 Elijah was born in Canada in 1843 to two fugitive slaves. They had escaped from Kentucky with help from the Underground Railroad. They eventually returned to the United States and settled in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Elijah's parents were poor, but they managed to save enough money to send him to Scotland at 15 so he could study mechanical engineering. It paid off. When Elijah came back to the United States, he went to work for the Michigan Central Railroad. Trains at the time were no good. They overheated constantly and needed to be completely stopped and cooled down just to replace the oil. These stops cost the railroad's countless hours of lost time. But that all changed in 1872 when Elijah patented a brilliant new device that automatically oiled locomotive parts while the trains kept moving. It was a massive breakthrough. And his invention was so good that other engineers quickly started copying his work. Nothing came close. No matter what his competitors came up with, Elijah's engineering skills were unmatched. And Elijah didn't stop inventing. By the time he died in 1929 at the age of 86, Elijah, the son of former slaves born 20 years before the Civil War, had earned 57 patents and founded his own successful manufacturing company. His very name became famous for superior quality. As the railroad workers used to say, anything less just wasn't the real McCoy. More stories about men and women like Elijah McCoy can be found in Lawrence W. Reed's new book, Real Heroes. Published by ISI Books. Buy it now at store.fee.org.