Tabitha Babbitt was an early American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 tool maker who is credited with inventing the first circular saw

Circular saw

The circular saw is a machine using a toothed metal cutting disc or blade. The term is also loosely used for the blade itself. The blade is a tool for cutting wood or other materials and may be hand-held or table-mounted. It can also be used to make narrow slots...

 used in a saw mill in 1813. It is also claimed that she invented a process for the manufacture of false teeth and an improved spinning wheel head.She was a member of the Shaker community in Harvard, Massachusetts

Harvard, Massachusetts

Harvard is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. A farming community settled in 1658 and incorporated in 1732, it has been home to several non-traditional communities, such as Harvard Shaker Village and the utopian Transcendentalist center Fruitlands...

.

She was watching men use the difficult two-man pit saw when she noticed that half of their motion was wasted. The first circular saw she made is in Albany

Albany, New York

Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...

, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. She also shares the invention of cut nails with Eli Whitney

Eli Whitney

Eli Whitney was an American inventor best known for inventing the cotton gin. This was one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution and shaped the economy of the Antebellum South...

. As a Shaker, Babbitt never patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

ed any of her inventions.