(1803-1889)
[Illustration: John Ericsson.]
In a message, referring to the relations of our country with the
several nations of Europe, President Harrison said: "The restoration
of the remains of John Ericsson to Sweden afforded a gratifying
occasion to honor the memory of the great inventor, to whose genius
our country owes so much, and to bear witness to the unbroken
friendship which has existed between the land which bore him and our
own, which claimed him as a citizen."
This paragraph is a forcible reminder of the impressive ceremonial
witnessed in the streets and harbor of New York City, on Saturday,
August 23, 1890. It had been intimated to this Government, as is
well known, that the Government of Sweden would regard it as a
graceful act if the remains of Captain John Ericsson should be
conveyed to his native country upon a United States man-of-war; and
arrangements having been completed, the Baltimore was assigned to
the service. In committing the illustrious dead to the care of the
commander of the Baltimore, Mr. George H. Robinson said: "We send
him back crowned with honor, proud of the life of fifty years he
devoted to this nation, and with gratitude for his gifts to us."
John Ericsson's birthplace in Sweden is marked by a large granite
monument erected in 1867. His father was a mining proprietor, and
his mother an energetic, intellectual, and high-spirited woman. His
brother, Nils, one year older than himself, was trained as an
engineer, became chief of the construction of the system of
government railways in Sweden, was created a baron, and retired in
1862 with a pension larger than any before bestowed upon a Swedish
subject. His sister Caroline, born in 1800, was a girl of unusual
beauty. As a boy John was the wonder of the neighborhood. The
machinery at the mines was to him an endless source of curiosity and
delight. He was constantly trying to make models, even before he had
learned to read. He had from his own plans constructed a miniature
saw-mill prior to his tenth birthday, and made numerous drawings of
a complicated character. The graphic account of his youth and early
manhood which his biographer presents is full of suggestion and
instruction. The boy was too much occupied with his contrivances to
join in the pastimes of other children. His opportunities were
unusually stimulating. The project of the Göta Canal Company, one of
the most formidable undertakings of its kind, was revived when he
was about ten years old, his father being appointed one of its
engineers, holding place next to that of the chief of the work. This
opened a new world of ideas, and the little fellow undertook all
manner of schemes. He was independent of outside assistance. Steel
tweezers, borrowed from his mother's dressing-case and ground to a
point, furnished him with a drawing pen, and his compasses were made
of birch-wood with needles inserted at the end of the legs. Later
on, he robbed his mother's sable cloak of the hairs required for two
small brushes, in order to complete his drawings in appropriate
colors. The clever lad attracted the notice of some of the greatest
mechanical draughtsmen in Sweden, who made him drawings to serve as
models, and taught him many of the principles of the art. Finally
the celebrated engineer, Count Platen, becoming interested,
appointed him a cadet in the corps of mechanical engineers; and such
was his progress in sketching profiles, maps, and drawings for the
archives of the canal company, that in 1816, at the age of thirteen,
he was made assistant leveller at the station of Riddarhagen. The
next year he was employed to set out the work for six hundred
operatives, though he was yet too small to reach the eye-piece of
his levelling instrument without the aid of a stool carried by an
attendant. Thus it will be seen that he was identified almost from
his cradle with great engineering works. His father died in 1818,
and in 1820, when seventeen, he entered the Swedish army as an
ensign and was rapidly promoted to a lieutenancy.
The skill of young Ericsson in topographical drawing was so marked
that he was soon summoned to the royal palace to draw maps to
illustrate the campaigns of the marshal of the empire. He also
passed with distinction a competitive examination for an appointment
on the survey of Northern Sweden. This new employment was exacting,
and the pay determined by the amount of work accomplished. Mr.
Church says: "The young surveyor from the Göta Canal was so
indefatigable in his industry and so rapid in execution, that he
performed double duty and was carried on the pay-roll as two persons
in order to avoid criticism and charges of favoritism. The results
of his labors were maps of fifty square miles of territory, still
preserved in the archives of Stockholm."
At the age of twenty-one John Ericsson is described as "a handsome,
dashing youth, with a cluster of thick, brown, glossy curls
encircling his white, massive forehead. His mouth was delicate but
firm, nose straight, eyes light blue, clear and bright, with a
slight expression of sadness, his complexion brilliant with the
freshness and glow of healthy youth. The broad shoulders carried
most splendidly the proud, erect head. He presented, in short, the
very picture of vigorous manhood. A portrait of him at this age,
painted upon ivory for his mother by an English artist named Way,
has been preserved."
