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1 Stevens, John
[br]b. 1749 New York, New York, USAd. 6 March 1838 Hoboken, New Jersey, USA[br]American pioneer of steamboats and railways.[br]Stevens, a wealthy landowner with an estate at Hoboken on the Hudson River, had his attention drawn to the steamboat of John Fitch in 1786, and thenceforth devoted much of his time and fortune to developing steamboats and mechanical transport. He also had political influence and it was at his instance that Congress in 1790 passed an Act establishing the first patent laws in the USA. The following year Stevens was one of the first recipients of a US patent. This referred to multi-tubular boilers, of both watertube and firetube types, and antedated by many years the work of both Henry Booth and Marc Seguin on the latter.A steamboat built in 1798 by John Stevens, Nicholas J.Roosevelt and Stevens's brother-in-law, Robert R.Livingston, in association was unsuccessful, nor was Stevens satisfied with a boat built in 1802 in which a simple rotary steam-en-gine was mounted on the same shaft as a screw propeller. However, although others had experimented earlier with screw propellers, when John Stevens had the Little Juliana built in 1804 he produced the first practical screw steamboat. Steam at 50 psi (3.5 kg/cm2) pressure was supplied by a watertube boiler to a single-cylinder engine which drove two contra-rotating shafts, upon each of which was mounted a screw propeller. This little boat, less than 25 ft (7.6 m) long, was taken backwards and forwards across the Hudson River by two of Stevens's sons, one of whom, R.L. Stevens, was to help his father with many subsequent experiments. The boat, however, was ahead of its time, and steamships were to be driven by paddle wheels until the late 1830s.In 1807 John Stevens declined an invitation to join with Robert Fulton and Robert R.Living-ston in their development work, which culminated in successful operation of the PS Clermont that summer; in 1808, however, he launched his own paddle steamer, the Phoenix. But Fulton and Livingston had obtained an effective monopoly of steamer operation on the Hudson and, unable to reach agreement with them, Stevens sent Phoenix to Philadelphia to operate on the Delaware River. The intervening voyage over 150 miles (240 km) of open sea made Phoenix the first ocean-going steamer.From about 1810 John Stevens turned his attention to the possibilities of railways. He was at first considered a visionary, but in 1815, at his instance, the New Jersey Assembly created a company to build a railway between the Delaware and Raritan Rivers. It was the first railway charter granted in the USA, although the line it authorized remained unbuilt. To demonstrate the feasibility of the steam locomotive, Stevens built an experimental locomotive in 1825, at the age of 76. With flangeless wheels, guide rollers and rack-and-pinion drive, it ran on a circular track at his Hoboken home; it was the first steam locomotive to be built in America.[br]Bibliography1812, Documents Tending to Prove the Superior Advantages of Rail-ways and Steam-carriages over Canal Navigation.He took out patents relating to steam-engines in the USA in 1791, 1803, and 1810, and in England, through his son John Cox Stevens, in 1805.Further ReadingH.P.Spratt, 1958, The Birth of the Steamboat, Charles Griffin (provides technical details of Stevens's boats).J.T.Flexner, 1978, Steamboats Come True, Boston: Little, Brown (describes his work in relation to that of other steamboat pioneers).J.R.Stover, 1961, American Railroads, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Transactions of the Newcomen Society (1927) 7: 114 (discusses tubular boilers).J.R.Day and B.G.Wilson, 1957, Unusual Railways, F.Muller (discusses Stevens's locomotive).PJGR -
2 Fulton, Robert
SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping[br]b. 14 November 1765 Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USAd. 24 February 1815 New York, USA[br]American pioneer of steamships and of North American steam navigation.[br]The early life of Fulton is documented sparsely; however, it is clear that he was brought up in poor circumstances along with three sisters and one brother by a widowed mother. The War of Independence was raging around them for some years, but despite this it is believed that he spent some time learning the jeweller's trade in Philadelphia and had by then made a name for himself as a miniaturist. Throughout his life he remained skilled with his hands and well able to record technical detail on paper. He witnessed many of the early trials of American steamboats and saw the work of William Henry and John Fitch, and in 1787 he set off for the first time to Europe. For some years he examined steamships in Paris and without doubt saw the Charlotte Dundas on the Forth and Clyde Canal near Glasgow. In 1803 he built a steamship that ran on the Seine at 4 1/2 mph (7.25 km/h), and when it was lost, another to replace it. All his designs were based on principles that had been tried and proved elsewhere, and in this respect he was more of a developer than an inventor. After some time experimenting with submersibles and torpedoes for the British and French governments, in 1806 he returned to the United States. In 