46 Evans, "Account," Archives of Useful Knowledge,
volume 2 (1812), page 364.
47Aurora, 25 June 1812.
48 Niles' Weekly Register, Volume 1 (1 February 1812), page 407.
The "chief artist," Isaac Sanford, patented a 'Frances Trollope,
Domestic Manners of the Americans, edited by Donald Smalley (New York, 1949),
page 376.
49 Hutton, "First Engines," Transactions of the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers, volume 15 (1894), page 984; Hunt's
Merchants' Magazine, volume 34 (June 1856), page 673.
50 Minutes, Providence Iron Foundry, 21 June 1827, volume 1,
Slater collection, Baker Library. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts;
H. N. Slater to William Tiffany and Company, 5 March 1830, letter book, volume
14, Steam Cotton Manufacturing Company, Slater collection, Baker Library.
51 McLane Report, volume 1, page 927.
52 Edward S. Wilkinson to Elisha Dyer, 16 December 1861, in
Transactions of the Rhode Island Society for the Encouragement of Domestic
Industry ... 1861, page 88.
53 Niles' Weekly Register, volume 48 (8 August 1835), page 397.
54 Woodbury Report, pages 88-89; Scientific American, volume 5
(20 July 1850), page 346.
55 Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, volume 34 (June 1856), page 673.
56 McLane Report, volume 1, page 927.
57 Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, volume 34 (June 1856), page 673.
58 Quoted in Morrill Wyman, "Memoir of Daniel
Treadwell," Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, volume
11 (1888), page 344.
59 Deposition of Amos Binney et al., 7 February 1818, in John L.
Sullivan, Explanation, by John L. Sullivan, of the Nature of Certain Grants to
Him for the Use of Steam, Boats on Connecticut River... (no place, 1818), page
31.
60 Woodbury Report, pages 41-44, page 354.
61 Copeland, Cotton Manufacturing, page 28n.
62 Niles' Weekly Register, volume 35 (31 January 1829), page 366.
63 Zachariah Allen, Science of Mechanics, page 352n; H.N. Slater
to Major Durfee, 18 July 1830 and Samuel Slater to Delaware and Hudson Canal
Company, 23 April 1831, letter book, volume 14, Steam Cotton Manufacturing
Company, Slater collection, Baker Library.
64 Niles' Weekly Register, volume 61 (29 January 1842), page 352.
In 1840 a New York City editor claimed that he knew of no stationary engine in
that city in which fuel other than coal was used. American Repertory, volume I
(March 1840), page 136.
65 John Grammer, Jr., "Account of the Coal Mines in the
Vicinity of Richmond, Virginia," American Journal of Science, volume 1
(1818), pages 125-130.
66 Hunt's Merchants Magazine, volume 15 (August 1846), page 213.
67 Woodbury Report, pages 20, 27, 30-31,33.
68 Samuel Webber, Manual of Power for Machines, Shafts, and
Belts, With the History of Cotton Manufacture in the United States (Revised
edition, New York ' 18 7 9), pages 50-51.
69 John Clowes, "Steam and Water as Motive Powers,"
National Magazine and Industrial Record, volume I (October 1845), page 448.
70 Scientific American, volume 4 (12 May 1849), page 269.
71 Clowes, "Steam and Water," National Magazine and
Industrial Record, volume 1 (1845), pages 448, 444.
72 Woodbury Report, passim. It should be noted that engines were
more conveniently counted in cities than in rural areas, a fact which no doubt
prejudices these figures somewhat. As noted above, Louisiana was an exception
to this rule of urban use.
73 Ibid., page 162.
74 Ibid., page 156.
75 Niles' Weekly Register, volume 40 (16 July 1831), page 344;
Job R. Tyson, "Resources and Progress of Philadelphia," De Bow's
Review, volume 15 (July 1853), page 48.
Chapter
7
(pp
94-99)
The
Industry Established
In
arranging the power for the Newark
Machine
Works, I procured an engine
of
about 35 horsepower. . . of good con-
struction....
With this engine we drive
14
lathes for iron, 3 for wood work,
4
planers for iron, and one . . . for wood;
4
drills and one boring and one tenoning
machine,
splinter and bolt cutters, two
circular
saws, punching and shearing
machines,
two trip hammers, a large
blacking
mill, and fan --blower
for forges
and
foundry....
JOSEPH
E. [HOLMES (1855)1
Just as the number and the
use of steam engines expanded enormously during the Jacksonian period, so did
the making of engines become widespread and systematized. At the end of the War
of 1812, engine-makers were few and were concentrated in the three centers of
New York, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. By the middle of the century, engine
shops were found in nearly every sizable town in the country. A general
knowledge of steam was even more widely spread. At the turn of the century, the
venerable iron manufacturer and mill designer John Fritz reminisced that when
be became an apprentice in a Parkesburg, Pennsylvania, blacksmith's shop in
1838, he discovered that his new master had built his own steam engine. Fritz
wrote that in those days a mechanic in like circumstances "would have to
make his own drawings and patterns, make his own forging, and fit the work all
up, without tools, except makeshifts. Today, as many men work on an engine as
there are parts to it, and each man has a special machine, specially designed
to do his work on."2 The significant point is not that a small‑town
blacksmith had to improvise in building an engine in 1838, but that he could
even build a workable engine.
The Middle Atlantic States remained
the center of American engine building throughout the first half of the
nineteenth century. Philadelphia had 174 steam engines in 1838, of which at
least 133 were built by the forty-four local makers then listed as having
engines operating within the city. Rush and Muhlenberg successors to Oliver
Evans—had the largest local trade and were, along with Daniel Large, the
only holdovers from the earlier period. Twenty men were listed as having made
only one engine each, indicating that it was not uncommon for a handy mechanic
to make an engine on occasion, without having any particular connection with
engine building as a business. Among the engine builders mentioned in the
Philadelphia city directory for 1840, only one called himself a "steam engine
maker," the rest preferring the title "machinist" or
"machinist and iron founder."3
In addition to its fame as a
center of engine and machine building, Philadelphia by the 1850s had also made
a reputation in the closely allied manufacture of iron ships. Fabricators of
steam boilers, having the necessary equipment and experience in working sheets
of iron, pioneered in the building of iron ships in this country. One of the
largest firms in this business was Reaney, Neafie, & Company, which was
formed in 1844 by two mechanics, Thomas Reaney and Jacob G. Neafie. The latter
had been an apprentice of Thomas Halloway, a prominent stationary engine
builder of the city. John Roach, perhaps the most famous iron shipbuilder of
postwar Philadelphia, moved to that city after serving his apprenticeship
in New York under James P. Allaire.4 His exodus from New York was
not surprising for while New York City continued to be the center of
traditional wooden ship construction, the building of iron ships along the
Delaware River was earning it a sobriquet as the "American Clyde."