Fifteen years later he was in New York, and is thus described by
Samuel Risley: "Captain Ericsson all his life was careful of his
personal appearance; at the time I refer to (1839) he was
exceptional in dress, not dandified, but more in keeping with the
present morning-call attire than an ordinary day habit. A
close-fitting black frock surtout coat, well open at the front, with
rolling collar, showing velvet vest and a good display of
shirt-front; a fine gold chain hung about his neck, looped at the
first button-hole of the vest and attached to a watch carried in the
fob of the vest. Usually light-colored, well-fitting trousers,
light-colored kid gloves, and a beaver hat completed the dress. To
this add a well-built military figure, about five feet ten and
one-half inches in height and well set-up, with broad shoulders and
rather large hands and feet; the head well placed and supported by a
military stock round the neck. Expressive features, blue eyes, and
brown curly hair, fair complexion. His head was of medium size, his
mouth well cut, upper lip a little drawn, the jaws large and firm
set, conveying an expression of firmness and individual character.
Up to the summer of 1842 I was in constant attendance upon the
captain, being a sort of factotum to him in preparing his models. At
that time he boarded at the Astor House, where I first met his wife.
His manner with strangers was courteous and extremely taking. He
invariably made friends of high and low alike. With those in
immediate contact in carrying out his work he was very popular."
Mr. Church, in his biography, devotes three chapters to a
delightfully condensed account of Ericsson's career in England,
whither he went in 1826 to exhibit his flame-engine. He quickly
formed a partnership with John Braithwaite, a working engineer, and
in his new field of activity produced invention after invention in
such rapid succession that the truth reads like a fairy tale. An
instrument for taking sea-soundings, a hydrostatic weighing-machine,
his improvements in the steam-engine--dispensing with huge
smoke-stacks, economizing fuel, using compressed air and the
artificial draught--and in surface condensation, were the work of
this period, during which he also invented the steam fire-engine,
which excited great interest in London. The famous battle of the
locomotives in 1829 brought the young man of twenty-six before the
English public in a manner never to be forgotten. At that date
Stephenson himself dared not say very much about the speed of the
locomotive. Had he ventured to predict that it would reach twenty
miles an hour on the railway, he would have been laughed out of
court. He cautiously expressed his faith in the possibility of
running it ten miles an hour, and multitudes regarded the experiment
with consternation. There was great prejudice then existing in
England against railroads. It was a mode of conveyance that would
bring noble and peasant to a common level, and fashion clung
tenaciously to its earlier inconveniences, which had at least the
merit of being exclusive.
But in spite of the baleful prophecies concerning the locomotive
engine, the officials of the projected railroad between Liverpool
and Manchester, where the cars were expected to be drawn by horses,
offered a premium of £500 for the best locomotive capable of drawing
a gross weight of twenty tons at the rate of ten miles an hour. The
conditions required a run of seventy miles. Five months were allowed
for building the engines. Ericsson heard of the project only seven
weeks before the appointed time of trial, and at once determined to
compete. He hastily built the "Novelty," assisted by Braithwaite,
and when the exhibition came off his was practically the only
locomotive which disputed for the supremacy with Stephenson's
"Rocket." But a portion of the railroad had yet been finished; thus
the competing locomotives were compelled to cover their distance by
making twenty trips back and forth over one and three-quarter miles
of track. The excitement was intense. The London _Times_ next
morning said: "The 'Novelty' was the lightest and most elegant
carriage on the road yesterday, and the velocity with which it moved
surprised and amazed every beholder. It shot along the line at the
amazing rate of thirty miles an hour! It seemed, indeed, to fly;
presenting one of the most sublime spectacles of human ingenuity and
human daring the world ever beheld."
Ericsson had really built a much faster locomotive than Stephenson's
"Rocket;" and although it had been constructed with such celerity
that it broke down before the final point was reached, and he
thereby lost the prize, yet the superiority of the principle
involved in it was universally recognized. John Bourn said: "To most
men the production of such an engine would have constituted an
adequate claim to celebrity. In the case of Ericsson, it is only a
single star of the brilliant galaxy with which his shield is
spangled." "We may imagine," writes Mr. Church, "the excitement
following the announcement in the _Times_ concerning the performance
of the 'Novelty,' for to this engine England's great daily devoted
chief attention." Railroad shares leaped at once to a premium, and
excited groups gathered on 'change to discuss the wonderful event.
The pessimists were silenced, and the art of modern railway travel
inaugurated. A grand banquet was given in Liverpool to the directors
and officers of the railway and to the competing locomotive
builders. Toasts and speeches followed; and if Ericsson did not
carry home with him the £500 offered as a prize, he at least made
himself known to all England as one of the rising men of his
profession.
