In the mid to late 1940's I walked to school and every day I passed a sign nailed to a tree on Maple Street in Springfield, MA that read: "Here in 1836 Alonzo Phillips made the first friction match in America". This came from the Internet. In 1836 in the United States, Alonzo D. Phillips of Springfield, Massachusetts, obtained a patent for "manufacturing of friction matches" and called them locofocos. Bob