LEADING
PHILADELPHIA ENGINEMAKERS—18385
|
|
Number
of Engines Operating
|
|
Enginemakers
|
in
Philadelphia in 1838
|
|
Rush and
Muhlenberg
|
26
|
|
Levi
Morris
|
24
|
|
Hyde and
Flint
|
15
|
|
M. H. Baldwin
|
12
|
|
Stacy
Costell
|
10
|
|
Thomas
Halloway
|
7
|
|
James
Brooke
|
6
|
|
Daniel
Large
|
5
|
|
Prosper
Martin
|
4
|
|
James T.
Sutton
|
4
|
Starting in the 1830s,
Philadelphia engine-makers also gained a considerable reputation for the construction
of locomotives. This success can be traced to the wide knowledge of stationary
engines already possessed by local mechanics. Oliver Evans' early idea of
building workable steam carriages for use on common roads had never completely
died. About 1828 a group of promoters built a carriage at the machine shop of
Nicholas and James Johnson in Kensington. This low-powered vehicle had a single
cylinder, set horizontally, with connecting‑rod attachment to a single
crank at the middle of the driving axle. The machine was abandoned after a
faulty steering device caused it to careen into a shop window.6
The real stimulation to
activity, however, was the announcement in 1831 that trials had been scheduled to
select a locomotive for Baltimore and Ohio Railroad service. A number of makers
of stationary engines in Philadelphia entered the competition. Stacy Costell,
already famous for engines he had built with vibrating cylinders, now built a
locomotive with two six-inch cylinders of twelve-inch stroke. It was tried out
later on the Columbia Railroad, after which it was broken up and the boilers
set to work supplying a stationary engine. Thomas Halloway, another prominent
builder of stationary engines, also began a locomotive for the trials, but it
was never finished.7
The most famous Philadelphia
engine builder was Matthias Baldwin. Starting as an apprentice with the jewelry
firm of Woolworth Brothers, he later became a machine-maker specializing in
engraved copper rolls for calico printing. Baldwin made an engine for his own
use in 1827 and then built engines for sale; this trade "became extensive
and profitable." He became interested in the Baltimore and Ohio trials of
1831 and later became one of the world's leading manufacturers of locomotives.
Joseph Harrison, another
leading Philadelphia locomotive builder, also had a background in stationary
steam engine construction. At the age of fifteen he was apprenticed to an
engine builder named Frederick D. Sanno. When Sanno's business failed, Harrison
went to work for James Flint of the firm of Hyde and Flint. Before his
indenture had run out, he became foreman of this shop at the age of twenty-two.
After working for a time with the locomotive builders and innovators William
Norris and Colonel Stephen H. Long, he was hired as foreman by Garret and
Eastwick, another Philadelphia engine-building firm. He became a partner in the
enterprise, which soon began building locomotives. Between 1844 and 1851 he
built railroad equipment in St. Petersburg, Russia. Samuel Wright, who had been
an apprentice with Harrison in the shops of Flint and Hyde, joined with the
stationary engine-maker James Brooke to make two experimental locomotives.8
Other Philadelphia
experimenters built one or more locomotives during this same period, but the
construction of railroad engines quickly became a separate branch of the
machine-making trade. Most of those stationary engine-makers who took an early
fling at locomotive construction came to realize that there was more to it than
merely placing an engine on a cart and soon went back to their familiar work.
The industry, nevertheless, took firm root in Philadelphia, and Harrison wrote
in later life that the city's workers "can be found everywhere, and for
nearly forty years Philadelphia skill has been sought for to fill responsible
places in all parts of the United States, in the West Indies, in South America
and in Europe, and even in British India."9
To a lesser degree,
stationary engine-makers in other cities went through the same pattern of
trying their hands at building locomotives. In Boston, Holmes Hinkley made the
transition smoothly and gained a wide reputation for the excellence of his
engines. The pioneer Pittsburgh firm of McClurg, Wade & Company built five
locomotives between 1834 and 1837, but then relinquished this line of work.
Minus Ward of Baltimore saw in the locomotive a possible use for his patented
rotary engine and conducted several trials before giving up the enterprise In
New York, William James, a large-scale maker of stationary engines,
experimented in 1833 with a steam carriage, "Calculated to run on a common
turnpike road, also adapted to railroads."10 They, like most of
the Philadelphia makers, soon gave up building this type of engine.
Unlike Philadelphia, New York
City did not become a center of locomotive building, but it continued to
produce large numbers of marine and stationary engines. Charles Stoudinger's
former partner James P. Allaire, who upon Fulton's death purchased his works,
continued for many years to be one of the leading engine-makers of the city.
His business increased so fast that during the 1820s he purchased some eight
thousand acres of timberland at Howell, New Jersey, to ensure a supply of
charcoal iron for his enterprise. After an initial success, this proved to be
an ill-advised move when, in the 1840s, Pennsylvania iron made with anthracite
gained wide preference for use in general machine work."
Allaire's New York works
employed approximately six hundred persons in 1831 and by 1847 his plant
produced two hundred thousand dollars worth of iron goods. It continued in the
manufacture of steam engines and boilers, heavy machinery, and a general
machine business, but by 1853 it was principally engaged in building engines
for ocean, lake, and river steamers.' 12
Robert McQueen's engine shop
was still operating in New York in 1832, but its size was eclipsed by that of
Paul A. Sabbaton. By 1810 the latter had been given "general
superintendence of the late Mr. John Youle's foundry establishment" in New
York City where, as he later remarked, he had witnessed the "continual
exertions" of Robert Fulton to "obtain workmen who understood to work
from drawings." From his early experience during the heroic period of
steam engineering in America, Sabbaton went on to found his own extensive
engine‑building firm, and by 1838 his engines were operating in mills
from New England to the Gulf States.13
Other prominent New York
firms at mid-century included the Archimedes Works, started in 1833, and Hogg
and Delamater's Iron Foundry, begun in 1835. The former, which operated at two
sites in the city, employed 220 workmen and manufactured annually $235,000
worth of engines, sugar mills, dredging machines (of "improved" design),
and "iron vessels of various descriptions."14 Hogg and
Delamater's foundry employed 150 workers and produced each year $250,000 worth
of engines and other machinery. By 1853
these firms had been joined by the Morgan Iron Works and by Guyon, Boardman,
and Company. Guyon had been a leading engineer with the Morgan firm before
building his own works, which were housed at the foot of Eighth Street in a
building 200 by nearly 100 feet and three stories high. This establishment,
exclusively for the manufacture of steam engines,15 contained a
brass foundry, machine shop, blacksmith's shop, and storage space. By 1855 a
total of 3,130 men were employed in seventeen engine‑building firms in
the city, and the largest of them was the Novelty Works.16
During the late 1820s Dr.
Eliphalet Nott, president of Union College at Schenectady and an indefatigable
inventor, had begun work on an ill-fated steamboat named Novelty because the arrangement of its machinery was a
novelty. In this work he enjoyed the aid of Hezekiah Bliss—friend of
Fulton, partner of Daniel French, and steamboat builder and captain on his own
account.17 The engine for the experimental vessel was built at a
foundry on the East River in New York City. The foundry later was named the Novelty
Works after Nott's boat and was supervised by Bliss for some years. The works
continued to operate until the wearing out of the machinery and the sharply
rising land prices in the area led to abandonment of the site in 1870.
