Oliver Evans: Difference between revisions

Oliver Evans
"Oliver Evans, the Watt of America" Original portrait caption
Born	(1755-09-13)September 13, 1755 Newport, Delaware
Died	April 15, 1819(1819-04-15) (aged 63) New York, New York
Nationality	American
Occupation(s)	Inventor and Engineer
Spouse(s)	Sarah Tomlinson ​ ​ (m. 1783⁠–⁠1816)​ Hetty Ward ​ (m. 1818⁠–⁠1819)​
Children	Three sons and four daughters
Signature

Oliver Evans (September 13, 1755 – April 15, 1819) was an American inventor. Evans was born in Newport, Delaware to a family of Welsh settlers. In his mid-teens he was apprenticed to a wheelwright. Evans' first invention was in 1777, when he designed a machine for making card teeth for carding wool. He went into business with his brothers and produced a number of improvements in the flour milling industry.

He produced an improved high-pressure steam engine in 1801. For some years he contemplated the idea of applying steam power to wagons. He was granted a patent for a steam-carriage design in 1789, but did not produce a working example of such a machine until over a decade later (see below on his Oruktor Amphibolos). Part of his difficulties was a failure to get financial backing. After lack of support in his native land, in 1794 he sent copies of some his designs to Great Britain in an attempt to interest investors there.

Evans designed a refrigeration machine which ran on vapor in 1805, so he is often called the inventor of the refrigerator, although he never built one. (His design was modified by Jacob Perkins, who obtained the first patent for a refrigerating machine in 1834.)

As noted by Roe, Evans is best known for the system of conveyors and other equipment he developed for his automatic flour mill:

"He practically invented the modern science of handling materials." Joseph Wickham Roe, 1916

Early life, 1755-1783

Oliver Evans was born in Newport, Delaware on September 13, 1755 to Charles and Ann Stalcop Evans. His father was a cordwainer by trade, though he purchased a large farm to the north of Newport on Red Clay Creek and moved his family there when Oliver was still in his infancy. Oliver was the fifth of what would eventually be eleven children - four sisters and seven brothers. Relatively little else is known of Evans' early life, and surviving records provide few details as to his formative years. The nature and location of his early education has not been preserved, however his literacy was demonstrably strong from a young age, as both a writer and an avid reader on technical subjects. At the age of 17, Evans was apprenticed to a wheelwright and wagon maker in Newport. An anecdote from the period recalls that Evans' master, an illiterate and extremely frugal man, forbade Evans the use of candles to read with in the evenings. Evans however found another way by collecting scrap wood and shavings from his work during the day to serve as fuel for small fires to read by in the evening. The Revolutionary War began when Evans was 19. He enlisted in a Delaware militia company, but ultimately saw not active service during the war.

Evans moved out of wheelwrighting at the age of 22 and became a specialist in drawing and forming the fine wire used in textile cards, which were used to comb fibers in preparation for the spinning process to make thread or yarn. Evans subsequently developed a design for a machine which would bend wire into teeth and cut them off rapidly to aid the assembly of cards. George Latimer, then a justice of the peace in Newport, saw the potential and tasked a blacksmith with creating the machine, which became one of Evans' early successes when it premièred in 1778. Evans wished to go further in mechanizing the production of textile cards by developing a machine which could puncture the leather which formed the bed of textile cards into which the wire teeth were inserted, however the design was not pursued due to a perceived lack of commercial opportunity for his invention. However Evans' invention greatly increased the speed of the card manufacturing process - around 1,500 teeth per minute could be produced by his invention. Over the next two decades machines descended from Evans' led to the development of semi-automated (and eventually fully automated) textile card production, now in great demand due to the growth of the Southern cotton industry. Early pioneers of textile card automated production, including Giles Richards and Amos Whittemore, are thought to have borrowed heavily from Evans' original designs. Evans had also begun experimenting in this period with steam power and its potential for commercial application. His early ideas culminated in a patent application in 1783 for a steam-powered wagon, but it was denied as Evans had yet to produce a working model. In 1783 at the age of twenty-three, he married Sarah Tomlinson, daughter of a local farmer, in Old Swedes' Episcopal Church in Wilmington.

