea survives in the timed lockouts of modern safes. Sargent was part of a closely connected group of American bank-lock makers that included Linus Yale Jr.. For the British side of the same period, see Alfred Hobbs and Jeremiah Chubb.

Related Topics

• Time Lock
• Combination Lock
• Safe
• Linus Yale Sr. and Jr.
• Yale & Towne
• Safecracking

Sources