On January 25, 1799, Eliakim Spooner, received U.S. Patent Nos. X232 on a MACHINE FOR PLANTING CORN, BEANS, ETC, and X231 on a MACHINE FOR CUTTING CORN, BEANS, ETC. X232 was the first U.S. patent on a planter.

The records of these patents, issued before the Patent Office assigned them numbers, were destroyed in a patent office fire, so little is known beyond the titles. A little more is know about Eliakim: he was born April 7, 1740, in Dartmouth, Bristol, Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was a farmer. He served in the Revolutionary War as a private, Captain John Wheeler’s company, in Colonel Ephraim Doolittle’s regiment, and marched from Petersham on the Lexington alarm, serving 2 1/2 days. He married Bathsheba Warner on 28 July 1764, in Worcester, Massachusetts Bay Colony, and they had two sons Eliakim Spooner, Jr., who died young, and Alfred Spooner. Eliakim Spooner, Sr. died January 3, 1820, in Woodstock, Windsor, Vermont.