Developing the Automatic Flour Mill, 1783-1790

Evans' design for the automated flour mill, 1790

Evans' attention turned to milling in the early 1780s. Two of his elder brothers had purchased from their father part of the Newport farm estate and intended to start a mill there - Evans was recruited in 1783 to oversee its construction on the Red Clay Creek. In this era, the operation of grist mills was labor intensive. Although each stage of the milling process - cleaning, grinding, cooling, sifting and packing - were beginning to be mechanized to various degrees, gravity or manual labor was required to move grain from one stage to the next. After developing some preliminary designs, Evans over the next half-decade began to experiment in Newport with inventions which would reduce the reliance upon labor for milling.

Moving wheat from the bottom to the top of the mill to begin the process was the most onerous task of all in this period. Evans' first innovation was a bucket elevator to assist in this process. The use of chains of buckets to raise water had been part of Roman technology, and Evans had seen diagrams of their use for marine applications. Another labor intensive task was the spreading of meal. Meal came out of the grinding process warm and moist, and needed to be cooled before it could be sifted and packed. Traditionally this had been done by manual shovelling onto large floors. In response, Evans developed the hopper boy, which would gather meal from a bucket elevator and spread it evenly over the drying floor. An mechanical rake would revolve around the floorspace, evening out newly deposited meal for cooling and drying, whilst a gentle incline in the design of the rake blades would mean the rotations of the rake slowly moved flour towards central chutes which would take the flour down to be sifted. Evans would later write at length on his vision that drove the development of his designs:

"[The machines] perform every necessary movement of the grain, and meal, from one part of the mill to another, and from one machine to another, through all the various operations, from the time the grain is emptied from the wagoner's bag...until completely manufactured into flour…without the aid of manual labor, excepting to set the different machines in motion."

Neither device was revolutionary by the standards of Evans' as time, despite their technical complexity, however the vision underpinning their design was. Evans was attempting a radical shift in thinking about the manufacturing process - rather than a series of isolated processes, manufacturing could be a fully-automated production line. The missing link was materials handling, and Evans' designs mill designs sought to feed materials continuously through an integrated system that did not require humans to manually complete any task. This idea of continuous production was to prove a critical ingredient of the industrial revolution, and would ultimately lay the foundation for modern mass production.

Evans' 'hopper boy' and automated flour sifting process

Constructing the machinery to make this vision a reality was complicated however, and when his brothers opened their mill in 1785 it was as a conventional one as Evans had not yet been able to convert his designs into reality. Evans struggled to find the money to pay highly skilled carpenters who could construct his complex machines. The nearby flour milling industry on the Brandywine River was large, but dominated by the Quaker millers of Wilmington who struggled to see the possibilities of Evans' ideas. James Latimer, a Newport flour merchant upon hearing Evans' ideas exclaimed "Ah! Oliver, you cannot make water run uphill, you cannot make wooden millers!" Latimer's son George however saw the promise in Evans' ideas and helped him to secure patent protection over the inventions throughout 1787 and 1788 across the eastern states. In these years Evans had finished constructing the first fully-automated flour mill based on his perfected designs, and the Evans brothers sent handbills and diagrams to the major milling centers of the United States offering free licensing of the designs for the first miller in each county who would commission Evans to refit their mills. This campaign was to prove a major disappointment however and little commercial interest materialized.

One difficulty was that Evans lacked patience and social graces, and was prone to frustration and bewilderment towards those who could not immediately see the value of his ideas. Indeed, Evans' ideas and designs were often quite ahead of their time, and the idea of a fully-automated production process was difficult for his contemporaries to comprehend. Evans recalled when some Bradywine millers happened to visit the Red Clay Creek mill in the early years of its operation after it had become fully-automated. Evans was alone at the mill that day and making hay in a nearby field, and purposefully held back so his visitors could observe the mill running by its own accord without human supervision. Evans then appeared to explain how it was possible, and was convinced that the chance meeting would bring about a breakthrough with the Brandywine millers. However, he became confused and bitter when he later found that the millers had returned to Wilmington and reported to the milling community that the Evans mill was "a set of rattletraps, unworthy the notice of any man of sense". Indeed, disbelief continued after Evans convinced a Brandywine miller to have his mill converted. An much larger assembly of interested millers stood in astonishment as they watched the fully-automated mill in progress, with one eventually exclaiming "It will not do! It cannot do! It is impossible that it should do!"

