CATALOG OF THE MECHANICAL COLLECTIONS 35 



propel boats. Shortly thereafter Evans established the Mars Iron 

 Works in Philadelphia and began the manufacture of steam engines. 

 Evans built small, high-pressure, beam engines that found a ready 

 sale and were sent to many parts of the country. At Evans' death 

 in 1819 more than 50 of his engines are said to have been in use 

 in a great variety of work. The business was continued by David 

 Muhlenburg and James Rush at Philadelphia and by Stackliouse & 

 Kogers, licensees, at Pittsburgh. 



A description of the engine built by Oliver Evans for the steamboat 

 Aetna ajDpears in L.-B. Marestier : Memoir sur le Bateaux a Vapor^ 

 Paris, 1824. Oliver Evans: A Chronicle of Early American En- 

 gineering, by Greville and Dorothy Bathe, Historical Society of 

 Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1935, is an excellent record of Evans' 

 life and work. 



Robert Fulton imported a Boulton and Watt steam engine in 1805-6 

 for his steamboat experiments on the Hudson River. This engine, a 

 double-acting, separate-condenser type, was used in the successful 

 Clermont. This was the first Boulton and Watt engine now definitely 

 known to have been brought to this country and was probably the 

 second engine imported from England. 



Early steam-engine manufactures. — ^With the success of Evans and 

 Fulton the general interest in steam engines for both manufactory 

 and boat power increased tremendously, and steam engines were 

 built in all parts of the country. Prior to this, steam engines had been 

 built at iron furnaces and in the establishments making mill macliin- 

 ery, stoves and kettles, and plates and rods, all of which had grown 

 out of iron furnaces and foundries. The Soho works of Roosevelt 

 was originally the smelter and shops of the New Jersey Mine Asso- 

 ciation; John Nancarrow at Philadelphia was the proprietor of an 

 iron furnace (Nancarrow and Matach), which, according to George 

 Washington (1787), was the largest and best equipped in the country; 

 John Hall, steam-engine mechanic, with Fitch and Stevens owned 

 a plating forge and tilt hammer at Philadelphia in 1750 ; and Robert 

 McQueen (with Sturtevant) and James F. Allaire, at New York, 

 were the proprietors of an iron furnace and foundry, respectively. 

 Evans' Mars Iron Works was probably the first to specialize in steam 

 engines, though James Smallman was listed in the Philadelphia di- 

 rectory of 1802 as maintaining an establishment for making steam 

 engines of all sizes and varieties (Westcott and Scharf, History of 

 Philadelphia) . Smallman seems to have been the first to export a 

 steam engine from the country, as he built a steam flour mill for 

 Cadiz, Spain, in 1806. 



Immediately after the successful trip of the Clermont, Fulton began 

 to build engines and steamboat machinery at his shops in what is 

 now Jersey City. 



