Each man independently came up with their own fencing variations. Jacob Haish devised a design that turns out to have been similar but inferior to the design that Glidden was developing. He set about to improve his designs and he also set about obtaining patents on his inventions including a patent on his famous "S" barb that would lead to battles and much contention among the inventors.
Originally Joseph Glidden tried attaching barbs to the standard wood fencing. Later he used a modifed coffee grinder to fashion his barbs then attached them at intervals to a piece of smooth wire. A second wire twisted about to hold the barbs in place. It was the addition of this second wire and its stated purpose - to hold the barbs securely in place and keep them from sliding - that figured heavily in some of the disputes involving earlier patents for barbs on double-strand wire. Glidden's most successful design "The Winner" was finally patented in November 1874.
Isaac Ellwood gave up on his own tinkering after seeing the supiority of Glidden's design. Recognizing a business opportunity, the two men soon became partners in what would become the major barbed wire manufacturing concern in DeKalb.
Patent, patent, who's got the patent?
Glidden and Ellwood's Barb Fence Company began manufacturing large quantities of its new wire. Wanting to return to his farming and leave the fencing business behind, Glidden eagerly sold out his share of the business when the Washburn and Moen Company of Massachusetts approached the businessmen.
The new I.L. Ellwood and Washburn & Moen Company soon acquired many of the existing barbed wire patents - important patents that gave them nearly undisputed control of the entire barbed wire industry. However, Jacob Haish played his part in insuring that this near monopoly didn't come easily. It was a battle stretching into the 1880s involving the investigation of hundreds of claims, determining who had precedence, buying up patents, and defending against the claims of others.
Don't fence me in | The first barbs | Barbed wire patents | Pitchin' fences | XIT Ranch | The fence-cutters' war | The big die-up | Barbed wire then and now