After years of persistence and attempts at marketing, Evans' designs were finally trialled on larger scales and adopted elsewhere. A breakthrough came in 1789 when the Ellicotts, a progressively-minded Quaker milling family in Baltimore, invited Evans to refit their mills on the Patapsco River. It proved a success, and Evans worked with the designs of Jonathan Ellicott to develop a modified form of Archimedean screw that could act as a horizontal conveyor to work along side the vertically-orientated bucket elevators. He would in that year add the rake-drill and conveyor belt to his designs, and now possessed a full complement of materials handling machines for just about every possible design. In 1790, Evans moved to Wilmington and constructed a working model of his designs in the town. After almost a decade, finally the Brandywine millers had been convinced, and within a short period most of them converted to automated designs. In 1790, upon introduction of federal patent law, Evans immediately applied for protection for his milling designs was granted the third US patent, with his application personally examined and approved by Thomas Jefferson, Henry Knox, and Edmund Randolph.

Writer and Merchant, 1790-1801

The Young Mill-wright and Miller's Guide, 1795

Having secured patent protection for his designs and general adoption by the Brandywine millers, Evans now turned his attention outside Delaware. His brother Joseph travelled widely to promote Evans' work, and according to some sources, by 1792 over one hundred mills were operating Evans machinery. George Washington, having signed Evans' federal patent approval in 1790, became interested in his designs and bought an early license from Evans to refit his gristmill at Mount Vernon in 1791 using the technology, the completion of which was overseen by Evans' brothers. In 1793, Evans sold his share in the Red Clay Creek mill and moved his family from Wilmington to Philadelphia, where he opened a store for milling supplies.

Evans' early years in Philadelphia though were dominated by writing. Initially Evans had intended to write a pamphlet to assist millers desiring to construct machinery for their mills, as well as promoting his automated mill designs. However, Evans became so engrossed in the project that he ultimately devoted several years to writing a comprehensive book on milling technology that included long chapters on the basic principles of physics, hydraulics and mechanics, at times neglecting his family's financial security in order to complete it. The Young Mill-wright and Miller's Guide ultimately consisted of five parts: Principles of Mechanics and Hydraulics, Of the different Kinds of Mills, Description of the Author's Improvements, On the Manufacturing of Grain into Flour, Ellicott's Plans for Building Mills, and a lengthy appendix in which Evans detailed various ideas for other inventions, such as a hot-air system of central heating. Thomas Ellicott, whose family had been early adopters of Evans' designs in Baltimore, contributed a section on mill construction. Much of the theoretical work of the book was based on earlier scientific work on mechanical principles, yet Evans insisted that theoretical sections align with observations in the practical sections, and hence often revised standing theories to comport with experiments he conducted and observations he made. For example, he found what had been written on the theoretical mechanical principles of waterwheels did not match what he could replicate in practice, so he revised them based on observation to form a "true theory" and concluded that "neither the old or new theories agree with practice, therefore we must suspect that they are founded on error. But if, what I call the true theory, should continue to agree with practice, the practitioner need not care on what it is founded." Evans over his career would frequently dismiss the interest of his work to scientists, as in his work he saw theory only as a means by which to explain and improve upon practical applications.

Evans soon received a influential interest in his book, and his list of subscribers was topped by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Edmund Randolph when the first edition appeared in print in 1795. The book proved very popular and remained a staple manual for millers for over half a century, undergoing several revisions and fifteen printed editions between 1795 and 1860. The book's popularity rested on its detailed practical explanations of mill design and construction, and as the principal for American milling it would not be superseded until after the Civil War.

After the publication of the Guide, Evans concentrated on his work as a milling supply merchant and to gaining financial security through licensing his patented designs. With enough millers now using Evans' designs, adoption began to accelerate rapidly after 1800, as did Evans' wealth from the license fees. In these years Evans concentrated on expanding his commercial operations in Philadelphia, expanding his store several times, becoming an agent for English imports, and taking on blacksmiths to complete more complicated metal work for mills. All the while Evans continued to refine various elements of mill design, including patenting a new process for making millstones and developing a screw mill for grinding plaster of Paris, which was in great demand in Philadelphia for stucco work. Evans and his younger brother Evan, along with blacksmith Thomas Clark, developed a device for packing flour barrels using a wooden disc operated by a compound lever. The device employed a toggle joint, a simple mechanism that itself became highly popular in a variety of contemporary mechanical designs.

