John Ericsson

“ The restoration of the remains of John Ericsson to Sweden afforded a gratifying occasion to honor the memory of the great inventor, to whose genius our country owes so much, and to bear witness to the unbroken friendship which has existed between the land which bore him and our own, which claimed him as a citizen. ”

“ Proud was John Ericsson then, and rightly so, for he had invented an entirely new kind of ship, and one which was to give its name of Monitor to all ships of its kind.
The building of the Monitor for its successful battle with the Merrimac was the most dramatic incident in Ericsson's career as an inventor, but his whole life showed a series of wonderful inventions which for value and wide range can probably only be compared with those of Edison. ”

“ It was a curious sight when the officer in command of the troops placed six hundred soldiers in charge of young John Ericsson. They were too well trained to laugh, but they were tremendously surprised when they saw that their future orders were to come from this small, curly-haired lad just barely turned fourteen. Olof Ericsson himself was scarcely less surprised than the men; he knew his son's great mechanical ability, but he could hardly believe that others had come to realize it so soon. ”

“ Rarely has been given to the world a finer example of health and character contributing to a career of splendid usefulness.
On the eighth of March, 1889, John Ericsson died in his New York house, where for a quarter of a century he had lived his active and solitary existence. The significance of his death was recognized, not only by his native Sweden and the United States, the land of his adoption, but by the entire civilized world, in which his inventions had brought such revolutionizing [Pg 36] changes. ”

“ Born of middle-class parentage and with no apparent source of heredity from which to draw the stores of genius which he displayed throughout his life, and with surroundings in boyhood but little calculated to awaken and inspire the life-work which later made him famous, from this beginning and with these early surroundings John Ericsson became unquestionably the greatest of the engineers of the age in which he lived and of the century which witnessed such mighty advances along all engineering lines. ”

“ John Ericsson was a Swedish engineer, residing in this country, who had won a name for himself by inventing the screw-propeller as a means of propulsion for steamships. He and a Connecticut capitalist, C. S. Bushnell by name, had ever since the opening of the war been trying to induce the Government to build some iron-clads after a pattern designed by Ericsson, and which afterwards became known as the "monitor" pattern. Their labors at Washington met with little success. ”

“ The harnessing and efficient utilization of these great natural energies is the direct function of the engineer, or more especially of the dynamic engineer, and in this noble guild of workers, Ericsson carved for himself an enduring place and left behind a record which should serve as an inspiration to all who are following the same pathway in later years.
No one feature perhaps better differentiates our modern civilization from that of earlier times, four hundred years ago, or even one hundred, than that of intercommunication between man and his fellow. ”

“ Another important practical experimenter in the construction of hot-air engines was John Ericsson, who in 1824 constructed an engine somewhat resembling the early one of Cayley, and in 1852 built caloric engines on such a scale as to be adapted to the propulsion of ships. Notwithstanding the genius of Ericsson, however, engines of this type did not prove commercially successful on a large scale, and in subsequent decades the hot-air motors constructed for practical purposes seldom exceeded one horse-power. ”

“ A monument to the memory of John Ericsson, the Swedish-American inventor, was unveiled at Stockholm with impressive ceremonies on the 14th of September, 1901, that being the date of the reception of his remains at Stockholm eleven years before. The first award of the munificent prizes for beneficial services to mankind, instituted by the will of Alfred Bernard Nobel, the eminent Swedish engineer and inventor, was made on the 10th of December, 1901. See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES. SWEDEN: A. D. 1903. Agreement for Settlement of Claims against Venezuela. ”

“ The imprint left by Ericsson's life on the engineering practice of his age was deep and lasting, and if one may dare look into the future, the day is far removed when engineers will have passed beyond their dependence on his life and labors. ”

“ The editor of a Swedish weekly receives very well written poems and contributions from his readers. Learning stands high with the Swedes, and since John Ericsson they have sent us many fine technical men. Only lately their great chemist Arrhenius hazarded the prediction that, owing to the tendency of American men of ability to go into business, our university chairs will some day be filled with scholars of German and Scandinavian blood. ”

“ These took the model and plans to John Ericsson, then regarded as the best engineer in the country, and he, after shutting himself up with them for ten days, submitted a report in which he stated his belief in the feasibility of the plan, and that he could construct the vessel in one hundred days. ”

“ To-day we travel thousands of miles by railroad; a hundred years ago our great-great-grandfathers traveled by horse-drawn coaches. Where we may now speed a mile a minute behind a giant steam locomotive, they were content with what seemed to them the tremendous speed of eleven miles an hour. But all things change. There are always leaders in the world’s progress. Of these leaders was John Ericsson. Travel had been a luxury of the rich; the invention of the steam locomotive made fast and economical travel possible to the poor as well. ”

“ The instrument is of considerable length, and he describes himself as John Ericsson, Civil Engineer, of the city of New York. In a codicil to his will, he mentions his share of the profits and emoluments that might arise from the manufacture and sale of his patents that might thereafter be granted by the United States for improvements in engines. These engines are described as two motive engines, designated as a solar engine and a sun motor.
“Men of genius,” said Dean Stanley over the grave of Charles Dickens, “are different from what we suppose them to be. ”

“ Ericsson was essentially a designing rather than a constructing engineer. His genius lay in new adaptations of the principles of mechanics or in new combinations of the elements of engineering practice in such way as to further the purposes in view. His mode of expression was the drawing-board. While he wrote vigorously and well, and while he was a frequent contributor in later years to scientific literature, especially on the subject of solar physics, yet his best and natural mode of expression was the graphical representation of his designs on the drawing-board. ”

