Jacob Haish


Jacob Haish was one of the first inventors of barbed wire. His type of barbed wire was in direct competition with the other barbed wire manufacturers in DeKalb, Illinois. He was a known carpenter and architect in DeKalb County and designed several prominent DeKalb homes.

Early life

Haish was born in Germany and immigrated with his family to the United States in 1835. He came to Illinois in 1845, and moved to DeKalb in 1853, where he was a carpenter. He cultivated osage orange hedges whose thorns made them effective as cattle fencing.

The birth of barbed wire

In late 1872, Henry Rose developed a wire fence with an attached wooden strip containing projecting wire points to dissuade encroaching livestock. He patented his fence in May 1873 and exhibited it at the DeKalb County Fair that summer. This prompted Haish and other DeKalb residents Isaac Ellwood and Joseph Glidden to work on improving the concept. Haish had patented three styles of barbed fencing by June 1874. When Haish's patent for an "S-barb" design was granted in August 1875, he launched a drawn out legal battle to stymie his rivals. It failed at the US Supreme Court in 1895.

Haish gifts a library

In 1893, the city council of DeKalb, Illinois, decreed the establishment of a public library. The impetus for this ordinance was requests from the Ladies of the Library Association, a group that had conducted a reading room for several years. The library moved twice before the Haish gift came along; it was first located on the second floor of the city hall and then, in 1923, moved to the second floor of the DeKalb Daily Chronicle building on Lincoln Highway.
Haish had bequested a $150,000 gift for a library building in his will. The result was the Haish Memorial Library in downtown DeKalb.