Developing the High-Pressure Steam Engine, 1801-1806

Evans had first began to think of the potential applications of steam power while still an apprentice in the 1780s, and had developed rudimentary designs for 'steam carriages' in the 1790s. In 1801, Evans definitively turned his attentions to developing his long held ideas for a steam carriage into reality. In this period steam engines had just begun to be adopted as a source of power in a variety of contexts. John Fitch had launched the first steamboat onto the Delaware River in the late 1780s (the design of which Evans had some involvement), and the Philadelphia waterworks was by 1802 operating two low-pressure steam engines to pump water from the Schuylkill River.

Initial designs for a steam propelled carriage utilized a steam wheel in which steam pressure was converted directly to rotary power, however Evans soon discovered (like many contemporaries including James Watt) that a rotary steam engine would never be powerful enough to propel a carriage of any weight forward. Evans' attention turned to a reciprocating engine for not only his steam carriage ideas (in which he saw limited commercial opportunities) but also for industrial application. Critically, Evans was a proponent of 'strong steam' or high-pressure engines, an idea long resisted by James Watt and early steam pioneers. Evans recognized that a high-pressure steam engine would be essential to the development of a steam carriage because they could be built much smaller whilst providing similar or greater power outputs to low-pressure equivalents, and their smaller size made them possible to build them easier and cheaper, and potentially run them at higher speeds. Some experiments with high-pressure steam engines had been made in Europe, most notably a unsuccessful steam tractor developed by Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot. However the prevailing fear propagated by Watt and others was that no boiler could safely operate a high-pressures. Evans ignored the potential drawbacks, and developed designs radically different from Watt's by operating at high-pressure and eliminating the condenser - a central component of Watt's designs.Evans' engine used a grasshopper beam. The high pressure steam engine had a higher power to weight ratio, making it practical to make locomotives and steamboats. The engine featured a double-acting cylinder, and four steam valves, each independently operated one of four cams. The high-pressure steam engine was mechanically simpler than condensing engines making it less costly to build and maintain, plus it did not require large volumes of condensing water. These features made it well suited for a variety of industrial applications.

Evans' sketches of his first steam engine, 1803

As with the automated mill, Evans' ideas were harshly criticized by other engineers, most notably amongst the Philadelphia engineering community by the influential Benjamin Latrobe, though Evans persisted. As it happened, Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick had simultaneously developed similar ideas in favor of high-pressure engines and had begun to experiment with them in developing the first locomotives, but neither man knew of each other's work.

The feat of constructing his designs proved far more difficult than Evans had initially envisaged - with just six working steam engines in the United States at this time, and just a couple of workshops that had any experience making them, it took Evans much of his money and two years before a working example was displayed to the public in 1803. This first engine was powered by a double-acting cylinder six inches in diameter and with a piston stroke length of eighteen inches. Many components, such as the flywheel and crosshead, were constructed of wood in order to simplify construction. The boiler, the engineering of which was critical to the safe operation of the engine, consisted of large copper shell encased in wood and cast iron rings in order to contain the pressure. The output of the machine was approximately five horsepower. This work output was modest by contemporary standards - the low-pressure engine of the nearby waterworks produced about twelve horsepower. But Evans' steam engine was just a fraction of the size pre-existing machines - the waterworks machine was over twenty-five times larger in area. Evans unveiled his engine at his store and put it to work crushing plaster of Paris and, more sensationally, sawing slabs of marble. The showmanship paid off, and thousands came to see the machine in operation, whilst the Philadelphia newspaper Aurora declared "a new era in the history of the steam engine."

The Oruktor Amphibolos

An artistic reconstruction of Oruktor Amphibolos, 1834

Evans received a patent for his new steam engine in 1804, an set about looking for commercial applications. The first of his proposals was for the Lancaster Turnpike Company. He forwarded a proposal to be commissioned to construct a steam wagon powerful enough to carry 100 barrels of flour between Philadelphia and Lancaster in two days, which by his estimation would greatly increase profits compared to the equivalent five horse wagons in only two-thirds of the time. Evans declared in his proposal that "I have no doubt but that my engines will propel boats against the current of the Mississippi, and waggons on turnpike roads with great profit." Unsure of the reliability and cost of the technology, the proposal was rejected.