The
Novelty Iron Works, circa 1840, located at the foot of 12th Street and the East
River, New York City. To the left are the boiler shop, smith shop, and machine
shop. At the rear is the iron foundry, and at the right are the pattern house,
the paint shop, and two unidentified buildings.
1 Scientific American, volume 10 (16 June 1855), page 315.
2 John Fritz, Autobiography of John Fritz (New York, 1912), pages
32-33.
3 A. M'Elroy's Philadelphia Directory, for 1840 (Philadelphia,
1840), passim.
4 "John Roach," Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography, volume 5, page 268.
5 Woodbury Report, page 156.
6 Joseph Harrison, Jr., The Locomotive Engine, and Philadelphia's
Share in Its Early Improvement (Revised edition, Philadelphia, 1872), pages
19-20.
7 Ibid., pages 30-3 1.
8 See sketch of Harrison in Dictionary of American Biography,
volume 8, pages 345-346; Harrison, Locomotive Engine, pages 56, 57.
9 Harrison, Locomotive Engine, page 60.
10 John H. White, Cincinnati Locomotive Builders, 1845-1868, U.S.
National Museum Bulletin 245 (Washington, 1965), page 8; Minus Ward, Remarks,
Propositions and Calculations, Relative to a Rail-Road and Locomotive Engines
to be Used upon the Same, from Baltimore to the Ohio River (Baltimore, April
1827), pp. v-vi; Thomas Richard Thomson, Check List of Publications on American
Railroads before 1841 (New York, 1942), page 69.
11 Sketch of Allaire in Dictionary of American Biography, volume
1, page 182; Brown, Allaire's Lost Empire, page 33; Morrison, Steam Navigation,
page 180.
12 Niles' Weekly Register, volume 40 (27 August1831), page 452;
Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, volume 16 (January 1847), page 93; Scientific
American, volume 9 (17 December 1853), page 110.
13 McLane Report, volume 2, page 115; Woodbury Report, passim;
Affidavit of Paul A. Sabbaton, 19 December 1838, in Heirs of Robert Fulton, 27
January 1846, House Document 145, 29th Congress, I session, page 17.
14 Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, volume 16 (January 1847), page 93
15 Scientific American, volume 9 (17 December 1853), page 110;
ibid., volume 8 (22 January 1853), page 149.
16 Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, volume 37 (September 1857), page
382.
17 Preble, Chronological History, pages 58-59. Bliss' account of
this story is given in "Resolution of Mr. Beekman on the Petition of
Levinus Vanderheyden, Neziah Bliss and Joseph D. Monnell," Documents of
the Senate of the State of New-York, Seventy-Sixth Session. 1853, Document 68,
volume 2 (Albany, 1853), pages 3-5.
Chapter
8
Developing
Engine Design
We
cannot have discoveries every few days,
like
those of the steam engine, the steamboat,
the
spinning jenny.... The progress
of discovery is a gradual one: the
trimming
off a superfluous shaft here, and
a
wheel, crank or drum there, produces
important
though not very striking results,
and
upon such improvements in the
aggregate
(and sometimes a very simple
one in the minutia of complex machines,)
depend the whole economics of the machinery‑its
profits and losses.
SCIENTIFIC American (1849)1
Even while they sought to
master the techniques and to provide for the needs of engine manufacture,
American steam engineers attempted to improve the product of their shops.
Although the typical stationary steam engine in this country at mid-century was
a considerably better product than its predecessor of fifty years before, it
was not radically different from, or better than, an English engine of the same
period. Improvement had gone on independently in the Old World and the New, but
there was constant communication between the two: engineers and publications
crossed the Atlantic in both directions and in increasing numbers. Added to
this was the fact that the inherent logic of the steam engine tended to limit
the potential number of improvements. The achievement of American engineers lay
not so much in surpassing their English counterparts—although in some
cases they did—but in succeeding in exploring and mastering an inherited
technology which was itself in a process of evolution.
As soon as the Watt
improvements were available in America, the old-type Newcomen engine was
immediately abandoned. When Oliver Evans patented and introduced his
high-pressure Columbian engine in 1804, the battle was joined between his
partisans and those of Watt's low-pressure, condensing system. James Watt had
considered the use of pressures above that of the atmosphere, but abandoned the
plan.
While still an apprentice in
the 1770s, Evans had witnessed the expansive power of steam but "formed no
idea of the means of its application, until he met with a description of an
atmospheric steam engine." He claimed to be "astonished to find that
the steam was not applied as the prime
mover, but only as the means to form a vacuum -- to apply the weight of the atmosphere. This he conceived to
be a great error."2 Drawing upon his rather inaccurate
knowledge of the history of the steam engine, Evans declared that "this
invention and discovery of Newcomen's, made from the hints given by doctor
Hooke . . . was the first step . . . from the simple path of nature! Here they
lost sight of the true principle discovered by the Marquis of Worcester."3
With a touch of bitterness, Evans confessed that "to philosophy we are
indebted for many of our most useful discoveries; yet," he continued,
"this single case should put our philosophy to the blush, and teach us,
however learned we may be, to listen with the closest attention, even to what
the most illiterate mechanician, who has taken the simple works of nature for
his guide, may say."4
Evans stopped short of
calling himself a babe and suckling, but the implication was clear: nature's
plan and true proportion had been betrayed into the toils of sophisticated, but
specious, reasoning. Evans, the simple American mechanic, had rediscovered the
true path of advancement. Benjamin Henry Latrobe, who was anything but a simple
mechanic, later claimed to have been asked by Evans why engines in England were
not built to use high steam. Latrobe replied by citing the abortive efforts of
Hornblower, Symington, and Murphy in this direction. He pointed out that these
engines "had been found to have so many inconveniences attached to
them" that each had been abandoned.5 Evans, however, sought
explanations, not precedents. Inveighing against "the mighty and infallible
opinions of Englishmen," he condemned
their belief that "no inventions, improvements, or original ideas, at
least possessed of merit, can spring from any other quarter of the world, than
the 'fast anchored isle'."6 Evans' feeling that science had
presided over the birth of the low-pressure engine but not that of his own has
been perpetuated by later writers.
When Evans introduced his
Columbian engine in 1804, it faced immediate and bitter opposition. Latrobe led
the opposition and never became reconciled to either Evans or his engine. He
based his position on the facts that the high‑pressure engine was too
sensitive to the pressure of steam in the boiler, thus moving "unequally
& precariously," and the danger of working with "the enormous
force of the Steam on the boiler." In contrast, he maintained, the Watt
engine worked with "no inconvenience or inequality" and was "as
safe as a clock."7 Ironically, Latrobe finally recommended the
use of high-pressure steam, but in engines not made on the Evans plan.
Evans always complained that
he was forced to watch his improvements exploited, even while their validity
was being denied. Latrobe was only the most obvious offender in this respect.
Daniel French, the early builder of western steamboats, expressed surprise in
1814 that Evans should pretend to any improvement in his use of high steam.
