John Ericsson

Johan Ericsson was born at Långban in Filipstad Municipality, Värmland, in the Kingdom of Sweden in Northern Europe / Scandinavia. He was the younger brother of Nils Ericson (1802–1870), a distinguished canal and railway builder in Sweden. Their father Olof Ericsson (1778–1818) had worked as the supervisor for a mine in Värmland. He had lost money in speculation and had to move his family to Forsvik in 1810. There he worked as a director of blastings during the excavation of the Swedish Göta Canal. The extraordinary skills of the two Ericsson brothers were discovered by Baltzar von Platen (1766–1829), the architect of Göta Canal. They were dubbed 'cadets of mechanics' of the Swedish Royal Navy, and engaged as trainees at the canal enterprise. At the age of fourteen, John was already working independently as a surveyor. His assistant had to carry a footstool for him to reach the instruments during surveying work. At the age of seventeen he joined the Swedish army in Jämtland, serving in the Jämtland Ranger Regiment, as a Second Lieutenant, but was soon promoted to Lieutenant. He was sent to northern Sweden to do surveying, and in his spare time he constructed a heat engine which used the fumes from the fire instead of steam as a propellant. His skill and interest in mechanics made him resign from the army and move to England in 1826. However, his heat engine was not a success, as his prototype was designed to burn birchwood and would not work well with coal (the main fuel used in England).

His only formal education was a basic officer's education and training during his time in the Swedish Army, achieving the military rank of captain. On March 27, 1822, John passed a surveyor's examination in the Royal capital city of Stockholm. As a child he was taught to be a miner and surveyor by his father.

He then improved ship design with two screw-propellers rotating in opposite directions (as opposed to earlier tests with this technology, which used a single screw). However, the British Admiralty of the Royal Navy disapproved of the invention in the late 1830s, which led to the fortunate contact with the prominent American naval captain (and later commodore) Robert Stockton (1795-1866), who had Ericsson design a propeller-driven steamer for him and invited him to bring his invention across the Atlantic Ocean to the United States of America, as it would supposedly be more welcomed in that more free-thinking place. As a result, Ericsson moved to New York City in 1839. Captain Stockton's plan was for Ericsson to oversee the development of a new class of naval warship of a larger heavier frigate with Stockton using his considerable political connections to grease the funding authorizations wheels. Finally, after the death of 9th President William Henry Harrison (1773-1841, served March-April 1841), and succession to the Presidency by his former Vice President John Tyler in the spring of 1841, funds were then allocated to the Navy under the new administration for a new design. However, they only received funding enough for a 700-ton Sloop-of-war design instead of a larger frigate. The sloop eventually became the USS Princeton, named after Stockton's hometown in New Jersey and the famous university located there.

When Ericsson arrived from England and settled in New York City, he was persuaded by Samuel Risley of Greenwich Village to give his work to the Phoenix Foundry. There he met industrialist and iron / steel foundry owner Cornelius H. DeLamater (1821–1889), and soon a mutual attachment developed between the two. Rarely thereafter did Ericsson or DeLamater enter upon a business venture without first consulting the other." Personally, their friendship never faltered, though strained by the pressures of business and Ericsson's quick temper, DeLamater called Ericsson "John" and Ericsson called DeLamater by his middle nickname "Harry", intimacies almost unknown in Ericsson's other relationships. In time, the DeLamater Iron Works, situated facing the Hudson River on the waterfront / west end of West 13th Street in Lower Manhattan's westside, became known as the Asylum where Capt Ericsson had free rein to experiment and attempt new feats.

Ericsson then proceeded to invent independently the caloric, or hot air, engine in the 1820s which used hot air, caloric in the scientific parlance of the day, instead of steam as a working fluid. A similar device had been patented earlier in 1816 by the Reverend Robert Stirling (1790-1878), whose technical priority of invention provides the usual term 'Stirling Engine' for the device. Ericsson's engine was not initially successful due to the differences in combustion temperatures between burning Swedish wood and firing of British coal. In spite of his setbacks, Ericsson was later awarded the Rumford Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1862 for his invention. In 1830, Ericsson patented his second engine, that can work either with steam, air or water. This rotative engine objective is to reduce the engine within more convenient limits without any corresponding loss of power.

On September 26, 1854, Ericsson presented Emperor Napoleon III of France with drawings of iron-clad armored battleships with a dome-shaped gun tower, and even though the French emperor praised this particular plan, Ericsson did nothing to bring it to practical application or to obtain and build such a revolutionary vessel for the French Navy. In 1851 he designed the Caloric ship Ericsson.

Shortly after the American Civil War broke out in 1861, the Confederacy began constructing an ironclad ram upon the burnt hull hulk of the USS Merrimack which had been partially burned and then scuttled / sunk by evacuating Federal troops before it was captured by militia forces loyal to the local Commonwealth of Virginia. Nearly concurrently, the United States Congress had recommended to the U.S. Navy Department in August 1861 that armored ships be built for the American Navy. Ericsson still had a dislike for the U.S. Navy because of his personal experience with now Commodore Stockton, but he was nevertheless convinced by 16th President Abraham Lincoln's hard-working new Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles (1802-1878, served 1861-1869), and railroad executive / shipbuilder Cornelius Scranton Bushnell (1829-1896), to submit an ironclad ship design to them. Ericsson later presented drawings of USS Monitor, a novel design of armored ship which included a rotating turret housing a pair of large cannons. Despite controversy over the unique design, based on Swedish lumber rafts, the keel was eventually laid down in a New York shipyard and the experimental ironclad was launched on March 6, 1862. The ship went from plans to launch in approximately 100 days.

Later Ericsson designed other naval vessels and weapons, including a type of torpedo and a destroyer, a torpedo boat that could fire a cannon from an underwater port. He also provided some technical support for John Philip Holland in his early submarine experiments. In the book Contributions to the Centennial Exhibition (1877, reprinted 1976) he presented his "sun engines", which collected solar heat for a hot air engine. One of these designs earned Ericsson additional income after being converted to work as a methane gas engine.

Ericsson died on March 8, 1889, the anniversary of the Battle of Hampton Roads, in which his Monitor famously played a central role. His wish to be buried in his native land sparked a series of articles in the New York Times alleging that, by selecting the third-rate USS Essex (1874) to transport his remains, the US Navy was not paying proper respect to Ericsson. The Navy responded and sent the remains on the USS Baltimore, escorted by other ships such as USS Nantucket. On August 23, 1890, the fleet departed with a twenty-one gun salute and the Swedish flag hoisted on every ship of the squadron. Around 100,000 people turned out for the funeral procession and departure ceremonies, including several veterans of the USS Monitor. His final resting place is at Filipstad in Värmland, Sweden.