Who was Oliver Evans?
"It frequently happens," said Oliver Evans, "that two persons, reasoning right on a mechanical subject, think alike and invent the same thing without any communication with each other."Oliver Evans was a champion of locomotive history in the United States and a truly great inventor, for whom the world was not quite ready. He was the first steam engine builder in America, and one of the best of his day. He produced the high-pressure steam engine, and invented new machinery for manufacturing flour that was the standard for a hundred years.
Oliver Evans - Biography
Oliver Evans was apprenticed at the age of fourteen to a wheelwright. He was a studious boy, who devoured eagerly the few books he had access to. He even set fire to trash for a reading light, when his qaurdians refused to give him a candle.In 1779, when only seventeen years old, he began inventing methods of propelling horse carriages by means other than horses. He considered a variety of methods, such as using the force of the wind or pedals. Then he heard a story about neighboring blacksmith's boys plugging up the hole of a gun barrel with water and cloth and putting the gun into the blacksmith's fire. The gun had discharged itself with a bang like that of gunpowder. This immediately suggested to Oliver Evans' fertile mind a new source of power, confirmed by a book describing the old atmospheric steam engine of Thomas Newcomen.
Oliver Evans - Steam Wagons
Oliver Evans realized that, up to that date, steam had only been used to produce a vacuum while to him it seemed clear that the power of the steam if applied directly to moving a piston, would be far more efficient. He soon realized that he could make steam wagons (steam-powered cars), but he could convince no one else of this possibility.Oliver Evans was then living in Delaware, where he was born, and where he later worked out his inventions in flour-milling machinery and invented and put into service the high-pressure steam engine. He appears to have moved to Philadelphia about 1790, the year of Ben Franklin's death and of the Federal Patent Act. The third patent issued by the Government at Philadelphia was granted to him. About this time he became absorbed in the hard work of writing a book, the "Millwright and Miller's Guide", which he published in 1795, but at a heavy sacrifice to himself in time and money. A few years later he had an established engine works in Philadelphia and was making steam engines of his own design.
Oruktor Amphibolos
The Oruktor Amphibolos, or Amphibious Digger, which came out of Oliver Evans shop in 1804, was a steam-driven machine made for the Philadelphia Board of Health for dredging and cleaning the docks of the city. It was designed, as its name suggests, for service either in water or on land. It propelled itself across the city to the river front, puffing and throwing off clouds of steam and making quite a sensation on the streets.Oliver Evans had never forgotten his dream of the "steam wagon." His Oruktor had no sooner begun puffing than he offered to make for the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike Company steam-driven carriages to take the place of their six-horse Conestoga wagons, promising to triple their profits. But the directors of the road were conservative men and his arguments fell on deaf ears.
