[John Moses]. American inventor, born at Ogden, UT, of Mormon parentage. His father was a gunsmith. The son, from childhood, displayed remarkable talent for invention. In 1879 he secured his first patent for a breech-loading single-shot rifle. He made 600 of these guns in his Ogden shop before selling the patent to the Remington Company. He designed many types of sporting firearms such as the Remington autoloading shotguns and rifles; the Winchester repeating shotguns, single-shot and repeating rifles; the Stevens rifles; and the Colt automatic pistols. From all these he drew large royalties. In 1890 a machine-gun of his design, but known as the Colt, was adopted by the U.S. army. He always avoided publicity and in no case required that his invention bear his name. In one establishment alone was his name used, the Fabrique Nationale at Liége, Belgium, which fell into the hands of the Germans at the beginning of the World War, in 1914. Browning had shortly before been made a chevalier de l’Ordre de Léopold and decorated by King Albert, on the occasion of the completion of the millionth Browning automatic pistol at Liége. He later developed two types of machine-gun which were adopted by the United States in 1918 for use in the World War. One of these guns on test fired 39,000 rounds before breakage developed. In lieu of royalties, which would have amounted to some $10,000,000, he accepted from the U.S. Government a lump sum of $1,500,000.
