b. October 18, 1787 and d. April 20, 1856

American mechanical engineer; son of John Stevens, Jr. He increased the speed of steamboats to fifteen miles an hour in 1832. In 1821 he originated the present form of the ferry-boat and the ferry-slips. He adopted the overhead working-beam of Watt to navigation; in 1818, invented the cam-board cut-off and 1821 the gallows-frame that is now used. He lengthened the piston stroke, and in 1826 invented the split water-wheel. In 1831 he invented the balance valve, a modification of the Cornish double-beat valve. In 1831 he made the first marine tubular boiler, and was among the first to use anthracite coal. He introduced mast and rods, and added great strength by his overhead truss-frame. He constructed the first iron-clad and produced a percussion shell.

Hammer, tongs and anvils ringing,
Waking echoes all day long,
In a deep-toned voice are singing,
Thrifty labor’s joyful song;
From a thousand fly-wheels bounding,
From a thousand humming looms,
Night and day the notes are sounding,
Thro’ the misty factory rooms.
Listen! workmen, to their playing,
There’s advice in every clink;
Still they’re singing-still they’re saying-
While you labor, learn to think!

—Work and Think

b. February, 1802 and d. October 19, 1875

English inventor. He invented the stereoscope and established the philosophy of binocular vision. To him and (Sir) William Fothergill Cooke are we indebted for the elctric telegraph. They elaborated the five-needle and the two-needle telegraph which came into general use. He invented the magneto-electric letter-showing telegraph, a system of electro-magnetic clocks, a cryptograph or secret despatch writer, supposed to be indecipherable. He invented electric chronographs, automatic instruments of record, instruments for measuring electricity and electrical resistance, including the “rheostat.” In 1819 he invented his magic lyre, called the “telephone.” In 1866 he made the first self-exciting electric machine; and in 1867 he read a paper before the Royal Society on the reaction principle in dynamo machines.

Away, away through the sightless air-
Stretch forth your iron thread;
For I would not dim my sandals fair
With the dust ye lamely tread;
Ay rear it up on its million piers-
Let it reach the world around,
And the journey ye make in a hundred years
I’ll clear at a single bound!

—The Song of Lightning: George W. Cutter

b. October 18, 1824 and d. April 29, 1888

American inventor. He was a cabinet-maker and in 1849 invented a sewing-machine without ever having seen one, patented November 12, 1850. In 1851 he secured a patent for the rotating hook, which was designed to supersede the shuttle and to make the lock-stitch with greater rapidity, neatness and economy of power; in 1852 he devised the four-motion feed, subsequently adopted on all machines. Wilson entered into partnership with Nathaniel Wheeler and they had a small shop in Watertown. Their first machine sold for $125; the demand increased and they removed the shop to Bridgeport, Conn., where they have made six hundred machines a day.

Many facts concur to show that we must look
deeper for our salvation than to steam, photographs,
balloons, or astronomy. They are reagents. Machinery
is aggressive. The weaver becomes a web, the
machinist a machine. All tools are in one sense
edge-tools, and dangerous. A man builds a fine
house; and now he has a master, and a task for
life; he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it
in repair, the rest of his days.

—Works and Days: Emerson