Not just the monitor

Scandinavian Review, Summer 2003 by Talerman, Margaretha

With his famous ironclad vessel, Swedish-born John Ericsson secured a lasting position in maritime history. But what were his other accomplishments? And what kind of a man was he?

PEOPLE WHO KNOW ANYTHING AT All ABOUT John Ericsson know that he designed the USS Monitor, the Union warship that battled the Confederate ironclad Virginia (originally the Merrimac) off Hampton Roads, Virginia, on March 9, 1862, in the world's first battle between steam-powered ironclads. With the Monitor, Ericsson revolutionized naval warfare.

John Ericsson was born on July 31, 1803, in Langban, Varmland, Sweden, but grew up close to the Gota Canal construction where his father was employed as an engineer. John started working in the Gota Canal drawing office as a 12-year-old and directed the work of staking out the eastern canal line before he reached the age of 15. In 1820, he joined a Swedish army regiment in the province of Jamtland and worked as a surveyor. Here he also arranged part of his home as a workshop and constructed his first caloric (hot air) engine.

In May of 1826, Ericsson left Sweden for England. He had applied for a Swedish patent for his first caloric engine just before leaving and had high hopes that his invention would be a success. During his early days in England, Ericsson spent much of his time with Count Adolf von Rosen, a lieutenant in the Swedish navy, who introduced Ericsson to John Braithwaite. Braithwaite and Ericsson formed a partnership giving Ericsson the use of Braithwaite's workshop.

On August 2, 1829, Ericsson wrote to von Rosen in Sweden that he and Braithwaite were to "make a steam wagon for the new railway between Liverpool and Manchester for which an award of 500 pounds has been promised." Ericsson and Braithwaite entered the competition late. Lack of time probably contributed to the fact that their locomotive, the Novelty, broke down before the trials were over. George Stephenson's Rocket won.

Ericsson and Braithwaite also built a steam fire engine (1829), but it had little commercial success. In 1832 Berlin, Germany, became the first city to purchase one. It won an award in New York City in 1839. And while he was in London Ericsson invented a depth finder that measured accurately to a depth of 600 feet. Seafarers of the day did not see much point in that and so it did not interest enough buyers.

It was Ericsson's invention of a functioning propeller that brought him to the United States. There had been numerous experiments with propeller-like devices long before John Ericsson was born. In the early 1800s this research intensified. The first known Swedish propeller-driven steamship was the Stockholmstrollet that Samuel Owen built in 1816. Ericsson patented his propeller in 1836 and its construction allowed boats to reverse as well as go forward. The first ship constructed with an Ericsson propeller was built for Francis B. Ogden (which was also the name of the ship) and was completed in the spring of 1837. It was after a trip aboard this ship that Lieutenant Robert F. Stockton of the United States Navy ordered a similar vessel for use in North America. The latter was named the Robert F. Stockton and was the first propeller-driven ship to cross the Atlantic. Ericsson himself accompanied it when it sailed for the U.S. on November 1, 1839. He was to live in New York City for the rest of his life, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1848.

Soon after his arrival in New York, Ericsson met Cornelius H. (Harry) Delamater. The two became lifelong friends and collaborators, and for nearly 50 years the Delamater Iron Works turned out most of Ericsson's patent models, prototypes and working machines.

In 1839 Stockton asked Ericsson to construct a propeller-driven frigate for the U.S. Navy. By JuIy 1841, Stockton had convinced the government that the Princeton would become the frigate of the future. Construction began in 1842 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Ericsson produced 124 drawings for the ship and supervised the building of both the hull and the engine. But the Princeton proved to be a "bad-luck" ship. It was equipped with two cannons. Ericsson had constructed one, the "Oregon," in England, and Stockton supervised the construction of the other, the "Peacemaker." Both guns had been fired repeatedly during trials, but on February 28, 1844, during a demonstration on the Potomac River for many dignitaries, the "Peacemaker" exploded, killing the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Navy, a U.S. senator and three others, and wounding many more. The U.S. President at the time, John Tyler, was aboard but escaped injury. Both Ericsson and Stockton were eventually exonerated but the accident came to overshadow the Princeton's significance as a technological achievement. Ericsson neither forgot nor forgave the harsh treatment he received from the press.

After the Princeton disaster, Ericsson concentrated on designing steam engines. Also, the caloric engine had become both a hobby and an obsession to which Ericsson returned when other work became frustrating. In 1851 Ericsson received his ninth patent for a caloric engine. Applications of this engine included the large engines that drove the caloric ship Ericsson as well as the much smaller ones that were successful with such tasks as pumping water in New York City apartment buildings.