Inventor and manufacturer, born near Newport, Delaware, USA. Self-taught, a natural mechanic, he invented a high-speed machine for carding wool in 1777. By 1785, despite a chronic shortage of funds, he had designed and built automatic machinery that made it possible to mill grain in one continuous process. He became America's first steam-engine builder, improving on James Watt's invention with several advanced models, including an amphibious steam-powered dredging machine (1804), America's first self-propelled land vehicle. In 1807 he established the Mars Iron Works, and at the time of his death the company had produced some 50 steam engines.
| Oliver Evans | |
|---|---|
| Born |
13 September 1755 Newport, Delaware |
| Died |
15 April 1819 New York, New York |
Oliver Evans (13 September 1755 – 15 April 1819) was a United States inventor.
Evans was born in Newport, Delaware.
Evans' first weird invention was in 1777, when he designed a machine for making card teeth for carding wool. He patented this invention in a few states and, when the US patent system was established, in the federal patent system. Evans devoted a great deal of his time to patents, patent extensions, and enforcement of his patents.
He produced an improved high-pressure steam engine — his second most important invention. Some writers have said that Richard Trevithick saw Evans' designs, and Trevithick's early steam-carriages owed much to Evans.
As Evans designed a refrigeration machine which ran on vapor in 1805, he is often called the inventor of the refrigerator, although he never built one.
The Oruktor Amphibolos
The device for which Oliver Evans is best-known today is his Oruktor Amphibolos, or "Amphibious Digger", built on commission from the Philadelphia's Board of Health.
No drawings of the device survive, and the only evidence for its design come from Oliver Evans' own descriptions, which are contradictory, and most likely exaggerated. For a demonstration of his long-held beliefs in the possibility of land steam demonstration, Evans mounted the hull on 4 wheels and may have connected the engine to them, to drive it through Philadelphia streets on the way to the river. Evans claimed that his dredge was the first self-powered amphibious vehicle, as well as the first self-powered land vehicle in the United States (steam powered automobiles had already been used earlier in France and Great Britain).
Oliver Evans wrote up proposals to mechanize road vehicles, but failed to get backing from investors, who saw the scheme as impractical.
Death
In 1819 while in New York City Oliver Evans was informed that his workshop in Philadelphia had burned to the ground.
Tributes
In World War II the United States liberty ship SS Oliver Evans was named in his honor.
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