DANFORTH ANCHOR - need information!

[Walt's Daughter]

Quote

 

 ...I was just looking on the web regarding Danforth anchors. I came across some posts on your site from 2012 from a researcher regarding the anchors.

My interest was purely personal, but I thought I could provide some interesting background for the fellow. My father, James Morrison, grew up in Berkeley, California in the 1920's and 1930's. He used to tell me stories of rowing out into the S.F. bay with "...old man Danforth..." and tossing anchors into the bay. This was, I think, in the early 1930's and possibly earlier. My father and his friends from his neighborhood were apparently just having fun getting to go out onto the bay.

 

My father also was friends with Robert Ogg, Danforth's nephew, and Robert Owens. Bobby Owens, his wife and family, were lifelong friends of our family; my mother's annual birthday party was always held at the Owens house in Berkeley on December 26th. I know Ogg was involved in the Danforth company at times, even claiming to be the actual inventor of the anchor that was patented in 1939 (I think that's the date). But, given the age of my father, Ogg, Owens, and the rest of those "kids", I find it hard to believe that Ogg was the inventor. I'm fairly certain Danforth was testing anchors well before Ogg would have been old enough to have even thought of anchor design. He certainly could have been involved shortly before the patent was issued as Ogg would have been in his early 20's by then.

 

That was really about it. This was a story I often heard my father reminiscing about fondly.

 

Your'e happy to pass the above on to the guy posting, and he's welcome to contact me. I think the info is probably of little use, but certainly could be background for his work.

 

Another side note, Bobby Owens developed some sort of landing system used during world war II on aircraft carriers for landing the darn planes on the carriers. I know almost nothing about that except that it apparently saved an awful lot of lives due to it's major improvement over the previous system.

 

Thanks,

 

Kegan Morrison

 

Passing along this info. Thank you Kegan!