1807 he took delivery of the 100 ton displacement paddle steamer Clermont from the yard of Charles Browne of East River, New York. In August of that year it started the passenger services on the Hudson River and this can be claimed as the commencement of world passenger steam navigation. Again the ship was traditional in shape and the machinery was supplied by Messrs Boulton and Watt. This was followed by other ships, including Car of Neptune, Paragon and the world's first steam warship, Demolgos, launched in New York in October 1814 and designed by Fulton for coastal defence and the breaking of the British blockade. His last and finest boat was named Chancellor Livingston after his friend and patron Robert Livingston (1746–1813); the timber hull was launched in 1816, some months after Fulton's death.[br]Further ReadingH.P.Spratt, 1958, The Birth of the Steamboat, London: Griffin. J.T.Flexner, 1978, Steamboats Come True, Boston: Little, Brown."Robert Fulton and the centenary of steam navigation", Engineer (16 August 1907).FMW -
3 Miller, Patrick
SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping[br]b. 1731 Glasgow, Scotlandd. 9 December 1815 Dalswinton, Dumfriesshire, Scotland[br]Scottish merchant and banker, early experimenter in powered navigation and in ship form.[br]In his own words, Patrick Miller was "without a sixpence" in his early youth; this is difficult to prove one way or another as he ended his life as Director and Deputy Governor of the Bank of Scotland. One thing is clear however, that from his earliest days, in common with most of his counterparts of the late eighteenth century, he was interested in experimental and applied science. Having acquired a substantial income from other sources, Miller was able to indulge his interest in ships and engineering. His first important vessel was the trimaran Edinburgh, designed by him and launched at Leith in 1786. Propulsion was man-powered using paddle wheels positioned in the spaces between the outer and central hulls. This led to several trials of similar craft on the Forth in the 1780s, and ultimately to the celebrated Dalswinton Loch trials. In 1785 Miller had purchased the Dumfriesshire estate of Dalswinton and commenced a series of experiments on agricultural development and other matters. With the help of William Symington he built a double-hull steamship with internal paddle wheels which was tested on the Loch in 1788. The 7.6 m (25 ft) long ship travelled at 5 mph (8 km/h) on her trials, and according to unsubstantiated tradition carried a group of well-known people including the poet Robert Burns (1759–1796).Miller carried out many more important experiments and in 1796 obtained a patent for the design of shallow-drafted ships able to carry substantial cargo on flat bottoms. His main achievement may have been to stimulate William Symington, who at the beginning of the nineteenth century went on to design and build two of the world's first important steamships, each named Charlotte Dundas, for service on the Forth and Clyde Canal.[br]Further ReadingH.Philip Spratt, 1958, The Birth of the Steamboat, London: Griffiths. W.S.Harvey and G.Downs-Rose, 1980, William Symington, Inventor and EngineBuilder, London: Northgate.F.M.Walker, 1984, Song of the Clyde. A History of Clyde Shipbuilding, Cambridge: PSL.FMW -
4 Stevens, Robert Livingston
SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping[br]b. 18 October 1787 Hoboken, New Jersey, USAd. 20 April 1856 Hoboken, New Jersey, USA[br]American engineer, pioneer of steamboats and railways.[br]R.L.Stevens was the son of John Stevens and was given the technical education his father lacked. He assisted his father with the Little Juliana and the Phoenix, managed the commercial operation of the Phoenix on the Delaware River, and subsequently built many other steamboats.In 1830 he and his brother Edwin A.Stevens obtained a charter from the New Jersey Legislature for the Camden \& Amboy Railroad \& Transportation Company, and he visited Britain to obtain rails and a locomotive. Railway track in the USA then normally comprised longitudinal timber rails with running surfaces of iron straps, but Stevens designed rails of flat-bottom section, which were to become standard, and had the first batch rolled in Wales. He also designed hookheaded spikes for them, and "iron tongues", which became fishplates. From Robert Stephenson \& Co. (see Robert Stephenson) he obtained the locomotive John Bull, which was similar to the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway's Samson. The Camden \& Amboy Railroad was opened in 1831, but John Bull, a 0–4–0, proved over sensitive to imperfections in the track; Stevens and his mechanic, Isaac Dripps, added a two-wheeled non-swivelling "pilot" at the front to guide it round curves. The locomotive survives at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.[br]Further ReadingH.P.Spratt, 1958, The Birth of the Steamboat, Charles Griffin.J.H.White Jr, 1979, A History of the American Locomotive—Its Development: 1830– 1880, New York: Dover Publications Inc.J.F.Stover, 1961, American Railroads, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.PJGRBiographical history of technology > Stevens, Robert Livingston
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