Evans, Oliver

EVANS, OLIVER

Oliver Evans (1755–1819) was born in Newport, Delaware, on September 13, 1755. Evans was apprenticed to a wagon maker, or wheelwright, as a young man. But beyond the apprenticeship, he was a self-taught, natural mechanic who was good at figuring things out. Evans began his career as an inventor at the age of twenty-one, when he began work on a machine to make the toothed cards used to brush wool prior to spinning. In just a year, he perfected the process and had an operational machine.

Married in 1780, Evans moved to Wilmington, Delaware, to join two brothers in a flour milling business. Within five years, he had analyzed the milling machinery and built automatic machinery to mill grain in one continuous process. The machinery he invented included the grain elevator, conveyor, drill, hopper boy, and descender. With these improvements, grain could be milled and the process completely controlled by one person. Moreover, the end product was much cleaner than in the old process.

The legislatures of Maryland and Pennsylvania granted Evans exclusive rights to use this machinery, and in 1790, he was granted patents by the U.S. Congress. Evans' patent was the third ever granted by the U.S. government. However, he had trouble enforcing his rights and was unsuccessful at profiting from the inventions.

Evans moved to Philadelphia and established a manufacturing company to build and sell mill equipment. The next project Evans tackled was the steam engine. James Watt (1736–1819) introduced a low-pressure steam engine in 1802. In the Watt engine, condensing steam created a vacuum that "pulled" the piston. Evans worked on a high-pressure engine that used the expansion of steam to "push" the piston, a more efficient method of converting heat energy into work. A parallel effort in England at the same time is often credited with this particular improvement to the steam engine. However, British inventor Richard Trevithick had access to Evans' plans and drawings, and Evans grieved that others got credit for his work.

Evans built a steam-powered amphibious vehicle in 1804 to dredge mud and silt from the Schuylkill River. This vehicle was likely the first steam-powered vehicle on either land or water in the United States. Named the Oruketer Amphibolos, or amphibious vehicle, by Evans, the device moved over land with wheels and was propelled in the water with a paddle wheel. Evans lobbied for the first railroad, believing that the propulsion device could be adapted to moving vehicles over land on rails made from either wood or iron. Evans' plan was to run rails from Philadelphia to New York, but the first commercial railroad was not in place until years after Evans died. He continued to refine his design and work on the steam engine throughout his life.

Evans published books on his inventions and engineering. His The Young Millwright and Miller's Guide (1797), The Young Engineer's Guide (1805), and The Abortion of the Young Steam Engineer's Guide (1805) were early handbooks on these subjects. They were translated into French and published in Paris as well.

His iron foundries in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, the Mars Iron Works, were founded in 1807. By the time of his death, they were producing mill equipment, steam engines, and other types of ironwork. Oliver Evans died in New York City on April 21, 1819.

FURTHER READING

Bathe, Greville and Dorothy. Oliver Evans: A Chronicle of Early American Engineering. Philadelphia: The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1935.

Bowman, John S., ed. The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, s.v. "Evans, Oliver."

Encyclopedia of World Biography. Detroit: Gale Research, Inc., 1998, s.v. "Evans, Oliver."

Percell, Carroll W., Jr. Early Stationary Steam Engines in America: A Study of the Migration of a Technology. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1969.

World of Invention. Detroit: Gale Research, Inc., 1994.