ALDEN, Timothy, inventor, born in Barnstable, Massachusetts, in 1819; died in New York, 4 December 1858. He was the sixth in descent from John Alden, of "Mayflower" fame. When very young, setting type in his brother's printing office, he said:" If I live, I will invent a machine to do this tiresome work." He labored steadily; devoted his leisure to study, and in 1846 began the construction of a composing and distributing machine. His idea was to arrange the type in cells around the circumference of a horizontal wheel. By the rotation of the wheel, several receivers are also made to rotate, and these pick up the proper types from their respective cells. His brother, Henry W. Alden, made many improvements after the death of the inventor.