biography
| name: |
Stevens, John (Cox)
|
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1749–1838)
|
| biography:
| Engineer and inventor, born in New York City, USA. He studied law, but never practised. A colonel in the Revolutionary Army, he became interested in steamboat design, patenting (1803) a multi-tubular boiler for his first steamboat, which was propelled by twin Archimedes screws driven through gears by a high-pressure steam engine. Design problems led him to revert to paddle wheels which could be driven by low-pressure engines, as in his steamboat Juliana (1811), which became the world's first steam-powered ferry. He later turned to railways, and in 1825 operated the first steam locomotive in the USA. |
|
|