"For my part," he wrote, "I never save now heard of any Engine
but what used Steam more or less above the pressure of the atmosphere."8
In fact, French had already built at least one steamboat, equipped with a
"Seesaw" oscillating engine, "worked with high Steam without a
Condenser. with a double Circular boiler."9
Part of this opposition to Evans
and his claims was based upon a real reluctance to employ high-pressure steam
because of the great danger involved when raising steam in the crudely made
boilers of that time. Some of the resistance, however, was brought on by Evans'
claim to have patented the very use of high pressure, regardless of whether in
an engine of his design or not. When Thomas Copeland began to build engines in
Pittsburgh, "upon the principles of the celebrated WATT &
BOLTON," in 1813, he maintained "that he cannot be prevented from
using steam of any elastic force. It cannot be pretended," he concluded,
"that this is a new discovery."10 Evans, however, thought
differently. He made a clear distinction between his patented steam engines and
what he considered his patented principles, but continued to warn against the
unauthorized use of either.
Evans' steam-engine patent,
issued first in 1804, was extended by an act of Congress in 1815 and did not
expire until 1825. By the latter date, however, high-pressure steam was widely used
in steamboats on the western rivers and was almost universal among stationary
engines all over the country. Appearing before the Select Committee of the
House of Commons, on Steam Navigation, the American Consul at Liverpool
testified that in the United States, "all condensing engines are called
low‑pressure." Even these, he claimed, were sometimes worked at a
pressure of twenty pounds to the square inch.11 "An American low pressure engine
(so called)," it was said, "is very commonly of low pressure only by
courtesy." In 1834 an observer in Cincinnati, Ohio, counting sixty engines
operating in that town, noted that they were "all high pressure," and spoke for a whole section
when he added: "low pressure engines are not in good repute in the
west." By 1838 only a small number of low‑pressure engines were
listed as being at work in American mills.12
The second major development
in American steam engines during the first half of the nineteenth century was
acceptance of the principle that, for greater efficiency, steam should be used
expansively. Once again, Watt had already anticipated this development, having
used it as early as 1782, but it is not clear whether the first engines of his
design in America adopted this practice. Oliver Evans recommended that his
Columbian engines be driven by expansive steam, and in his handbook for
engineers he included a table "showing the proper time to shut off the
steam" on each stroke.13 Latrobe,
always ready to belittle Evans' work, commented that "Evans shuts it off,
to save his Engines from destruction, (as do all the high steam Engine makers
in England) and uses the expansive power alone & separately."14
It was Latrobe's opinion that
Francis B. Ogden, nephew of the famous Governor Aaron Ogden of New Jersey, was
the true inventor of the expansive use of steam.15 In 1811 Ogden,
with his uncle and Daniel Dod, had built a steamboat to operate between New
Jersey and New York. This same year he drew plans for an engine of two
cylinders working at right angles and using steam expansively; it was patented
in 1813. According to the specifications for this patent, Ogden planned to use
"two or more cylinders in such a manner as to form one engine, with the
view to cutting off the steam, of whatever pressure, at 1/4, 1/3, or 1/2 the
stroke of the piston, and using it expansively for the residue."16
Whether Ogden's engines were
directly responsible for the acceptance of expansive steam in this country is
perhaps a moot point. Latrobe built an engine in 1815, on Ogden's plan, for a
woolen mill in Steubenville, Ohio. He called this engine "the most
powerful Machine I have ever seen," and suggested to Ogden that it be
worked "with high steam without an air pump."17 The following year, Ogden
placed one of his engines in a steamboat operating on the James River in
Virginia, and in 1816 he made a journey to England where he met the venerable
Watt. When asked to comment on the novelty of Ogden's engine, Watt answered
that although the arrangement of the cylinders was new, "the expansive power
of steam has been long used in Cornwall, where much larger engines are erected
than are at first required: of course, they are not put to their full work; 1/4
or 1/3 of the power being sufficient, the cylinders are only thus far filled
with steam, and the residue of the stroke is made by expansion."18
It has been reported that
Ogden's patent was freely infringed on the western rivers, and that Murray and
Company, of Leeds, England, after making an engine under Ogden's direction,
used the patterns to produce others for the American market.19 It may be assumed,
therefore, that Ogden's principles were fairly widely known by the 1820s. Even
so, it seems likely that, since the high-pressure engine became the common type
for stationary purposes, it was more through Evans than Ogden that the use of
expansive steam became widespread. At any rate, it was said in 1854 that
"almost every engine is now so worked."20
A third area of improvement
in American steam engines was the positioning of the cylinders. At the
beginning of the century all engines used vertical cylinders with beams. By
mid-century the cylinder was usually placed horizontally. John Fitch was the
first American inventor to attempt to build an engine with a horizontal
cylinder, planning to place one in his steamboat of 1786. When he informed
Josiah Hornblower of this intention, the latter warned against it. Fitch had
conceived that plan "for the following reasons, to prevent its being too
top heavy, and that the jars that the Vessel would receive from the seas would
not be so likely to effect the Works."21 Hornblower responded
with the warning that "the horizontal position of the cylinder may be
proper for the reasons you mention, and also for the more convenient
application of the power, yet I fear it will be apt to make a leaky
Piston."22 Whether convinced by these arguments or others,
Fitch had abandoned the use of a horizontal cylinder by the time he built his
second boat in 1788.
The horizontal placement of a
steam cylinder permitted a direct linkage between the piston rod and an
eccentric arm connected to the flywheel. This seemed the best method of
avoiding the use of the bulky and expensive beam that was common to the Watt
and the Newcomen engines. Within the limited space of an industrial establishment,
such an arrangement was clearly to be desired, but for many years it was
retarded by a fear that the weight of the piston would cause excessive wear
along the bottom length of the cylinder. The horizontal cylinder was little
used in England before 1825 and perhaps became more common in the United States
at about the same time. By 1838 the distribution of engines in Philadelphia
County showed 2 rotary engines, 13 oscillating engines, 57 with upright
cylinders, and 107 using horizontal cylinders.23
A typical horizontal steam engine, 1848. From Scientific
American, Volume 4 (4 November 1848),
page 54.
By 1852 it was said that
"the favorite construction for land engines throughout the United States is
that in which the cylinder is placed horizontally on flat beds."24
It cannot be demonstrated that any one engine builder or inventor was
responsible for this universal acceptance. Fitch's attempt to use such an
arrangement was in no sense a precedent for later acceptance, but did show
early recognition of its desirability. It is likely that with improved
piston-packing and generally improved durability and accuracy of construction,
builders felt more free to experiment with horizontal engines.
The oscillating engine gained
considerable currency in America toward the middle of the nineteenth century.
It too had originated in England, where William Murdock had made a model of
such an engine while in the employ of Boulton and Watt. It was revived in 1827
by Henry Maudslay, but was used little for stationary engines in Great Britain.
