2 THE DELAMATER IRON WORKS— 



man boilermaker, and Jacob S. Warden draughtsman. Besides repair work they 

 started building boilers and engines for side-wheel steamers for river and coast- 

 wise service, and the shop, being the only one of the kind, grew rapidly and soon 

 gained a reputation for doing good work, attracting attention from near and far. 



In the fall of 1839 there came to New York from England, where he had made a 

 name for himself as a brilliant young engineer. Captain John Ericsson, born July 

 31, 1803, in Sweden. He was a little over thirty-seven years old, handsome and 

 of fine physical development, a member of a wealthy mine-owning family in his na- 

 tive land, with a military title awarded to him on account of service in the Royal 

 Artillery and his knowledge of military engineering acquired by hard study and ex- 

 periment. Captain Ericsson located himself at the Astor House, then recently built 

 and known locally as the Park Hotel. He had come over at the solicitation of Lieut. 

 Robert F. Stockton, U. S. N. retired, a man of wealth and influence, who was build- 

 ing the Delaware and Raritan Canal in New Jersey and had gone to England to 

 raise money to complete the project in which his own and his family's fortunes 

 were invested. Hon. Francis B. Ogden, of New Jersey, U. S. Consul at Liver- 

 pool, had become highly impressed with the engineering ability of Captain Erics- 

 son, placing special value on one of his recent inventions, the propeller, which the 

 English Admiralty had condemned as impractical. Ogden recommended him to 

 Stockton as a man who would be of value to him in the construction of vessels and 

 machinery for his canal and to the U. S. Government in the development of hulls and 

 engines for the Navy. As an inducement to Ericsson to come to New York, Stock- 

 ton assured him that he would secure for him a commission to build one of three 

 steam frigates authorized by Act of Congress on March 3, 1839, and as an earnest 

 in the matter, Stockton gave him an order before leaving England for two iron 

 steamboats to be fitted with Ericsson's engines and propellers. One of these was 

 named the Stockton and came to this country under sail and was the first direct- 

 acting screw propeller ever built. 



After Ericsson had located himself in New York, Mr. Samuel Risley, one of 

 the Greenwich Village mechanics who had been recommended to him locally, be- 

 came his draughtsman and proposed that he give his work to the Phoenix Foundry, 

 and there he set up a model of the steam frigate which he had made before leav- 

 ing England and had brought over here with him. 



This introduction proved to be a most fortunate circumstance, for then and 

 there began a business connection which later developed into a close relationship 

 and which proved not only of vital interest to Ericsson and the works during the 

 lifetime of both, but to the nation and the world at large. 



Especially close was the intimacy of Ericsson and young DeLamater, then about 

 twenty years of age, and rarely in later years did either take a step in the nature 

 of a business venture without consulting the other. 



The Government was not yet ready to place the order for the steam frigates, 

 but Ericsson was promptly commissioned by Stockton to build some iron canal boats 

 for his New Jersey Canal, and some of them which Ericsson arranged to have built 



