SKETCH OF JAMES B. EADS. 545 



nine years old the family removed to Louisville. The engine on board 

 the boat excited so much admiration and wonder that the engineer 

 was induced to explain to him the principal parts of the machine. So 

 well did the lad profit by this one lesson in steam-engineering that 

 in little more than two years after he constructed a miniature engine 

 which was worked by steam. When about ten years old, his father 

 fitted for him a small workshop, and there he constructed models of 

 saw-mills, fire-engines, steamboats, steam-engines, electrical and other 

 machines. One of the pastimes of his childhood was to take in pieces 

 and put together again the family clock, and at twelve years he was 

 able to do the same with a patent-lever watch, with no tools but his 

 pocket-knife. When thirteen, misfortune overtook his father, and 

 he had to withdraw from school and work his own way. His par- 

 ents went to St. Louis in 1833 and he went with them. The 

 steamer was burned in the night on the way there, and he landed bare- 

 footed and coatless, on the very spot now covered by the abutment of 

 the great steel bridge which he designed and built. The only open- 

 ing in the way of business that offered was to sell apples on the street, 

 and by this means, for a few months, he sustained himself and assisted 

 in supporting his mother and sisters. In time he obtained a situation 

 with a mercantile firm, where he remained for five years. One of the 

 heads of the house having an excellent library, gave him access to it, 

 and he used his opportunity well to study subjects bearing upon 

 mechanics, machinery, civil engineering, and physical science. In 1889 

 he obtained employment as a clerk or purser on a Mississippi River 

 steamer. He again made the best use of his opportunity to acquire 

 that complete knowledge of the great river which he was afterward 

 able to turn to such good account in the noble enterprises he so fortu- 

 nately carried into effect. In 1842 he constructed a diving-bell boat 

 to recover the cargoes of sunken steamers. This was followed with a 

 boat of larger tonnage, provided with machinery for pumping out 

 the sand and water and lifting the entire hull and cargo of the vessel. 

 A company was formed to operate this device, and it soon had a busi- 

 ness that covered the entire Mississippi River, from Balize to Galena, 

 and even branched into some of its tributaries. By his methods, a 

 great many valuable steamers were set afloat and restored to usefulness 

 which it would not previously have been possible to save, as they 

 would have been buried very soon beneath the river-sands. It was 

 while engaged in this business that he gained a thorough knowledge 

 of the laws which control the flow of silt-bearing rivers, and of the 

 Mississippi he was able to say years afterward that there was not a 

 stretch in its bed fifty miles long, between St. Louis and New Orleans, 

 in which he had not stood upon the bottom of the stream beneath the 

 shelter of the diving-bell. 



In 1845 he sold out his interest in this company and established in 

 St. Louis the first manufactory of glass-ware west of the Ohio River. 



TOL. XXTHI. — 35 