The first American use of this type of engine was made by Daniel French on his
steamboats. Commenting on one of French's boats in 1812, Latrobe noted that
"the horizontal Cylinder has been very often used, tho' not made to
vibrate." He went on to praise French as "a man of very uncommon
talents, both as to the conception & execution of anything to which
mechanical power can be applied," but insisted that "the immediate application
of the Piston to the Crank of the wheel which is rendered practicable by the
vibratory motion of the cylinder is not more simple than the application of Shacklebars . . . from the
cross of the Piston to the Crank."25
French continued to build engines
in the West, and by 1830 Stacy Costell was building "vibratory"
engines in Philadelphia. N. Rowland, also of Philadelphia, patented such an
engine in 1833 and built at least one in that city. The Novelty Works of New
York was building oscillating engines by 1833. In 1848 the statement was made
that this type "is coming into general use in England, and a few have been
erected here. It is then an object of some interest to our mechanics."26
The pace of their acceptance accelerated during the 1850s, and by 1855 it could
be said that "oscillating engines are very simple and compact, and are
fast extending in use. We believe they have not yet been applied to
locomotives," it was noted, "but they have to all other purposes."27
Oscillating steam engine of Ebenezer A. Lester, 1827.
Restored patent drawing in records of the patent office, National Archives,
Washington, D.C.
The chief advantage, as well
as the major disadvantage, of the oscillating engine was that the motion of the
cylinder regulated the flow of steam to the piston. It was explained in 1852
that the "oscillating cylinder is much employed for small land engines, as
it affords a cheap substitute for the slide valve, if formed in the usual
manner, by which one of the gudgeons or trunnions is made to regulate the
entrance and exit of the steam, while the other gudgeon or trunnion can be
employed to work the feed‑pump."28 The principal difficulty was that in order to prevent
the escape of steam, the trunnions were fitted very tight, thus increasing
friction which cut the power of the engine and caused undue wear on the
trunnions themselves. Here too, a general improvement in strength and accuracy
of construction helped to alleviate this problem.
The history of compound
cylinder engines in this country is similar to that of other innovations. The
engines were conceived in England, then either brought to America, or conceived
independently in this country at an early date. After a period of uncertain
success, they reached a fairly high level of development and use. Engines of
two cylinders were made in England by Jonathan Hornblower in 1781 and Arthur
Woolf in 1804. Their earliest use in the United States was in 1813, when
Francis B. Ogden patented his compound engine. Using steam expansively, this engine
was to work two pistons simultaneously at right angles to each other. It was
explained that "one is at its maximum when the other is at its minimum, so
that there is no necessity for a balance wheel as a reservoir of power: for
when one piston ceases momentarily to act, the other instantaneously continues
the motion in the same direction." It was pointed out that "there is
nothing new in two cylinders, or in working by expansive steam, but the getting
rid of the balance wheel by the simultaneous action of each piston in the
manner above described . . . is new."29
Actually, Ogden's twin‑cylinder
engine was not of the classic compound type, developed by Woolf, since both
cylinders were to use steam of the same pressure. In the true compound engine,
the steam was introduced into the first cylinder under high pressure and then
allowed to expand into the second cylinder under a lower pressure. This type
seems not to have been used to any extent in America until the 1840s. Despite
scattered reports of experiments with compound engines, it was estimated in
1856 that "this class of engine has received but partial trial in our
country."30
The
use of high-pressure steam expansively and the new positioning of cylinders
were major innovations, but they do not account for the greatest part of the
improvement of the steam engines in America. They were accompanied by an almost
constant tinkering with the details of engine design: piston packing valve
action, governing, and linkage were the problems receiving particular attention
31 Not all of this activity, of course, was productive of any real
benefit to steam technology. Contemporary and recent literature are replete
with references to the fact that the period following Watt's active work was
one of attempting to absorb and convert his inventive genius into useful
innovation.
A remark was made in 1819
that "on the expiration of Mr. Watt's patent, many ingenious mechanics
attempted to improve the structure of the machine, and the records of the
[British] patent office contain more upon this subject, than any other."
As a result, "scarcely two following engines were made alike for many
years, until, by the results of a vast deal of invention and experience, those
methods . . . became settled into established forms; but none of them are
superior to the original of Mr. Watt's."32 Robert H. Thurston, a leading engineer, looking back
over most of the nineteenth century, spoke of the period after 1850 as the
"Period of Refinement" and said that "the inventor has been
superseded by the engineer."33 In other words, by mid-century
the inventors had explored all the various alternatives inherent in the Watt
engine after that, improvement tended to be the province of the engineer with
scientific training.
Because of the different
needs of American engineers and the time lag in the exchange of technological
information between this country and Great Britain, the major variations on
Watt's basic engine design were not all adopted and perfected in the United
States until about 1830. For example, it was not until 1827 that the basic and
useful table "On the relative proportions of the various parts of the
Boulton and Watt's, or low pressure, Steam Engine" was published in this
country. This table, which showed "the very important results of the
experience of Boulton and Watt, in proportioning the most essential parts of
their steam engines," was said to have existed in manuscript form in all
English engine shops. A copy was "procured, by an American engineer,"
who had recently visited England.34
After 1830, suggested
improvements tended to be either repetitious, bizarre, or dealt with minor
details of arrangement and construction. The best evidence of this leveling off
of real improvement is the clear and dramatic rise in the number of attempts to
perfect the rotary steam engine. This piece of mechanism, which absorbed so
much inventive talent during the second quarter of the nineteenth century in
America, had, like most other developments in steam engineering, been
investigated by Watt in the eighteenth century. In this country, Oliver Evans
had toyed with a rotary engine during the 1780s, but abandoned it for his high‑pressure
Columbian engine.
One early American rotary
engine was built in Baltimore in 1819 by George Stiles, a former mayor of that
city, and his son John S. Stiles. Three years before, Hezekiah Niles, ever
ready to praise and encourage American ingenuity, announced with pride that a
Mr. Curtis of Massachusetts had achieved "a desideratum in steam engine, a
complete rotary motion without a fly wheel or balance, an object of long and
arduous research in Europe, of the greatest advantage to the mechanical
world." The engine was reportedly "composed only of a cylinder
containing a shaft‑wheel with valves" and was touted as "vastly
superior to those of Watt and Bolton, Evans, or any subsequent
constructor" Curtis had one of his engines operating the sawmill of A. and
N. Brown of Manhattan Island and had "after encountering a long series of
difficulties . . . established a manufactory in Baltimore."35
Rotary steam engine of George and John S, Stiles, 1819.
From Niles Weekly Register, Vol 17 (October 16, 1819), p 114.
The Stiles, father and son,
were associated with Curtis in his Baltimore venture. A stationary engine used by
the Stiles had been set at boring cannon during the War of 1812, then was used
for ordinary shop work, and was finally used to operate a gristmill. After five
years it was said to be "still working with equal power, without having
received any material repairs." The four virtues claimed for it were its
lightness, compactness, cheapness, and simplicity of motion. The last point was
clinched, in Niles' mind, by the fact that the one then "working at Mr.
Stiles' factory and mill is under the care of a black man, whose chief
qualities, as needful to its management, are sobriety, and attention."
