FOTD: Where did the phrase, “The Real McCoy” come from?
Published on February 24, 2011 by wbgene · No Comments
Elijah McCoy was born to parents who had escaped slavery using The Underground Railroad. The Canadian government gave his father George 160 acres of farmland in Ontario after he served in the 1837 Rebel War. Elijah parents managed to save enough money to send him to Edinburgh, Scotland to attend school to learn mechanical engineering in 1859-60.
About a year after the U.S. Civil War ended he moved to Ypslanti, Michigan where he got a job with the Michigan Central Railroad. They didn’t feel a Negro could be an engineer so they instead hired him as a fireman and oilman. He had to stoke the boiler and lubricate the steam cylinders and sliding parts of the train.
This is what led to him getting a patent for an oil-dripping cup, a self-regulating lubricator that utilized the steam pressure in the cylinders to operate the valve which then allowed the oil to lubricate the moving parts.
Many other inventors tried to copy McCoy’s invention but none of them worked nearly as well. This led to everyone who was purchasing the mechanism to ask, “Is it the real McCoy?” And that is where the familiar phrase originated.
