Whitcomb L. Judson Whitcomb L. Judson Whitcomb L. Judson (March 7, 1846 – December 7, 1909) was an American machine salesman, mechanical engineer and inventor. Judson invented the zipper in the 1890s. Judson was born in Chicago, Illinois. According to the 1860 census, he lived in Illinois, and served in the Union army. He enlisted in 1861 at Oneida, Illinois in the Forty-Second Illinois Cavalry. Judson attended Knox College in his hometown Galesburg, Illinois. He was found in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1886. In 1886 and 1887 the Minneapolis city directory identifies Judson as a "traveling agent" — a traveling salesman working probably for
Phoebe Judson 20 cattle. On March 1, 1871, Judson and Holden, with Dollie, Nellie, and their sons Bonta and George (now 17 and 12, respectively), moved to the Nooksack Valley. Judson's daughter Annie had married Eason Ebey (son of the beheaded Isaac Ebey), and her second daughter Mary stayed on Whidbey Island in order to attend school for another six months. When Judson returned to the island in September 1871 to retrieve Mary, Eason Ebey read her the poem "" (by Thomas Campbell). This poem would later be the inspiration for the name "Lynden". Because there were no roads to Whatcom, the