Jerry,
Bill Weaver was a genius, although a bit quirky and ultimately with a rather dark side to his life.
IIRC, he was one of the first to grind lenses on a gang type device that held a number of lens blanks, the curvature of the device determining the contour of all lenses being ground.
I found a fair amount of material on him while researching the Charles Askins, Sr. Superposed that I ended up with. Here is a link to the Shotgunworld forum and the 1933 Superposed thread.
http://www.shotgunworld.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=124719&start=300DF