Stiles, besides carrying on other types of work, made these rotary engines for
general sale. Not untypically, in 1817 they even placed one of their engines
aboard the boat Surprise, a steamboat
which was said to be quite fast.36
Early in the nineteenth
century there were sporadic reports of American mechanics, such as Stiles,
having finally perfected a rotary engine, but it is significant that of the 123
patents issued in this country for rotary engines before 1860, only 20 were
dated through 1830, while the remaining 103 were issued between 1831 and 1859.
Plainly, interest increased rather than waned.37
The idea of the rotary engine
was at least as old as the steam wheel of Hero of Alexandria, and apparently
every inventor from the time of Watt had been struck with the notion that an
engine which produced a rotary motion initially would be far superior to one in
which the reciprocating motion had to be converted to circular. As late as 1829
such arbiters of American mechanical progress as Zachariah Allen were
denouncing "the great loss of power resulting from the reciprocating
movement of the piston of the common steam engines" and calling for an
engine which would "apply the steam directly to turn a wheel, as water is
applied to turn a water wheel, in order to produce at once a continued circular
motion without the intervention of the beam, crank, and fly wheel."38
But apparently a current of informed opinion was already flowing the other way.
Remarking that "it may seem hardy to question a dogma, which has remained
so long unquestioned," an inventor in 1822 endeavored to "show,
contrary to the received theory, that there is no loss of power in the reciprocating
movement of the common steam‑engine."39
From the beginning of their
publication, the Franklin Journal and
the Scientific American launched
vigorous campaigns against rotary engines. The editor of the former claimed to
"have support of many practical engineers" for his opinion that
"projectors are generally mistaken, respecting the loss of power, which
they think, takes place in the crank."40 The editor of the Scientific
American hedged a bit by conceding that a
successful rotary engine was theoretically possible, but pointed out that
already, "the Mechanical ingenuity that has been expended in the invention
and improvement of rotary engines, perhaps exceeds that of all other
machines."41 Between September 1848 and June 1849 he published
a history of attempts to build such an engine (all abortive), with the avowed
object "to throw light upon the subject, in order to stop many men of real
original mechanical genius from wasting their time."42 The
editor claimed to have "seen no less than 60 representatives of different
rotary engines" and blamed this continued activity on a "want of
correct understanding of the principles of the steam engine."43
The editor of still another technical journal professed to see "a perfect
mania" for rotary engines in 1847.44
The Franklin Institute of
Philadelphia had earlier been concerned with this same problem, remarking that
"the great number of proposed improvements in the steam engine, equally
manifest the possession of ingenuity, and the deficiency of knowledge and experience,
in their projectors." To help remedy this tactfully described situation,
the Institute appointed a committee on inventions to review and advise on
improvements, offering its services gratis and promising to maintain "the
utmost secrecy."45 The persistence of interest in the rotary
engine, however, cannot be explained solely on the basis of ignorance. The fact
was that the common steam engine, as inherited from Watt and modified by Evans
and others, appeared to inventors to have reached the practical limits of its
perfection, and further major improvement was sought through a new departure.
Despite all counsel, efforts
to develop the rotary engine continued. One persistent inventor was James A.
Stewart of Cross Plains, Tennessee, who patented his rotary engine in 1841 and
the following year had the firm of R. M. Roe and Company of New York City build
a prototype. This engine was used for a short time in their shops, and Stewart
was encouraged enough that he continued to try to perfect its details. About
1848 he made an engine of adequate power to operate a sawmill a few miles north
of Nashville. The success of this engine led him to travel to St. Louis where
the Eagle Foundry of Clark, Renfrew and Company manufactured these engines for
general sale. The design of his engine was simple. Two cog wheels of long axis
were enclosed in a tight-fitting iron jacket. Steam was introduced
perpendicularly to the axes of the two wheels—the only moving
parts—and along the line where they meshed. Except for Babbitt metal
lining of the pillow blocks which carried the wheels,46 the engine
was built of iron throughout.
Despite persistent claims
over a period of five years by Stewart and by his supporters that his engine
had at last been perfected, it never was. Finally in 1853 he decided, as he
said, "to abandon any further attempts to introduce my plan of rotary
engine." He was prepared to admit that "an attempt to excel,
materially, the reciprocating engine, in point of economy, by substituting a
rotary, is chimerical." He persisted, nevertheless, in his belief that his
principles were sound even though they failed in practice. The major faults of
his engine were "its liability to derangement by expansion and contraction
of metal, and the yielding or displacement of adjusting screws employed in
maintaining the steam wheels in their proper position." Discouraged,
Stewart moved to Texas and entered the business of flour milling.47
The efforts to build a better
rotary engine, like most attempts to improve the steam engine, were guided by
the supposed imperatives inherent within the engine itself. At least one major
improvement in America, however, was imposed by philosophical and economic,
rather than mechanical, desiderata. It was noted in 1857 that "within the
last few years the attention of ingenious men in [Philadelphia] ..., as well as
in other places, has been directed largely to simplifying the Steam Engine,
removing all essentially unnecessary parts, cheapening its price, and
diminishing its size."48 A part of this was merely the endless
and undramatic battle to keep a piece of mechanism, once perfected, from being
corrupted by innovation. The major incentive behind this activity, however, was
the search for a smaller engine—perhaps even portable.
Rotary steam engine of James A. Stewart, 1850. For Scientific
American, Vol. 6, (Nov. 9, 1850), p.
157.
Thomas Jefferson had called
for such engines as early as 1815. A small steam engine, he wrote,
"applicable to our daily concerns, is infinitely more valuable than the greatest
which can be used only for great objects." The former President was caught
in the seeming contradiction between his enthusiasm for
"improvement," and his revulsion at the idea of great industrial
centers, based on steam-powered factories, springing up in America as they
already had in England. His vision of small portable engines resolved the
conflict, and he contemplated with satisfaction the idea that a small engine
might be developed that would "raise from an adjacent well the water necessary
for daily use; to wash the linen, knead the bread, beat the homony, churn the
butter, turn the spit, and do all other household offices which require only a
regular mechanical motion."49 Thus the instrument of industrial
vice in Europe would become the handmaiden of domestic virtue in America.
Jefferson was not alone in
his hope that the steam engine might be domesticated, made democratic, and
applied to the benefit of the common man. Hezekiah Niles quoted Oliver Evans to
the effect that "the time would come when the powers of steam should be so
well ascertained and so simply applied, that the very old women would do the
common business of housewifery with it."50 It was Evans'
opinion, again according to Niles, that "the time would come, when, every
person able to build a house costing 10,000 dollars, would provide himself with
a steam engine, as a part of its furniture, to wash the clothes, scrub the
floors, etc. etc."51
Writing in celebration of the
national centennial in 1876, Abram Hewitt, a worthy representative of
post-Civil War American civilization, announced that "If I were asked what
elements had most to do with the swift progress of our country, I should
answer, freedom and the steam engine. But deeper even than any organized declarations
of outward forms of freedom lies the influence of the steam engine, which has
been from the day of its birth, in spite of laws and dynasties, and all
accidents of history, the great emancipator of man."52 Beneath
the thoroughly Victorian optimism and bravado of placing the steam engine above
the Declaration of Independence and, presumably, above even the martyred
Abraham Lincoln, that other "great emancipator of man," lay the
intuitive realization, only recently rediscovered, that the unique contribution
of American civilization to world progress lay in its standard of living for
the common man.
