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J. Clarke[_4_]

In article ,
says...

I'm finding it difficult, so far, to pin down the first tool driven by
other than hand, but here's something relevant to what we commonly call
power tools:

In 1895, 16 years after Thomas Edison invented the incandescent electric
lamp, the German engineering company C&E Fein combined the power of an
electric motor with a manual drill to develop the world's very first
power tool. (It was about 19 years later that Mr. Black and Mr. Decker
teamed up to improve on this invention by making it lighter, more
powerful and capable of being operated by a single DIYerg)

(maybe that's why they are so expensive... A company that old, if it
didn't properly fund its pension debt could have quite a bill coming due
120 years down the pike.g)

Interesting, but that's a very narrow definition of "power tool". Steam
locomotives are tools and the first of those went into service around
1804. And then there was John Henry and the steam drill . . .

I don't know when the first powered tool went into service, but the
Romans had a sawmill running around 300 AD.