The United States has always had a large immigrant population. This population has often been made up of large groups of people fleeing the hardships of their own lands to find a better life. Others seek purpose. This is the beginning story of a genius inventor who, although he had a much better status than other migrants, overcame his own challenges to become one of our national heroes. His name was John Ericsson.
John was born in a small mining town of Sweden in 1803. His father, who was a mine inspector encouraged his boy in science and engineering and John quickly grew into the field. As a young boy John worked as a surveyor even before he was tall enough to reach the transit without standing on a box, to assist his father in the construction of one of the first canals across the country.
At seventeen John joined the army as a map maker and worked to survey the most northern military installations. This was the beginning of the steam age and John soon took existing engine ideas, modified them and developed a power source he called a “flame engine. In 1826 he took leave of the army and traveled to England to create his idea and after development he and his partner sold several of his engines. But his big opportunity came in 1829 when a new railway company planned a race of locomotives, with the winner receiving a contract. The duo quickly went to work to build a locomotive even though they had not done so before and even though they had no railway to test the thing.
Fifteen thousand people attended the competition to watch five entries. When their time was called, the partners climbed aboard and opened the throttle. The little engine was reported in a newspaper as amazing, “traveling at a velocity of twenty-eight miles an hour, and it actually did one mile in the incredibly short space of one minute and 53 seconds.” Unfortunately, the untried engine stopped as quickly as it started due to unforeseen venting and the team received third place.
The failure of this challenge did not help the financial situation of the inventor and within two years he was in debtor’s prison. While in prison, John’s mind turned from land to sea and it is here, among many ideas, that it is believed he invented the modern propeller. After his release, he became reacquainted with Francis Ogden, a fellow steam enthusiast and the American consul in Liverpool. Ogden backed John’s ideas and in 1835 the partners patented an ocean sounding device which sold by the thousands. Two years later John completed building his first screw driven ship, a tug called the Francis B. Ogden. Hoping to acquire a contract with the Royal Navy, in 1837 the tug towed a barge up and down the Thames River with a group of dignitaries aboard. The effort was for naught, the navy was not ready for a propeller.
One man who took the ride did like what he saw however. An American, the richest man in New Jersey of the time and future Territorial Governor of California, his name was Robert Stockton. Stockton immediately commissioned John to build a screw steamer for his company’s use on the Delaware River. Built in England, the Robert F. Stockton became the first propeller ship to cross the Atlantic.
Returning to England, the now Commodore Stockton of the U.S. Navy again commissioned work from John at the Liverpool foundries. But this time it was for a large cannon. With a twelve inch bore, it would be the largest naval cannon ever made. Stockton’s unannounced plan was to place the gun on a new type of war vessel and he planned that John design and build it. Later, with appropriation of funds from the Secretary of Navy, in 1839 Stockton persuaded John Ericsson to come to the U.S. and build a ship. John moved to New York where he lived the rest of his life. In 1843 John’s creation, the first propeller-driven war ship designed from the keel up, the Princeton was christened with a bottle of American whiskey across her bow.
Robert Stockton was a vane, blusterous man. He needed more than Ericsson’s gun for his new ship, he wanted a cannon of his design. Even though he was not an engineer he ordered a bigger gun built than Ericsson’s. It would be “forged of American iron” and be named the Peacemaker. After completion, John shared grave concerns about this gun with Stockton. Stockton was offended by the engineer and shunned him from the inaugural celebrations. While John’s design had undergone several tests, Stockton’s had not been tested at all before the grand demonstration of February 1844 where Stockton welcomed some three hundred members of congress and President Tyler aboard.
The explosion of the Peacemaker was blamed completely on Ericsson by Stockton, while claiming the building of the ship as his own. The disaster resulted in the cancelation of future propeller ships by the navy and its refusal to pay John Ericsson. He would languish until 1861. Rumors that the new Confederate government was building an armored ship prompted him to offer his service to his country with the design of a little boat that lives in history as one of the most amazing, the Monitor.
