6. The Philadelphia 

 of Oliver Evans 



Oliver Evans was 53 years old when George 

 Escol Sellers was born, and he died before Sellers 

 was 1 1 . 47 However, the author in this chapter 

 delineates a profile of Evans considerably sharper 

 than the standard one constructed at second hand 

 from written and printed sources. 



Evans had a really first-rate mind. He was 

 original and generally sound in his conclusions. 

 His high-pressure steam engine represented a 

 courageous departure in practice from the low- 

 pressure engine pioneered by Boulton and Watt. 



His system of materials handling in a flour mill, 

 using vertical bucket and horizontal screw con- 

 veyors, was fully set forth in his Young Mill- 

 Wright and Miller's Guide, first published in 1795 

 and republished through 15 editions, the last 

 appearing in i860. His high-pressure steam 

 engine took form after 1800, and in 1805 he 

 issued his Abortion of the Young Steam Engineer's 

 Guide, whose title reflects the frustrations that 

 beset him as he sought support for a pioneer work 

 on the steam engine. 



-T or several years prior to the organization of the 

 Franklin Institute, of Pennsylvania, 48 there was great 

 interest and activity in what at that time was con- 

 sidered a rapid advance in mechanics, both in America 

 and Europe. 



The problem of ocean as well as land transportation 

 was occupying the minds of many thinking men. 

 Steam power was looked to, but was ridiculed as 

 chimerical by the world at large. Our own Oliver 

 Evans, from the time of his first high-pressure engine 

 in 1785 or 1786 49 to the time of his death in 181 9, 

 never lost an opportunity to impress on any listeners 

 he could hold the feasibility of not only navigating 



47 Most of what is known of Oliver Evans has been brought 

 together by Greville Bathe and Dorothy Bathe, in Oliver 

 Evans (cited in preceding note), a quarto volume of 362 

 pages, profusely illustrated. 



48 Founded in 1824. A brief outline of the Institute's history 

 is in Henry Butler Allen, "The Franklin Institute of the 

 State of Pennsylvania," Transactions of the American Philosophical 

 Society (1953), vol. 43, pt. I, pp. 275-279. 



'» These dates apparently were derived from those of his 

 petitions to the various state legislatures. While he asked in 

 1786 for a patent, or privilege (the U.S. patent system began 



our rivers, but crossing the ocean and continents by 

 steam power. 



As early as 1 786 he petitioned the Legislature of 

 Pennsylvania to grant him the exclusive right to 

 use his improvements in flour mills, and also for 

 road wagons p'opelled by steam. The act passed in 

 1787, granting him the right so far as flour mills 

 were concerned; but no notice was taken of that 

 part of his petition relating to steam wagons. In 

 1 787 the Maryland Legislature granted him, his 

 heirs and assigns, the exclusive right for fourteen 

 years for his improvements, including the steam 

 wagon. The term "locomotive," as now applied, 

 had not at that time been suggested. 



As a boy, I have often listened to Mr. Evans' 

 earnest predictions as to land travel by steam. He 

 said he had lived to see part of his prediction verified 

 in steamboats — that high-pressure steam and light 

 engines had made it practical on our western rivers, 

 and would in time on good turnpike or tram road. 



in 1 790), for his steam wagon, his first steam engines were built 

 after 1800 (Bathe and Bathe, cited in note 46 above, pp. 

 66-69). 



36 



