Sellers.] "^50 [Feb. 19, 



It was in 1852 that he returned from abroad and located himself in Phila- 

 delphia to enjoy the rest from active business cares needful after his 

 many years of labor. The ample means that had rewarded his enter- 

 prise abroad enabled him to gratify his taste for art and later to do good 

 service to the world in his crowning achievement yet to be alluded to — 

 his safety steam-boiler. 



Soon after his return to America he built the house which was his 

 home for the remainder of life. The planning and arranging of many of 

 the seemingly minor details of this building gave him pleasing employ- 

 ment for some years. It was at this time that the writer became 

 acquainted with him, was made aware of his mode of thought and his 

 ability as a mechanic. He can bear testimony to the fact, of interest it 

 may be to mechanics only, that hidden under the plaster of that house 

 are very many ingenious devices to insure stability and to economize space 

 by the use of iron in forms and shapes not commonly known to architects 

 at that time. These were special adaptations suggested by a mind fertile 

 in resources, familiar with the use of iron and possessed of a knowledge 

 of how to form it and use it to good advantage. 



He chose to invest much of his means in real estate, and numerous fine 

 buildings which serve to beautify the city were erected by him. At one 

 time he advocated the concentration of all the railroad termini at one central 

 point in the city, and to combine with the depot commodious hotel accom- 

 modation. With this end in view he attempted to purchase land, not so much 

 as a speculative movement as to render such a plan possible. It is believed 

 that he felt disappointed when this scheme was shown to be impractica- 

 ble. In this connection it may be well to mention that in 1860 he 

 desired to return to Europe with his family, and upon the eve of his de- 

 parture he sent a message to the writer requesting him to call to see him. 

 He then said that he desired to tell one who understood him why it was 

 that he was about to leave so pleasant a home. He spoke of the many 

 plans he had had in view to benefit the city, and said with sorrow that he 

 felt that his motives had been misconstrued, and in some respects his 

 efforts had been failures on this account. He desired to go abroad, to be 

 absent for some years; that while away his plans should be forgotten 

 and when he returned he could begin agaiu in some other direction. 

 Previous to this, in 1858, he mentioned to his friends an invention he 

 had made to obviate the danger of disastrous explosions in steam-boilers. 

 Starting with the idea that the strength of any structure is the strength 

 of its weakest point, he aimed to construct a steam-boiler built up of 

 units of some given strength. He claimed that a sphere of metal, say 

 of cast iron, might be formed with its walls not more than three-eighths 

 of an inch in thickness and of such a diameter as would establish its 

 bursting pressure at may be 1000 pounds per square inch. Such a sphere 

 would doubtless be safe for the pressures usually required by users of high- 

 pressure steam. He proposed casting these sphei'es in groups of two and 

 four, uniting them in one plane by curved necks and making openings at 