Within a year however, Evans had convinced buyer to engage him. The Philadelphia Board of Health was concerned with the problem of dredging and cleaning the city's dockyards and removing sandbars: in 1805 Evans convinced them to contract him to develop a steam-powered dredge. The result was the Oruktor Amphibolos, or "Amphibious Digger". The vessel consisted of a flat-bottomed scow in which dredging equipment consisting of a chain of buckets to bring up mud, and hooks to clear away sticks, stones and other obstacles. Power for the dredging equipment and propulsion of the craft was supplied by a high-pressure Evans engine. The end result was a craft nearly thirty feet long, twelve feet wide and weighing some seventeen tons. To move this ungainly hulk to the waterfront, as well to give a demonstration of his long-held beliefs in the possibility of land-based steam transportation, Evans mounted the hull on four wheels (twice, as the first set collapsed under the weight) and connected the engine to them in order to drive the Oruktor from his workshop through the Philadelphia streets on the way to the Schuylkill river on July 13, 1805. The Oruktor Amphibolos is thus believed to have been the first automobile in the United States, and the first motorized amphibious craft in the world. However, very few contemporary accounts of the craft survive, and Evans' tendency to exaggerate its success in his own annals make verification of its performance difficult. Although Evans himself claimed it proceeded successfully around Philadelphia (and circled his erstwhile rival Benjamin Latrobe's Philadelphia waterworks) before launching into the river and paddling at speed to Philadelphia harbor; the great weight of the craft make land-propulsion based on Evans' limited engine capacity and jury-rigged power train fairly improbable over any significant distance. It is similarly unknown how well, if at all, the Oruktor functioned as a steamboat, and Evans' claims on this point vary significantly over the years. It is known however that the invention proved ineffective for its putative purpose as a dredger, and it was scrapped for parts by the Board of Health in 1808. Nevertheless, despite the Oruktor serving more as a publicity stunt than a practical invention, it served its symbolic purpose at the time as evidence that Evans' ideas of steam carriages had not been an impossible dream. Although he never again attempted to build a steam carriage or improve upon the Orkutor's design, Evans would continue to promote the idea. In 1812 he published a prophetic description of a United States connected by a network of railroad lines with transportation by steam locomotives, long before any such potential could be realized.

"The time will come when people will travel in stages moved by steam engines, from one city to another, almost as fast as birds fly, fifteen or twenty miles in an hour”

The Steam Engineer's Guide

A diagram of a rotary steam valve from the French edition, 1820

Evans became increasing combative and possessive over his ideas, and quarrelled with fellow inventors and engineering peers over steam technology in the mid-1800s. His increasing frustration led to his premature publication of what he had hoped would be the equivalent of his earlier manual for millers - the petulantly titled The Abortion of the Young Steam Engineer's Guide. The Abortion was significantly shorter than this first book and less structured in its approach. A third of the book is devoted to an ongoing argument between Evans and John Stevens, a New Jersey steamboat tinkerer, much of which had previously appeared in the journal The Medical Repository and to which now Evans added various additional criticisms of Stevens' contentions. The book goes on to provide an introductory discussion of the principles of steam engines and the relevant physical principles, as well as designs for the Evans high-pressure steam engine, boilers, screw-mills and others. However, thermodynamics was poorly developed in Evans' time. As such many of Evans' contentions, including a 'grand principle' of steam he expounds, were substantially flawed, and although Evans was to be quite successful in the development of high-pressure steam engines (and his designs were widely used), his theoretical understanding of them was limited and he was generally unable to accurately predict the inputs and outputs of his machines.

Refrigeration

Despite an incomplete understanding of the theoretical principles behind them, in some regards Evans' thinking about the potential for steam engines was once again far ahead of its time. In the postscript of the Abortion, Evans noted that drawing a vacuum on water reduces the boiling point of water and cools it. He further observed that a vacuum would have the same effect upon ether, and the resulting cooling should be sufficient to produce ice. He went on to describe a piston vacuum pump apparatus to produce this effect, and also showed that a compression cylinder, or the compression stroke of the vacuum pump, should produce heat in a condenser. Thus Evans had produced the first detailed and theoretically coherent design for a vapor-compression refrigerator, identifying all the major components (expander, cooling coil, compressor and condenser) of a refrigeration cycle, leaving some to credit him as the 'grandfather of refrigeration'. Although Evans never developed a working model of his designs, and there is no evidence that he ever attempted to, Evans in his later life worked and associated extensively with fellow inventor Jacob Perkins on steam engines and the potential for refrigeration. Perkins would later develop and build a refrigeration device for which he received patents in 1834-1835, employing much the same principles originally put forward by Evans.

