Joseph Nathan Kane

Joseph Nathan Kane, whose lifelong obsession with facts led him to write exhaustive reference works that cataloged such things as the nicknames of presidents, when the first Eskimo Pie was created (1922), when the first camels were brought to America (1721) and the precise patent number of the first safety pin in the United States, died Sept. 22 in West Palm Beach, Fla.

He was 103 and until a few years ago lived not far from where he was born as the 19th century ended, on the West Side of Manhattan.

Among Mr. Kane ' s books were " Famous First Facts: A Record of First Happenings, Discoveries and Inventions in the United States, " published in 1933; " More First Facts " (1935), which included information that somehow did not make it into the first book; " 1,000 Facts Worth Knowing " (1938); and " What Dog Is That? " (1944), an intensive summary of the characteristics of 122 purebreds recognized by the American Kennel Club.

He also wrote an official fact-filled history of the King Solomon Lodge No. 279 of the Free and Accepted Masons, of which he happened to be a member.

His books can be found in libraries across the country. His name is blessed by harried researchers and librarians who turn to his work when asked for encyclopedical minutiae by writers, editors and members of the fact-crazy American public. For the seekers of history ' s flyspecks, Mr. Kane was Solomon, Zeus and Jupiter all rolled into one.

History, he strongly felt, had little value unless it was based on fact bare fact, simple fact, unvarnished fact, brutal fact, stubborn fact, demonstrable fact, facts about huge events and factoids about long-ago doings seemingly so inconsequential that nobody cared about them.

He was not the first American factualist (Henry W. Ruoff edited a Standard Dictionary of Facts in 1914, when Mr. Kane was a teen-ager), but Mr. Kane, who worked alone, was arguably the genre ' s virtuoso.

He spent the better part of 100 years in the mustiest rooms of the dankest libraries, digging up facts. He would take them back to his cluttered West Side apartment, commit them to index cards, lovingly organize and catalog them and savor their presence until he set them free in his books.

Mr. Kane specialized in Americana because, he said, he knew that if he tried to include the rest of the world, it would be too much for him. And so in Mr. Kane ' s work one learns that James Madison was our shortest president, at 5 feet 4 inches, and that Madison ' s last words were, " I always talk better lying down. "

Mr. Kane was not just a trivialist he was a factualist with a conscience who cared passionately about giving credit where credit was due. He felt that some historical figures received credit for accomplishments that should have gone to people who were virtually unknown, like the New Yorker Walter Hunt, who is believed to have devised the first American stitch-lock sewing machine in 1832. Hunt failed to patent it, however, and so when the history of sewing machines was written, credit went to Elias Howe, A.B. Wilson and Isaac Singer, who came later but knew a thing or two about self-promotion.

" The credit, " Mr. Kane declared, " seemed to go to the inventor with the best publicity agent. "

It was with considerable pride that Mr. Kane determined that the first American commercially built automobiles were not the work of Henry Ford or Walter Chrysler or David Buick, but of Charles Edgar Duryea, who opened the Duryea Motor Wagon Co. in Springfield, Mass., in 1895.

From Mr. Kane ' s work one learned that Grover Cleveland had 20 nicknames, more than any other president. They included Dumb Prophet, Buffalo Hangman, Grover the Good, Old Veto and Perpetual Candidate.

Mr. Kane insisted that, contrary to what every schoolchild learned in third grade, the Declaration of Independence was not signed on July 4, 1776. He said it was " fairly engrossed on parchment " on July 19 of that year and not signed by 50 of those who agreed to it until Aug. 2. Six others did not sign it until even later.

Mr. Kane even determined that George Washington was not really the first president of the United States. Washington did not get the job until the Constitution was ratified. But Thomas McKean was named president of the United States back in 1781 by the Congress that convened under the Articles of Confederation eight years before Washington took office.

Mr. Kane disliked keeping facts to himself. He had a need to update his books with new facts, even when he was old and it was harder for him to go to the library. He lived on the 17th floor, but the elevator went only to the 15th floor and so he had to climb two flights every time he came home from a fact-finding mission.

People wondered if he would ever stop working. Despite his sedentary calling, Mr. Kane remained spry and active until he broke his hip when he was 97, his nephew David N. Kane said.

He told anyone who asked that he had made a Faustian pact with the devil. " I ' ll be ready to go two days after I finish my last project, " he said.

He long outlived that project, " Necessity ' s Child: The Story of Walter Hunt, America ' s Forgotten Inventor " (McFarland). It was about Mr. Kane ' s hero, the actual inventor of the sewing machine, not to mention the fountain pen and the safety pin.

Mr. Kane moved to Florida when he was in his mid 90s, but he sold his last book at the age of 98, his sister, Ann Kane Madier, said. He never married and she is his only immediate survivor.