Hiram Percy Maxim

Hiram Percy Maxim was an American inventor and radio pioneer who co-founded the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) with Clarence D. Tuska. He is known for creating and marketing the first commercially successful firearm silencer, as well as developing mufflers for internal combustion engines.

Maxim was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1869, the son of Sir Hiram Maxim, inventor of the Maxim machine gun, and nephew of Hudson Maxim, an explosives inventor. He had two sisters. In 1875, the family moved to Fanwood, New Jersey, where his father joined them on weekends. At 17, Maxim graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a mechanical engineering degree, then worked for electric utility companies in Boston.

Starting in 1892, he worked at the American Projectile Company in Lynn, Massachusetts, while tinkering at night on his own internal combustion engine. He admitted he knew nothing about German engine developments and was shocked by how long it took to build a small engine. When he finally got it running, he found it noisy, shaky, and messy—far from the refined carriages he was used to.

In early 1895, Maxim visited Colonel Albert Pope in Hartford, leading to a job at the Pope Manufacturing Company’s Motor Vehicle Division. His vehicle wasn’t ready for the Times-Herald race that November, but he went to Chicago as an umpire, riding with the Electrobat II entry. In 1899, he drove a Pope Columbia gasoline car to victory in the first closed-circuit automobile race in the U.S., held in Branford, Connecticut. Columbia made gasoline cars until 1913 and was also a major producer of early electric vehicles.

From 1902 to 1909, Maxim focused on inventing, building, and selling firearm silencers, patenting his Maxim Silencer in 1909. He also developed mufflers for engines using similar technology.

He married Josephine Hamilton, daughter of former Maryland Governor William T. Hamilton, in 1898. They lived in Hartford and had a son, Hiram Hamilton Maxim, and a daughter, Percy Hamilton Maxim. Percy married John Glessner Lee, grandson of John J. Glessner. Their daughter, Percy Maxim Lee, was president of the League of Women Voters from 1950 to 1958, served on President Kennedy’s Consumer Advisory Council, advocated for presidential debates, and testified against Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1955.