The Mars Works, 1806-1812

The Columbian Engine of 1812

Having, in his view, perfected many of his ideas and designs about steam engines, Evans turned his attention once more to the commercial propagation of his inventions. His first steam engines had been constructed on an ad-hoc basis, often with improvised tools and workers, and he had relied heavily on blacksmiths and other metal-working shops in Philadelphia with little experience in the more precise metal-work required to build steam engines. In particular Evans soon realized that unlike his milling inventions of wood and leather; he would need highly specialist skills, precision tools and a large foundry in order to build his inventions on a commercial basis. Thus, Evans constructed the Mars Works on a large site a few blocks north of his store in Philadelphia. The choice of name, after the Roman god of war, is thought to have been aspiration and a challenge to the Soho Foundry near Birmingham in the United Kingdom, famous for building the Watt and Boulton engines. Indeed, the completed Mars Works was one of the largest and best equipped outfits of its kind in the United States - by contemporary accounts it featured a substantial foundry, moldmaker's shop, blacksmith's shops, millstone maker, a steam engine works and a large steam engine of its own to grind materials and work wrought iron. With over thirty-five staff, the Mars Works capable to a wide range of manufactures ranging from working steam engines to cast iron fittings, as well as milling and agricultural machines for Evans' now well established agricultural clientèle. Steam engine orders alone proved not sufficient to support the extensive costs of the business, hence the works became highly experienced in producing all kinds of heavy machinery, contributing in large part to the emergence of Philadelphia as a leading center for such work in the 19th century. Indeed, the works even received military orders, casting cannon for navy ships during the War of 1812. Evans also proved highly innovative in designing steam power solutions for his clients. In one example where the Mars Works was commissioned to build engines for wool processing factories in Middletown, Connecticut, Evans designed a network of accompanying pipes in the factory which would channel engine exhaust to the exterior and act as radiators to heat the building in the process.

Although there are no records as to design of the early steam engines produced by the Mars Works, Evans' most famous engine design appeared around 1812. Evans called it the Columbian Engine as a patriotic gesture, and would prove to be the most advanced and successful steam engine design created by Evans, a result of his now extensive experience in designing and building high-pressure steam engines. This vertically arranged engine allowed the crankshaft and piston rod to work closely together at one end of the machine, thus reducing the need for a heavy working beam like those required for conventional engines, such as Watt's. The piston rod itself was kept working to straight line while by a new type of linkage wherein two sets of pivoted bars guided the movements of the working bar in a roughly straight line. This linkage is still known as the Evans straight-line linkage, though it was superseded within a few years by more precise straight line mechanisms. The Columbian was also the culmination of the grasshopper-style of steam engine, a style which Evans himself had pioneered. Perfected designs like the Columbian saw a popularization of the grasshopper-style and its wide use in a range of applications.

Pittsburgh Steam Engine Company

As the reputation of the Mars Works grew, so to did the the demand for its products. After a few years the Mars Works began exporting its engines inland - mills in Pittsburgh, Lexington and Marietta ordered steam engines for flour milling, for which purpose naturally Evans' was particularly adept at designing. Evans' son George was the first such order, having moved to Pittsburgh in 1809 to operate the Pittsburgh Steam Flour Mill. George and the mill were highly successful, and generated a great deal of interest in Evans' engines across the interior. However exporting engines to western Pennsylvania, Kentucky or Ohio was challenging and expensive from a logistical perspective. In 1811 Evans and George, as well as another successful steam miller and engineer Luther Stephens, founded the Pittsburgh Steam Engine Company, which in addition to engines would, like the Mars Works, produce heavy machinery and castings in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. With high demand for industrial products and relatively little industrial capacity, the Pittsburgh works added to its repertoire the capacity for brasswork, as well as producing finer products for domestic purposes like hinges and fittings.

