Otis was born on August 3, 1811, in
Halifax, Vermont, to Stephen Otis and Phoebe Glynn. He moved away from home at the age of 19, eventually settling in
Troy, New York, where he lived for five years employed as a wagon driver. In 1834, he married Susan A. Houghton. They had two children, Charles and Norton. Later that year, Otis suffered a terrible case of
pneumonia which nearly killed him, but he earned enough money to move his wife and three-year-old son to the Vermont Hills on the
Green River. He designed and built his own
gristmill, but did not earn enough money from it, so he converted it into a
sawmill, yet still did not attract customers. Now having a second son, Otis started building wagons and carriages, at which he was fairly skilled. His wife later died, leaving him with two sons, one age eight and the other in infancy. In 1845, Otis moved to
Albany, New York, where he worked as a master mechanic in a
bedstead factory. During this period, he invented a railway safety brake. By 1852, he had moved to
Yonkers, New York to work at the Maize & Burns bedstead factory installing machinery. Otis contracted
diphtheria and died on April 8, 1861; he was 49 years old. He was buried in
Oakland Cemetery in
Yonkers, New York. ==Legacy==