Jenks, Joseph

Joseph Jenks, also spelled Joseph Jenckes, (baptized August 26, 1599, St. Anne, Blackfriars, London, England—died March 16, 1683, Lynn [now Saugus], Massachusetts, U.S.), British American inventor.

A skilled ironworker, Jenks emigrated to America in 1642 to help establish one of the first American ironworks at Saugus in Massachusetts. In 1646 he was granted the first patent in America for making a new type of sawmill and machines for making scythes and other tools. He likely cut the dies for the first coins minted in Boston (1652). The selectmen of the city of Boston were granted permission to contract Jenks to build what would have been the first American fire engine (1654), but it is unknown whether they actually did so or if Jenks actually built an engine. The scythe he designed in 1655 has remained basically unchanged to the present.