From “A history of American manufactures, from 1608 to 1860”, by John Leander Bishop, Edwin Troxell Freedley, and Edward Young, 1864: “Improvement in a saw mill, which returns the log after each cut, by Moses Coates (April 1, 1802). This contrivance, which was not appreciated at the time, performed automatically, by very simple mechanisms, several operations which successive improvements were only able to attain thirty years after.” “The domestic encyclopaedia” of 1803, says, “Mr. Moses Coates, of Chester County, Pennsylvania, has obtained a patent from the United States, for an improvement in saw-mills, for accellerating the sawing of timber into boards and scantling. It would be impossible, without a plate, to give an intelligible description of the machinery, neither would it be of advantage to the reader considering, that the right of erecting it, must first be purchased from the patentee, who will furnish the necessary instructions; we shall therefor only say here on the authority of the inventor; that a log 20 inches diameter, and 14 feet long, was sawed into inch boards, and the gate shut down, without being moved or acted upon by any other means, than that supplied by the water, acting upon the mechanism of the mill; and the whole time employed in moving the log back, and the saw entering after each successive run, did not exceed half a minute.” Most of the patents prior to 1836 were lost in the December 1836 fire. This patent's specification survives but the drawings are lost. The town of Coatesville, Pa., is named after Moses Coates. “In 1787, Moses Coates, a prosperous farmer and the area's first postmaster, purchased land which now comprises the center of the town.”

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