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Current mood:  accomplished Category: Art and Photography
Samuel O'Reilly
Little
has been written about Samuel O’Reilly, and most of what is known about
this New York City tattooist comes from newspaper articles and the 1933
book Tattoo, Secrets of a Strange Art as Practiced by the Natives of
the United States by Albert Parry. Parry described O’Reilly as an Irish
immigrant who holds the honor of patenting the first tattoo machine in
the United States. The year was 1891 and O'Reilly was already a well
established tattooist in New York City, having arrived around 1875.
It
is unclear if O'Reilly was able to capitalize on his patent idea,. Only
one of the machines is known to exist and it is without the unique tube
assembly. There is no information on O'Reilly ever selling this machine
or operating a supply business.
After Samuel O'Reilly was issued
his patent, many sideshow and circus attractions came to him for
additions to their collections, as well as tatooing lots of new
attractions, including John Hayes, Frank & Emma deBurgh, Calavan,
George Mellivan and Annie Howard, to name a few. Folks in the show
business world thought that his electric machine was faster and
produced cleaner work.
Samuel O'Reilly operated a shop on
Broadway and the Bowery in New York City but it was at #11 Chatham
Square where he made his name. The famous #11 Chatham Square shop was
not much more than an over-sized closet in the back of a barber shop.
O'Reilly
operated out of this space for several years, and his student Charlie
Wagner carried on there until his death in 1953. There are also stories
of O'Reilly working the summer crowds on the famed Still well Ave. of
Coney Island.
Albert Parry stated that Samuel O'Reilly died in 1908 from a fall while painting his home in Brooklyn, NY.
There
are two images with this article. The first is an illustration of what
O’Reilly may have looked like, to date no photographs of him are known
to exist. Next is a copy of the 1891 patent that Samuel O’Reilly was
issued.Special Thanks to Tattoo Archive. 
1:51 AM
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