The location of the Pittsburgh factory in the Mississippi watershed was important in the development of high-pressure steam engines for the use in steamboats. Evans had long been a believer in the application of steam engines for maritime purposes. In his book of 1805, Evans had stated:

"The navigation of the river Mississippi, by steam engines, on the principles here laid down, has for many years been a favorite subject of the author, and among the fondest wishes of his heart"

Evans long been an acquaintance of John Fitch, the first to build a steamboat in the United States, and the two had worked together on steam projects. The Oruktor Amphibolos had been Evans' lone attempt at building his own steamboat powered by a high-pressure engine, but Evans' himself was often vague on appraising its successes. Yet Robert Fulton's had found success with the North River Steamboat on the Hudson River in 1807, and thereafter steamboats on the Mississippi became a reality. Fulton constructed his own steam engines of the low-pressure variety for his steamboats, but in 1812 contacted Evans about the possibility of using Evans' engines for his boats, though that correspondence did not lead to the implementation of any of Evans' designs for Fulton's steamships. Ultimately however, high-pressure engines were adopted to power many steamboats navigating the Mississippi, though relatively few of those were actually built by the Pittsburgh works as Evans' patent on high-pressure engines was not widely enforced, and many other engine shops opened on the Mississippi that freely adapted Evans' designs for their own purposes. Notable examples of river steamboats that were constructed by the Pittsburgh and Mars Works include the Franklin, the Aetna and the Pennsylvania. Another, christened the Oliver Evans but renamed the Constitution by its eventual owners, was lost along with the eleven crew members when it's boiler exploded near Point Coupee, Louisiana. Evans was deeply distressed by the news, although he defended the safety of high-pressure engines and cited any explosions as a extremely rare occurrences.

Patent Battles

Evans found himself in battles to protect his intellectual property many times throughout his career, but he pursued the cause most doggedly during his latter years. His first and most successful patents concerning flour-milling proved the most problematic to defend, and Evans' battles proved influential in setting precedent for the newly established area of federal patent law. Evans' original patent for his automated flour-mill expired in January, 1805, but Evans believed that the fourteen year patent term was too brief and petitioned the Congress to extend it, which it declined to do.{[sfn|Ochoa|p=61}} However Evans later pushed the case again, and in January, 1808 An Act for the Relief of Oliver Evans was passed and signed by President Jefferson, a long-time admirer of Evans' work. The act took the extraordinary step of restoring Evans' expired patent and giving it another fourteen year term - Evans was delighted, but the move was to highly problematic, particularly regarding those who had implemented Evans' designs in the intervening three year period between the patent terms, a significant number as many had waited for Evans' patent to expire before upgrading their mills.

Evans and his agents set about aggressively to collect royalties from those who had adopted his technology. Furthermore, Evans significantly raised the license fees for his use of his patented technology, raising claims of extortion from those being asked to pay, and a great many cases ended up in court. Critically, the relief act of 1808 had indemnified those who had adopted Evans' technologies from 1805 to 1808, but did not specify whether this indemnity was perpetual (as defendants argued) or whether it was only for the three years in question (as Evans argued). Evans by this stage of his life had also established a poor reputation for himself amongst the milling community, and his abrasive and often petty pursuit of patent rights stiffened resistance. The result was several long fought court cases over the issue, including Evans v. Weiss, Evans v. Eaton and Evans v. Jordan. Several of these cases questioned whether laws to extent private patents in this manner were even constitutional, but Evans ultimately prevailed in each case.

However the most bitter legal battle began in 1809. Evans sued Samuel Robinson, a miller Baltimore who was using Evans' improvements without a license to produce a very modest amount of flour, for damages in the order of $2,500. That sum was deemed unjustifiably high and harsh by many, and Evans' actions rallied the Baltimore community against him, and when the case was finally heard in 1812 many appeared in support of the defendant. Prominent Baltimore businessman Elisha Tyson and other associates presented evidence and witnesses at the trial to press the argument that Evans did not truly invent much of what his patents protected. Indeed, the debate became a wide-ranging one - although the hopper-boy was undoubtedly original, the use of bucket chains and Archimedean screws had been used since ancient times and Evans had only modified some of their features and adapted them for use in a milling context. Thomas Jefferson weighed into the debate in letters to both Evans and his detractors, questioning the philosophy of patent law and what truly defined 'invention' and 'machine' (and to some extent the validity of Evans' claims from that standpoint) but ultimately not questioning the purpose of patent law, which was to incentivize innovation by rewarding inventors for their development and sharing of new technology.

