£05 
Steam Engine, 
The patent right now belongs one half to the subscri- 
ber, Philadelphia ; one fourth to George Evans, Pitts- 
burgh ; and one fourth to Luther Stephens, Lexington, 
Ky. Apply to either for engines, or for licences to use 
them. 
OLIVER EVANS, 
On the origin of Steam Boats and Steain Wagons, 
BY Oliver Evans. 
About the year 1772, being then an apprentice to a 
wheel-right, or wagon-maker, I laboured to discover some 
means of propelling land carriages, without animal power. 
All the modes that have since been tried (so far as I have 
heard of them) such as wind, treadles with ratched wheels, 
crank tooth, &c. to be wrought by men, presented them- 
selves to my mind, but were considered as too futile to 
deserve an experiment ; and I concluded that such mo- 
tion was impossible for want of a suitable original power. 
P>ut one of my brothers, on a Christmas evening, in- 
formed me that he had that day been in company with 
a neighboring blacksmith’s boys ; who, for amusement, 
had stopped up the touch-hole of a gmi barrel, then put 
in about a gill of water and rammed down a tight wad— 
after which they put the breech in the smith’s fire ; when 
it discharged itself with as loud a crack as if it had been 
loaded with powder. 
It immediately occurred to me that here was the pow- 
er to propel any wagon, if I coukl only apply it ; and 
I sat myself to work to find out the means. I laboured 
for some time without success. At length a book fell 
into my hands describing the old atmospheric steam en 
gine, I was astonished to observe that they had so far 
erred as to use the steam only to form a vacuum to ap- 
ply the mere pressure of the atmosphere, instead of apply- 
ing the elastic power of the steam for original motion ; 
the power of ^vhich I supposed irresistible. 
