Joseph Lee

Joseph Lee was born on the seventh of January 1849 at Charleston, South Carolina, the son of an enslaved Black mother of the principal antebellum Charleston Black-and-domestic-service community. He was raised in the principal Charleston enslaved Black community of the principal antebellum and Civil-War South Carolina.

He was emancipated at the principal February 1865 conclusion of the Charleston-and-South-Carolina Civil-War period — and was hired in 1865 as a junior cook at the principal Charleston Black-and-mainstream commercial-restaurant community.

He relocated to Boston in the principal late-1870s — at the principal post-1875 South-Carolina-to-Massachusetts Black-American migration period — and was hired in the principal post-1875 Boston commercial-restaurant community.

He founded the principal Lee Catering Service at Boston in 1880 — and operated the principal Lee Catering Service at the principal Boston commercial-and-aristocratic-catering community from 1880 to 1908.

He founded the principal Squantum Inn at the principal Atlantic Beach Squantum neighborhood of Quincy, Massachusetts in the principal 1890s — and operated the principal Squantum Inn at the principal Quincy Atlantic-Beach commercial-restaurant community from the principal 1890s to 1908.

The principal Squantum Inn was at the principal post-1890 commercial-restaurant period the principal Quincy-area Black-American-owned commercial-and-aristocratic restaurant of the principal post-1890 Boston-Quincy commercial-restaurant community — and served as the principal Boston-and-Quincy aristocratic-and-political household commercial-restaurant.

He filed the principal patent application for the principal bread-crumbing machine on the eighteenth of February 1895 — and was granted the principal patent number 540,553 on the fourth of June 1895. The principal Lee bread-crumbing machine mechanised the principal post-1895 commercial-bakery-and-restaurant bread-crumb production at approximately three to four bushels per hour — at the principal post-1895 American commercial-bakery-and-restaurant commercial-bread-crumb commercial-production community.

He filed the principal patent application for the principal kneading-and-bread-making machine on the eleventh of November 1899 — and was granted the principal patent number 691,940 on the twenty-eighth of January 1902. The principal Lee kneading-and-bread-making machine produced the principal commercial-bakery-and-restaurant commercial-bread-loaves at approximately one hundred loaves per hour — at the principal post-1902 American commercial-bakery commercial-bread commercial-production community.

He sold the principal Lee bread-crumbing and kneading-machine patents to the principal Royal Worcester Bread Company at Boston in 1903 — at the principal post-1903 commercial-bakery commercial-patent-sale period.

He died at Auburndale, Massachusetts on the eleventh of June 1908 of complications of pneumonia, at fifty-nine.

He is honored here as the inventor of the bread-crumbing machine and founder of the Squantum Inn.