Death

In 1819, while in New York City, Oliver Evans was informed that his workshop in Philadelphia had burned to the ground. Evans suffered a stroke at the news, and died soon after. He is buried in Trinity Cemetery, Broadway at 154th Street, New York City.

Tributes

In World War II, the United States Liberty ship SS Oliver Evans was named in his honor.

Further reading

• Greville, Bathe; Bathe, Dorothy (1935). Oliver Evans: A Chronicle of Early American Engineering. Philadelphia. ISBN 978-0-405-04684-1<Ayer Co Pub (1972)> {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: postscript (link)
• Ferguson, Eugene S. (1980). Oliver Evans: Inventive genius of the American industrial revolution. Greenville, Delaware: The Hagley Museum.

See also

• Joseph Tatnall House
• George Washington's Gristmill
• Keefe-Mumbower Mill
• Peirce Mill - A historic mill (still able to operate) built using Evan's principles.
• [(Colvin Run Mill, Great Falls, Va.)

References

• Bathe, Greville; Bathe, Dorothy (1935). Oliver Evans: A Chronicle of Early American Engineering. Philadelphia, PA: Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
• Carey, Charles W. (2009). American Inventors, Entrepreneurs and Visionaries. New York, NY: Facts on File. ISBN 0-8160-4559-3.
• Carnes, Mark C. (2003). Invisible Giants: Fifty Americans Who Shaped the Nation But Missed the History Books. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 1-4223-5615-9.
• Evans, Harold; Buckland, Gail; Lefer, David (2006). They Made America: From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine: Two Centuries of Innovators. Boston, MA: Back Bay Books. ISBN 0-3160-1385-4.
• Evans, Oliver (1795). The Young Mill-wright and Miller's Guide. Philadelphia, PA: Oliver Evans.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Evans, Oliver (1805). The Abortion of the Young Steam Engineer's Guide. Philadelphia, PA: Fry & Kammerer.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Ferguson, Eugene S. (1980). Oliver Evans: Inventive Genius of the American Industrial Revolution. Wilmington, DE: Eleutherian Mills-Hagley Foundation. ISBN 0-9146-5018-1.
• Ferguson, Eugene S.; Baer, Christopher (1979). Little Machines: Patent Models in the Nineteenth Century. Greenville, DE: Hagley Museum.
• Goddard, Dwight (1906). Eminent Engineers. New York, NY: Derry-Collard Company.
• Hobsbawm, Eric J. (1999). Industry and Empire: From 1750 to the Present Day. London, UK: Penguin. ISBN 0-1401-3749-1.
• Howe, Henry (1840). Memoirs of the Most Eminent American Mechanics: Also, Lives of Distinguished European Mechanics, Together with a Collection of Anecdotes, Descriptions, Etc., Etc. New York, NY: W.F. Peckham.
• Kittredge, Henry G.; Gould, Arthur C. (1886). History of the American Card-Clothing Industry. Worcester, MA: T.K. Earle.
• Larson, Len (2008). Dreams To Automobiles. Bloomington, IN: Xlibris. ISBN 1-4363-7892-3.
• Latimer, George A. (March 1873). "A Sketch of the Life of Oliver Evans". Harkness' Magazine. Wilmington, DE.
• Meyer, David R. (2006). Networked Machinists: High-Technology Industries in Antebellum America. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-8471-3.
• Thomson, Ross (2009). Structures of Change in the Mechanical Age: Technological Innovation in the United States, 1790–1865. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-9141-8.

Works authored

• Evans, Oliver; Stevens, John (1805). The abortion of the young steam engineer's guide ... (Book : Micro-opaque). Early American imprints., Second series. Philadelphia: Fry and Kammerer. OCLC 15453076.

• Evans, Oliver (1848). The young mill-wright and miller's guide, 12th edition. Lea & Blanchard. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

External links

• Oliver Evans on inventors.about.com
• Evans on invent.org
• "Who made America?"
• Mural showing Evans' "Steam Powered Amphibious Boat – 1804" (sic) on aoc.gov
• Invention & Technology Magazine: "Was This America’s First Steamboat, Locomotive, and Car?" – comprehensive examination of the Oruktor story, and how Evans embellished it over the years, including technical analysis about whether it could ever have worked