Ericsson's long-cherished plan of a caloric engine was realized in
1833, and was hailed with astonishment by the scientific world of
London. Lectures were delivered on it by Dr. Dionysius Lardner and
Michael Faraday, and it was much praised by Dr. Alexander Ure and
Sir Richard Phillips. In 1836 Ericsson invented and patented the
screw propeller, which revolutionized navigation, and in 1837 built
a steam vessel having twin screw propellers, which on trial towed
the American packet-ship Toronto at the rate of five miles an hour
on the river Thames. In 1838 he constructed the iron screw steamer
Robert F. Stockton, which crossed the Atlantic under canvas in 1839,
and was afterward employed as a tug-boat on the Delaware River for a
quarter of a century. Within ten years Ericsson patented thirty
inventions considered by him of sufficient importance to claim a
place in the list that in 1863 numbered one hundred.
A notable feature of the admirable work of Mr. Church is the
elucidation of the truth, so often overlooked, that events never
spring into being disjoined from antecedents leading to them. He
explains how the varied achievements of John Ericsson were
developed, showing with great force and in imperishable colors the
steps to his successes, and the help the famous engineer derived in
later life from the studies and experiments of his earlier career.
Mr. Church, as the literary executor of Ericsson, has had unrivalled
opportunities for examining the accumulation of data which throw
light all along the way, and while dealing with the masterly
engineering exploits of his subject, does not forget that he had a
human side, and presents him with all his hopes and fears and
failures, his aims, his obstacles, his courage, and his habits and
eccentricities. Ericsson certainly cherished a very high ideal, and
was free to an unusual extent from mercenary motives. His inventions
did not always pay; he found this a weary world for those who see
beyond their fellows. Some of his mechanical contrivances in common
use to-day dated so far back of the memory of any one living that
before he died he often learned that he was supposed to have copied
from others what he, in fact, originated himself or first brought
into use.
The barriers of tradition and prejudice had to be overcome with his
every new invention. The introduction of steam in any shape to the
English navy was sharply opposed. It is interesting to trace the
incidents, apparently without connection, which stand in orderly
relations one to another as essential parts of an intelligent
design. Ericsson was in America at the critical moment when all the
experiences of his previous life were to be brought into full play;
when he was to take part in an enterprise involving the existence of
a nation, the hopes of humanity. He was ready to meet the strain of
a demand to which no other living man was adequate. He was then
fifty-eight years of age, with the constitution and the vital forces
of a man of forty, and such experience in actual accomplishment as
few acquire in the longest span of a lifetime.
When he received the order of our Government for the Monitor his
plans were already drawn. He had been at work for years perfecting
his system of aquatic attack, originally designed for the protection
of Sweden against foreign aggression, and had in 1854 submitted his
drawings to the Emperor of France. The story of his proceedings in
Washington is familiar to our readers, but in these notable volumes
of Mr. Church it is told with a fulness of detail never before
attempted. The Monitor in all its parts was designed by Ericsson,
and, fortunately for the country, he was allowed to superintend its
construction. His former plans, however, had to be carefully revised
to meet the novel conditions of life in a submerged structure. It
was estimated that this iron-clad vessel contained at least forty
patentable contrivances. The entire resources of modern engineering
knowledge were brought to bear upon the solution of the problem of
an impregnable battery, armed with guns of the heaviest calibre then
known, hull shot-proof from stern to stern, rudder and propeller
protected against the enemy's fire, and above all, having the
advantage of light draught. Ericsson was made responsible for the
successful working of his vessel in every respect. The anxiety of
the Government was such that every stage in the progress of the work
toward completion was watched with restless interest. Ericsson's
nerves and sinews seemed to be made of steel. He scarcely took time
to eat or sleep, and he was deluged with a continuous tempest of
criticism, warning, and advice, from those who knew nothing about
the intricacies of science involved in the undertaking. The least
halting, even trifling delay, confusion of mind, or weakness of
body, and the story of Hampton Roads might not have been written.
The Monitor was finished and left the harbor of New York for
Washington on the afternoon of March 6, 1862, in tow of a tug, and
accompanied by two naval steamers. Chief Engineer Alban S. Stimers,
U. S. N., who was on the vessel as a passenger, described in a
letter, dated March 9, 1862, to Ericsson, the dramatic incidents
attending its arrival at Hampton Roads. "After a stormy passage we
fought the Merrimac for more than three hours this forenoon, and
sent her back to Norfolk in a sinking condition. Iron-clad against
iron-clad, we manoeuvred about the bay here, and went at each other
with mutual fairness. I consider that both ships were well fought.
