Jerome Babe

Jerome Lewellyn Babe (February 4, 1837 – April 8, 1893) was an American diamond miner and inventor.

Biography Babe, an American, arrived in the Cape Colony (modern-day South Africa) circa 1865 as a sales representative for the Winchester Repeating Arms Company and also as a special correspondent for the New York World. He arrived in Colesberg, Cape Colony on June 12, 1870 and by July 4 was at Jacobsdal, Orange Free State. At Jacobsdal he demonstrated the 1866 .44 Henry Winchester rifle's quick firing by shooting 16 rounds in ten seconds, resulting in a large number of sales.

Once he completed his work for Winchester and the newspaper, Babe found that he had several months before his scheduled return journey. He decided to enter into diamond mining, having previously had experience prospecting in California. This machine was first used at the Vaal River field in 1871 and became known as the "Yankee Baby" or simply the "Baby" after Babe's surname.

Sales of the Baby, income from excavating diamonds, sales of diamonds purchased from other miners, and profits from "grubstakes" (whereby he earned a cut of profits from miners to whom Babe provided capital, materials or provisions) made Babe a fortune.

Babe was robbed of $10,000 worth of diamonds from a stagecoach in York, Pennsylvania in July 1872. After returning to the Cape, his ventures became unprofitable and, after losing his money, he returned to America in 1873.