842 ERASMUS DARWIN LEAVITT. 



have become, under such conditions, one of the foremost men of the 

 day in his profession, speaks volumes for his grit, pertinacity and 

 abiHty. 



After serving three years as apprentice in the Lowell Machine 

 Shops, he entered the employ- of Corliss & Nightingale. In 1858 he 

 served as assistant foreman in the works of Harrison Loring at South 

 Boston, where he had charge of constructing the engine of a United 

 States man-of-war. The next three j^ears found him in Providence, 

 filling the position of chief draftsman for Thurston, Gardner & Co., 

 celebrated at that time as builders of high grade steam engines. 



At the outbreak of the Civil War, Leavitt enlisted in the engineers' 

 department of the Navy. He served for nearly three years on the 

 gunboat Sagamore, attached to the Eastern Gulf Squadron; where 

 he reached the grade of second assistant engineer. After this, he 

 was transferred to construction work in several of the United States 

 Navy Yards. In 1865, he was detailed as instructor of steam engi- 

 neering at Annapolis. Two years later he resigned from the Navy, 

 and opened an office for the practice of mechanical engineering. 



One of his first pieces of work, designed for the Plymouth Cordage 

 Co., was a simple condensing walking beam engine, which is still in 

 working order. After the construction of this engine, Mr. Leavitt 

 remained the consulting engineer of the Company until his retirement 

 from business. 



It was not long before Mr. Leavitt's engines began to attract wide 

 attention. He had for some time been interested in the economy of 

 pumping engines, and his fame as an engineer may be said to date 

 from the installation of an engine for the Lynn Water Works, em- 

 bracing all his ideas of efficiency and economy. 



Without entering into the details of the construction of this pump, 

 it is sufficient to state that it set a world wide standard for pumping 

 engines. It was officially tested by a number of the best experts of 

 the day, and developed a duty of over 103,900,000 foot pounds per 

 hundred pounds of picked Lackawanna antliracite. 



Shortly after this, Mr. Leavitt designed a pair of similar, but 

 somewhat larger pumping engines for Lawrence, Mass. 



By 1874 his fame was so well established, that when Mr. Alexander 

 Agassiz was looking about for an engineer to take charge of designing 

 the equipment of the Calumet and Hecla Mine, the latter's choice fell 

 on Mr. Leavitt. 



This opened up a wide field for a mechanical engineer. For Mr. 

 Agassiz was looking ahead to the future great development of the 

 mine, and it was his policy to install an equipment for the coming 