We were struck twenty-two times--pilot-house twice, turret nine
times, deck three times, sides eight times. The only vulnerable
point was the pilot-house. One of your great logs (nine by twelve
inches thick) is broken in two. The shot struck just outside of
where the captain had his eye, and disabled him by destroying his
left eye and temporarily blinding the other. She tried to run us
down and sink us as she did the Cumberland yesterday, but she got
the worst of it. Her horn passed over our deck, and our sharp,
upper-edged rail cut through the light iron shoe upon her stern and
well into her oak. She will not try that again. She gave us a
tremendous thump, but did not injure us in the least; we were just
able to find the point of contact. The turret is a splendid
structure. You were very correct in your estimate of the effect of
shot upon the man on the inside of the turret, when it struck near
him. Three men were knocked down, of whom I was one. The other two
had to be carried below, but I was not disabled at all, and the
others recovered before the battle was over. Captain Worden
(afterward admiral) stationed himself at the pilot-house. Greene
fired the guns, and I turned the turret until the captain was
disabled and was relieved by Greene, when I managed the turret
myself, Master Stoddard having been one of the two stunned men.
"Captain Ericsson, I congratulate you upon your great success;
thousands here this day bless you. I have heard whole crews cheer
you; every man feels that you have saved the nation by furnishing us
with the means to whip an iron-clad frigate that was, until our
arrival, having it all her own way with our most powerful vessels."
If space permitted, it would be interesting to trace the career of
Ericsson in detail after the success of the Monitor. There was an
imperative demand for armor-clads, and ere long several were built
by the inventor and his associates. Ericsson was never idle. In
connection with his labors upon war vessels he expended no small
amount of ingenuity on the improvement of heavy guns, his efforts in
this field being directed by a most exhaustive study into the
strength of materials, the operation of explosive forces, and the
laws governing the flight of projectiles. In 1869 he constructed for
the Spanish Government a fleet of thirty steam gunboats, intended to
guard Cuba against filibustering parties. In 1881 he devised his
latest war vessel, the Destroyer, the object of which he said was
"simply to demonstrate the practicability of submarine artillery,
unquestionably the most effective, as well as the cheapest, device
for protecting the sea-ports of the Union against iron-clad ships. I
do not," he continued, "seek emoluments, as I am financially
independent; but I am anxious to benefit the great and liberal
country which has enabled me to carry out important works which I
should not have carried out on a monarchical soil." His
investigations included computations of the influences which retard
the earth's rotary motion; he erected a "sun motor" in 1883, to
develop the power obtained from the supply of mechanical energy in
the sun, and he contributed numerous valuable papers to various
journals in America and Europe on scientific, naval, and mechanical
themes.
The year in which John Ericsson reached the culmination of his fame,
1862, was the same in which his brother Nils retired from active
life in Sweden. The latter had retained his position on the Göta
Canal when his brother left it in 1820, and gradually won his way to
fame and fortune. "He was a man of industry and energy, of sterling
integrity and public spirit, and an excellent organizer; while his
conservative and cautious temperament and his skill in bending
others to his purposes enabled him to make the most of his
opportunities." After he received his title he altered the spelling
of his name and became Baron Ericson. This change gave great offence
to John, who wrote to Nils: "I can never forget the unpleasantness
caused me by this annulling of relationship. Possibly your wife has
had her share in it. If so, she will find some day that the
blotted-out letter will cost her children half a million."
Some of the most interesting chapters in the work of Mr. Church
relate to the personal characteristics of John Ericsson. He was
generous to his friends, and his benefactions to Sweden were
considerable. The financial side of his affairs from year to year
appears, as well as the record of his failures and successes. It is
difficult to grasp the whole man and present him to the reader in
all his many-sided aspects, or to touch upon the variety of his
studies, endeavors, schemes, and achievements, without danger of
bewilderment. His biographer has done all this, however, in the most
skilful and acceptable manner.
A list of the honors conferred upon Ericsson would fill one of our
pages, and some of the medals received were very beautiful. He was
decorated as Knight of the Order of Vasa, which was founded by
Gustavus III. to reward important service to the nation; he was made
Knight Commander of the Order of the North Star, for promoting the
public good and useful institutions; a Commander of the Order of St.
Olaf, to reward distinction in the arts and sciences; received the
Grand Cross of the Order of Naval Merit, with the white badge and
star, from King Alfonso of Spain, which confers personal nobility
and bestowed upon Ericsson the title of "Excellency;" a special gold
medal from the Emperor of Austria, in behalf of science; a gold
medal from the Society of Iron-Masters in Sweden; thanks under the
royal seal and signature from Sweden; joint resolutions of thanks
from the United States Congress; thanks from the Legislatures of New
York and of other States; from the Chamber of Commerce; from boards
of trade in many cities; and he was elected to honorary membership
in scientific, historical, literary, religious, and agricultural
institutions innumerable. Among them all he took the most pride in
his simple title of captain, and in the diploma of LL. D. received
from the Wesleyan University in 1862.