It is not to be expected that
the engine-maker, laboring to pare a few pounds or a troublesome lever from his
steam engine, thought in terms of the message of America. But the very fact
that this urge toward smaller and simpler engines was eminently practical was
indicative of the thoroughness with which the concept of the mass market had
already permeated the thinking of American industry. The Scientific American in 1853 stated that the want of a small
portable engine is seriously felt by the public.
The farmer wants them to
thresh his grain and cut his straw, to saw his wood, and as soon as they are
properly constructed to draw his plow. The mechanic wants them for the various
operations of his workshop, the manufacturer in a small way wants those that
require but little room, and can be easily moved about as he may change his
residence, and we may hope to see the day when they will be made so cheap that it
will become almost a necessity of the household. The world is growing wiser and
lazier every day.53
The advent of the internal
combustion engine and the electric transmission of power removed some of the
urgency from this quest, but during the first half of the nineteenth century,
the attempt to provide a truly portable steam engine was a constant and
important activity.
From the vantage point of his
annual report for the year 1843, the Commissioner of Patents H. L. Ellsworth
observed that "the great progress made in the steam-engine since Watt's
time is more due to the increased knowledge of its properties, and better
understanding of the general rules that should govern mechanical structures,
and the improvement of all the mechanic arts, particularly in the working of
iron, than to the improvements in the engine itself; although these are, by no
means, insignificant."54 This progress must be credited largely
to the men who manufactured steam engines, aided by what one writer in
Silliman's American Journal of Science referred
to as "the patronage and encouragement of the public, and the auxiliary
efforts of the Engineer and the Philosopher."55
The patronage and
encouragement of the public is sufficiently documented by the wide and
enthusiastic acceptance of steam power which characterized these years.
Similarly, the multiplication and gradual professionalization of steam
engineers need not be labored. Thomas Cooper, noting the activities of Robert
Fulton, Oliver Evans, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, and others, wrote in 1814 that
"so much exertion, and by such men, affords ground to hope that at no
distant time, improvements may take place, that will put our Engineers of
America, upon a par at least with those of England." The "three great
requisites of a civil engineer," he declared, "are first a profound
knowledge of mathematics, and an habitual facility of applying mathematical
principles and calculations to mechanics and machinery. Secondly, a full
knowledge of the modern science of chemistry. Thirdly, an habitual facility in
drawing and designing with neatness and accuracy. To these should be added,
actual observation and study of the principal machines in use and their
application."56 This ambitious prospectus remained desirable,
rather than actual, for many years, despite suggestions that the federal
government set up an academy to train steam engineers. The first engineers in
this country were either self‑tutored or trained in England, and
frequently they were also manufacturers. Latrobe was one of the first and most
successful among those who attempted to earn a living by the merit of his
engineering and entrepreneurial talents alone.
Oliver Evans was a prime
example of the inventor-manufacturer-engineer, who contributed so much to the
early progress of steam engines in this country. Quoting the old saw that
"truth lies in a well," Evans described the "most intense
study" that preceded his new mechanisms. "After having a faint
glimpse of the principle," he said, "it was with many toilsome and tedious
steps that I attained a clear and distinct view. I received great assistance
from the result of experiments made by others, which are to be found in
scientific works."57 He consulted the tables of John Dalton and
speculated on the possibility of discovering a caloric-proof substance out of
which boilers might be made.58 So valuable did Evans find the
available scientific works, that he suggested in order "to aid the
progress of improvement in the arts and sciences," the federal
government might, "at the expense of the community, employ ingenious
persons, in every art and science, to make with care every experiment that
might possibly lead to the extension of our knowledge of principles."59 He specifically singled out
investigations of solar radiation, presumably to raise steam in boilers, as an
area in which the ''expense of such investigations cannot, in many instances,
be borne by those who have the mental powers to design." In such cases he
thought "aid from government becomes necessary.Ó 60
Evans' views on the support
of basic scientific research by the federal government were advanced, though
shared by such important public figures as Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy
Adams. In actual practice, engineers and manufacturers were forced to make use
of what bits of scientific fact and encouragement they could find. They can be
said to have been denied this resource only if the term science is limited in
this case to a fully mature understanding of thermodynamics.61 Even
within this narrow definition, many early American scientists notably Joseph
Henry, Thomas Cooper, and James Renwick—concerned themselves with the
theory and economy of steam. George Corliss, for example, was said to have had
direct assistance in the invention of his Corliss engine from a professor of
mathematics and natural philosophy at Brown University.62
It is probably a mistake,
however, to so limit the definition of scientific aid to steam engineering.
Manufacturers and projectors made constant recourse to whatever mathematical
abilities they might have possessed. Furthermore, they sought the approval and
endorsement of notable scientists for their improvements in engines. Such
approbation was eagerly sought and widely advertised when received. Finally,
they shared a common expectation that science would prove useful to the arts.
There was near universal agreement with Alonzo Potter when he wrote that
"on the one hand, science has furnished principles for the arts to apply:
on the other, the arts have proposed problems for science to resolve; and this
mutual aid and dependence have been the means of carrying both forward, at a
rate continually accelerated."62 It was admittedly a statement
of faith—but, no doubt, it was a faith that sustained.
At the end of the American
Revolution, the Watt steam engine presented American mechanics with a major and
complex problem in technological assimilation. Faced with the staggering task
of first learning to make and then to apply these engines, interested Americans
made use of whatever English guidance was available through books and emigrant
mechanics. Despite the handicap of having to work without a firm theoretical
basis, these improvers applied to their task all the mathematics, experimental
data, and knowledge of thermodynamics they could muster. In general, the first
half of the nineteenth century was a period marked by consolidation and
improvement rather than by dramatic breakthroughs in the technology of steam.
Experiments had been tried
with several types of engines. Those best suited to steamboats, locomotives,
and the various stationary purposes had become more or less standardized by
mid-century. Improved design, more sturdy construction, and improved economy
had also contributed to making steam power a widely accepted motive force. Simultaneously,
a growing demand for engines had stimulated these same improvements so that
steam technology had moved forward on a broad and connected front. Salients of
more rapid development occurred, as in the case of the use of high‑pressure
steam, and in a few instances indifference or hostility brought lags in other
areas. But on the whole, the advance was rapid and complete. Starting in the
urban centers of the Middle Atlantic States, the new technology spread into the
West, the South, and finally to New England. By mid-century the revolution was
complete.
1 Scientific American, volume
4 (5 May 1849), page 261.
2 Evans, "Account," Archives of Useful Knowledge, volume 2 (1812), page 366; Evans, Abortion,
pages 95-96.
3 Evans, Abortion, p. 90n.
4 Ibid., page 3.
5 B. H. Latrobe to
Charles T. Ingersoll, 17 January 1814, B. H. Latrobe MS. Coll., MHS.
