Richard Jordan Gatling (1818-1903), American inventor, became famous for designing multiple-firing guns.

Richard Gatling was born on a large plantation in Hertford County, N.C., on Sept. 12, 1818. With his father he perfected machines to sow cotton and to thin out cotton plants. He worked in the county clerk's office from the age of 15 to 19, taught school briefly, and became a merchant. In 1839 he patented a rice planter. He moved to St. Louis in 1844, worked in a dry goods store, then made a wheat drill and manufactured seed planters.

Gatling studied medicine and became a doctor in 1850, although he never practiced. For a time he promoted railroad enterprises and real estate in Indianapolis, then he established farm-machinery factories in three midwestern cities. His inventions included a double-acting hemp break (1850), a steam plow (1857), a marine steam ram (1862), and a gunmetal alloy.

Soon after the Civil War began, Gatling designed the...