“ These are some of the important lines of work on which Ericsson was engaged during the twelve years of his life in London. In connection with some he was undoubtedly a pioneer, and deserves credit as an original inventor; in connection with others, his work was that of improvement or adaptation; but in all his influence was profound, and the legacy which we have received from this period of engineering progress is due in no small degree to Ericsson, and to his work in London during these years. ”

“ A few years before, John C. Stevens in America and John Ericsson in England had brought forward the screw propeller; and Ericsson was the first to couple the engine to the propeller shaft. It succeeded the successful paddle wheels of Fulton in America and Bell in England.
The nineteenth century is the age of kinetic energy: the energy of either solid, liquid, gaseous or electrical matter transformed into useful work. ”

“ Ericsson had really built a much faster locomotive than Stephenson's "Rocket;" and although it had been constructed with such celerity that it broke down before the final point was reached, and he thereby lost the prize, yet the superiority of the principle involved in it was universally recognized. John Bourn said: "To most men the production of such an engine would have constituted an adequate claim to celebrity. In the case of Ericsson, it is only a single star of the brilliant galaxy with which his shield is spangled." ”

“ The army organization is similar to that of Denmark, and about one hundred and fifty thousand men are available for service. The navy contains four monitors on the American plan, which were invented by John Ericsson, a Swede, two iron-clad gunboats, twenty-one steamers, and sixteen sailing vessels, besides a great number of floating batteries, and other stationary craft. ”

“ As a solution of a mechanical and physical puzzle, the arrangement of a large reflector, with a small steam-boiler at the focus of the heat rays thrown by it, is full of interest. Yet, when a man like the late John Ericsson, who did so much to improve the caloric engine, and the steam-ship as applied to war-like purposes, meets with failure in the attempt to carry such an idea to a commercially successful issue, there is at least prima facie evidence of some obstacle which places the proposed machine at a disadvantage in competition with its rivals. ”

“ For nearly ten years now Ericsson had devoted most of his energies to the art of war. It was a time of change and unrest. Heavy guns and armor had brought about a complete break with the past. The torpedo, which had made its appearance in crude form during the Civil War, was attracting more and more attention, and questions of naval offence and defence and of the best governmental policy were attracting the serious attention of all whose duty led them into relation with such matters. ”

“ As a mechanical genius, he was one of the most remarkable men of his time, and did much to promote the development of steam navigation.
Ericsson was born in the Province of Vermeland, in Sweden, in the year 1803. Coming to England in 1826, he entered into partnership with Braithwaite, a noted mechanician, in London, and there and then entered upon his remarkable career as an inventor. In 1836 he married Amelia, daughter of Mr. John Byam, second son of Sir John Byam. Accompanied by his wife, he came to the United States, arriving at New York, in the British Queen, November 2nd, 1839. ”

“ At this time Captain Stockton, of the United States navy, gave an order for a small iron vessel to be built by Laird of Birkenhead, and to be fitted by Ericsson with engines and screw. This vessel reached New York in May 1839. A few months later Ericsson followed his steamer to New York, and there he resided for the rest of his life, establishing himself as an engineer and a builder of iron ships. In 1848 he was naturalized as a citizen of the United States. He had many difficulties to contend with, and it was only by slow degrees that he established his fame and won his way to competence. ”

“ No one could hope to avoid errors, or to realize by drawing-board alone the best possible solution of engineering problems. Ericsson wilfully handicapped himself in this manner, and might unquestionably have more effectively improved and perfected his ideas had he been disposed to combine with his designs at the drawing-board practical contact with his work as constructed. ”

“ Some years earlier it appears that some of the objections to the paddle-wheel had become plainly apparent to Ericsson, although, occupied with other matters as he was, there was no immediate result. He apparently recognized that the slow revolutions possible with the paddle-wheel did not favor the improvement of the steam-engine along the lines which have since been followed, and he saw clearly that for warship purposes the engines employed, exposed above the water-line to destruction from the shell of an enemy, were entirely out of the question. ”

“ The lightness and compactness of this boiler led to many new applications of steam, and among others to Ericsson's construction of a steam fire engine, which was entirely successful. He constructed a similar engine of greater power for the king of Prussia. For this invention he received the prize medal of the mechanics' institute of New York. In 1833 he reduced to practice his long cherished project of a caloric engine, and submitted the result to the scientific world in London. ”

“ Ericsson went to England at the opening of an engineering era. The employment of steam as a motive power was in its infancy. Travel by sea was entirely by ships; on land the stage-coach and canal-boat furnished the only means of transportation. The steam-engine was an undeveloped toy of science. Electricity in its industrial application was unknown.
Forming a business partnership with an English machine manufacturer, John Braithwaite, under the firm name of Ericsson and Braithwaite, Ericsson immediately turned his tremendous faculties to various engineering improvements and inventions. ”

“ On this trip the engines were in operation for 73 hours without being stopped for a moment, and without requiring the slightest adjustment, the consumption of fuel being only five tons in 24 hours; but her speed was not great enough, and the caloric engines were subsequently replaced by steam engines. For several years Ericsson devoted himself to the improvement and perfection of the caloric engine and its application to pumping, printing, hoisting, grinding, sawing, turning light machinery of various kinds, working telegraphic instruments and sewing machines, and propelling boats. ”