DeSorgher: The Medfield Inventor of the Roller Skate

Roller blades, skateboards, roller skates; popular forms of entertainment that are seen on the streets, sidewalks, skate parks and rinks all over the world.

All trace their roots to Medfield and to the invention of the first roller skate by James Plimpton.

James Leonard Plimpton, the fifth of nine children born to Leonard and Sarah (Lane), was born on April 14, 1828. The Plimpton’s lived on 230 North St. in Medfield and James was brought up in the then rural Medfield, helping his father with the small family farm and with his father’s business of manufacturing cloth, which was run out of a small shop by their house. 

James attended the nearby North School, which at the time was located at the corner of North and Harding Streets. As a boy, James was a tinkerer who was fascinated with machinery. With the Industrial Revolution bursting into the open all around him, James became a natural mechanical genius. At age 16 he was apprenticed to a nearby machine shop and before his 18th birthday, he was foreman in a large machine shop in Claremont, N.H. When James turned 21, he joined with his brother and opened a business in Westfield, Mass. building machinery. Later, James opened up a furniture business on his own in New York City. The young New England entrepreneur was making money and developing live-long business skills.

At the age of 32, during the winter of 1860-1861, James’ health began to deteriorate. On advice from his doctor, James took up ice skating, getting himself outside and into the fresh air of the ponds in Central Park. Plimpton noted an immediate improvement in his health. Once the warm weather of spring set in and ice skating was no longer possible on the ponds, James wanted to find a way to continue his healthy exercise all year long.

Here in New York City, Plimpton invented the modern roller skate. His invention copied the ice skate, making it possible to duplicate the graceful type of skating he was able to do on the pond’s ice. Plimpton’s “land” skates used two rollers under the ball of the foot and two under the heel. They were so arranged that both sets of wheels would rock in the direction in which the skater leaned to make possible the graceful curves of ice skating. His skate could be controlled by foot pressure. The wheels were of boxwood. He called his new invention the “parlor skates.”

On Jan. 6, 1863 he patented these “guidable parlor skates.” For the next 17 years, federal patent law secured Plimpton with the exclusive right to manufacture, sell and lease his new invention. Plimpton believed control of the market would be the key to the success of his invention.

Instead of using advertising, he sent out engraved personal invitations to the social elite of New York City, announcing a free demonstration. His invention caught on with the whose-who of New York Society and soon an exclusive New York Roller Skating Association was formed, with Plimpton as its first president. Plimpton enlisted the aid of the NY Association and in 1865 established the first public roller skating rink at Newport, R.I. After two summers of exposing his invention to the wealthy of Newport, including Civil War hero and general, William Tecumseh Sherman, Plimpton launched a well-planned marketing campaign.

Under Plimpton’s campaign, he would visit a city, rent a hall and send out invitations. Once the skates attracted the attention of the town’s social and political leaders, usually everyone else in the town wanted to see and try this new invention. Plimpton would then sell someone franchise rights for that city and move on to yet another city.

The owners of each franchise leased his skates at a set annual fee. Convinced that he could make a greater profit, Plimpton always leased his invention, never selling his skates. Plimpton advertised that his roller skates would be an improving entertainment, producing physical grace, good health and moral uplift. Liquor, tobacco, flashy posters and loud advertising was banned from all his rinks.

He also saw that his profit would best be made with the social elite rather than the lower class and so favored local restrictions that ensured that roller skating would remain an entertainment for the upper class. Having three daughters, he saw roller skating as a “proper moral activity” for the young women of the Victorian Era. This appeal to women was perhaps one of the main reasons for roller skating’s overnight popularity.

By 1871, roller skating became a national craze and much money was being made. Many others tried to copy his design and his roller skating rinks, causing Plimpton to spend much time in court. After long court battles, The U.S. Circuit finally ruled in favor of Plimpton saying that “Plimpton’s skates were truly new and not in the public use before his patent application back in 1863.”

All 14 he had taken to court were ordered to pay damages.

Plimpton now took his invention overseas, causing a roller skating rage to sweep through England in 1874. Again, due to its success, Plimpton now had to battle 169 copycats in the British courts. After much legal litigation, on Jan. 28, 1876, the British courts ruled in Plimpton’s favor. Plimpton had won but his legal bills were enormous. From England, Plimpton took his roller skating craze to France, Australia and the Dutch East Indies before returning to the United States in 1876.

At the age of 48, he was king of the roller skating empire. His Brooklyn, N.Y. factory was now producing 2,000 pairs of roller skates a week and could not keep up with the demand.

In 1880, the expiration date of Plimpton’s 1863 patent caused a dramatic change to Plimpton’s fortune. New manufacturers and new rinks ended Plimpton’s domination. But the Medfield inventor had made a considerable fortune in his lifetime and had unleashed a craze and new form of entertainment and offshoots that are still going strong today.

Note: Research for this story was obtained from the Plimpton family files at the ; Yankee Magazine, February 1984-article by Parker Nutting; Yankee Magazine, October 1966- article by Tom McCarthy: & Tilden's History of the Town of Medfield 1650-1886.