Murfey received three patents on the same day for lubricated journal boxes and bearings used in railroad car axles.
On October 4, 1870, Eliza Murfey was granted three patents in a single day — US 108,079, 108,080, and 108,081 — all relating to lubricated journal boxes and bearings for railroad car axles. These inventions refined the mechanisms by which oil-soaked packing material was held in contact with rotating axle surfaces, improving the consistency of lubrication delivery under the stresses of continuous rail travel.
Notably, US 108,081 was assigned to the Manhattan Packing Manufacturing Company, indicating that Murfey had already established a formal commercial relationship with an industrial manufacturer willing to license and produce her designs at scale — a significant achievement for a woman inventor in this period, when access to manufacturing capital and industrial partnerships was rare.
The clustering of three related patents on a single day illustrates the systematic, almost engineering-firm-like approach Murfey took to her inventive work, methodically covering variations and refinements of her core lubrication concept to build a defensible patent portfolio. This day was one of several such multi-patent grants she received in 1870 alone, and it cemented her reputation as a serious contributor to railroad safety technology rather than an occasional or amateur inventor.