6 [Evans] Elisha, Patent Right Oppression Exposed, pages 63-64.
7 B. H. Latrobe to Andrew
Hazelhurst, 19 October 1810, B. H. Latrobe MS. Coll., MHS.
8 Daniel French to William Thornton, 12 February 1814, William
Thornton papers, volume 4, LC.
9 B. H. Latrobe to Robert Fulton, I March 1814, B. H. Latrobe MS.
Coll., MHS.
10 Pittsburgh Gazette, 9 April 1813.
11 "'Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons,
on Steam Navigation to India; with the Minutes of Evidence, Appendix, and
Index. 1834," Edinburgh Review, volume
60 (January 1835), page 475n. This confirmed the statement of Frederick Graff,
made in 1817, that Boulton and Watt engines were commonly worked from 10 to 20
psi. Frederick Graff to Robert Vaux, 9 July 1817, in Communications.
. . on the Explosions of Steam Boilers, page
8.
12 American Railroad Journal, volume 3 (27 December 1834), pages 806-807; Woodbury Report, passim.
13 Evans, Abortion, pages
28‑30.
14 B. H. Latrobe to Thomas Cooper, 2 April 1814, B. H. Latrobe
MS. Coll., MHS.
15 Ibid.
16 "Who First," American Repertory, volume 4 (1841), page 172.
17 B. H. Latrobe to N. l.
Roosevelt, I August 1815, B. H. Latrobe
MS. Coll., MHS; B. H. Latrobe to
F. B. Ogden, 23 January 1815, B.
H. Latrobe MS. Coll., MHS.
18 Quoted in "Who First," American Repertory, volume 4 (1841), page 172.
19 Ibid., page 173.
20 Scientific
American, volume 10 (4 November 1854), page
61.
21 John Fitch to Josiah Hornblower and Christopher Colles, 17 May
1786, Fitch papers, volume 1, LC.
22 Josiah Hornblower to John Fitch, 24 May 1786, Fitch papers,
volume 1, LC.
23 Woodbury Report, page 156
24 Scientific American, volume
8 (18 December 1852), page 107. Seth Boyden is credited with developing
"the cast‑iron prome
or bed." Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography, volume 1, page 341.
25 B. H. Latrobe to William Cooper, 14 October 1812, B. H.
Latrobe MS. Coll., MHS.
26 Scientific American, volume
3 (13 May 1848), page 265.
27 Ibid., volume 10 (24 March 1855), page 218.
28 Ibid., volume 8 (18
December 1852), page 107.
29 [ Cooper ], "Account," Emporium of Arts and
Sciences, volume 2 (1814), pages 473-474.
J. Dowers, Jr., of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, disputed some of the points of
Ogden's patent. See B. H. Latrobe to Thomas Cooper, 2 April 1814, B. H. Latrobe
MS. Coll., MHS. A Mr. Rodman of South Carolina, also planned a low-pressure, twin-cylinder
engine in 1814. [Cooper], "Account," Emporium of Arts and
Sciences, volume 2 (1814), page 373.
30 Scientific American, volume
3 (13 May 1848), page 268; ibid., volume 11 (5 January 1856), page 129.
31 The most famous and successful American innovation in the field
during the middle years of the century was the valve gear of George Corliss.
His impact was made in the period following that covered here, but something of
his background will be found in Robert S. Holding,"George H. Corliss of
Providence, Inventor," Rhode Island History, volume 5 (January 1946), pages 1-17.
32 Cyclopaedia; or, Universal Dictionary, volume 34. For recent attempts to explain this in
terms of ''plateaus of technology," see Mumford, Art and
Technics, page 84, and Milton Kerker,
"Science and the Steam Engine," Technology and Culture, volume 2 (Fall, 1960), pages 385,387.
33 Thurston, Growth of the SteamEngine, pages 304, 305. I would suggest that this period
began about two decades earlier.
34 Franklin Journal, volume
3 (May 1827), pages 336-339.
3 5 Niles' Weekly Register, volume
10 (I June 1816), page 219. Also on Curtis' engine see memo in hand of Nathan
Read, 24 May 1816, and Bailey L. Pinsset [?] to William P. Page, 23 December
1816, Nathan Read papers, volumes 4 and 1, Essex Institute, Salem,
Massachusetts.
36 Niles' Weekly Register, volume
17 (16 October 1819), pages 97‑98.
37 Index of Patents, volume
3, pages 1219-1223. It should be
noted that because of the quixotic nomenclature of the Index, one can never be sure of having counted all patents
of any given type.
38 Allen, Science of Mechanics, page 329.
39 Minus Ward, "Ward's Alternating Steam-Engine," American Journal of Science,
volume 4, no. I (1822), page 91. See also
A. B. Quinby, "On Crank Motion," ibid., volume 7, no. 2 (1824), pages
316-323, and A. B. Quinby,
"On Crank Motion, in reply to the remarks of the author of a Review in the
North American," ibid., volume 9, no. 2 (1825), pages 317-324.
40 Franklin Journal, volume
2 (December 1826), page 282.
41 Scientific American, volume 2 (12 June 1847), page
301.
42 Ibid., volume 4 (30 June 1849), page 325.
43 Ibid., volume 3 (19
August 1848), page 380.
44 Eureka, volume 2
(November 1847), page 44.
45 Franklin Journal, volume
2 (September 1826), page 187.
46 Niles' Weekly Register, volume
63 (19 November 1842), page 184; Scientific American, volume 3 (26 August 1848), page 390; ibid., volume 5
(27 July 1850), page 356; ibid., volume 6 (26 October 1850), page 43; ibid.,
volume 6 (16 November 1850), page 68; ibid., volume 8 (2 October 1852), page
21.
47 Scientific American, volume
8 (2 April 1853), page 227.
48 Freedley, Philadelphia and its Manufactures, page 316.
49 Thomas Jefferson to George Fleming, 29 December 1815, in Writings
of Thomas Jefferson (Washington), volume 6,
page 505. Also see Edwin T. Martin, Thomas Jefferson: Scientist (New York, 1961), pages 72‑73.
50 Undated addenda to Niles' Weekly Register, volume 3 (September 1812 - March 1813), page I. It may be said that
the vision of Jefferson and Evans has been fulfilled, in the sense that as late
as 1945, two-thirds of the electricity
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51 Niles' Weekly Register, volume
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52 Abram S. Hewitt, "A Century of Mining and Metallurgy in
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53 Scientific American, volume
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54 Report of the Commissioner of Patents, For the year 1843, House Document 177, 28th Congress, Ist session, page
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55 Quinby, "On Crank Motion," American Journal of
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56 [Cooper], "Account," Emporium of Arts and
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57 Evans, Abortion, p. 139.
58 [ Evans ], Oliver Evans to His Counsel, page 41; Evans, Abortion, page 134.
59 Evans, Abortion, page 139.
60 Ibid., page 43.
61 I have found, for example, no American references to the work
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62 Robert S. Holding, "George H. Corliss of Providence,
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63 Alonzo Potter, The Principles of Science A pplied to the
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