Ericsson, John (31 July 1803–08 March 1889), inventor and engineer, was born in Langbanshyttan, province of Wermland, Sweden, the son of Olof Ericsson, a mine proprietor and inspector, and Brita Sophia Yngstrom. His earliest education was instruction by his parents and private tutors. John often spent his days drawing and building models of the machinery in his father’s mine. His father was well educated, but John’s strong character traits were attributed to the influence of his mother. Sweden’s war with Russia ruined John’s father financially, but he was able to secure a position as an inspector on a canal project and to obtain appointments for his two sons as cadets in the Corps of Mechanical Engineers. Thus at age thirteen John began his first formal education, and his natural aptitudes for mechanical drawing and solving engineering problems were encouraged and developed....
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Ericsson, John (1803-1889), inventor and engineer
Michael A. Cavanaugh
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Isherwood, Benjamin Franklin (1822-1915), marine engineer
Elizabeth Noble Shor
Isherwood, Benjamin Franklin (06 October 1822–19 June 1915), marine engineer, was born in New York City, the son of Benjamin Isherwood, a physician, and Eliza Hicks. His father died soon after the boy was born, and his mother married a civil engineer, John Green, in 1824. In 1831 Isherwood enrolled in Albany Academy, an exacting preparatory school that emphasized “mechanical pursuits” (Sloan, p. 6). At age fourteen, in his final school year, Isherwood was expelled for unspecified “serious misconduct.”...
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Shreve, Henry Miller (1785-1851), steamboat captain, army engineer, and steamship designer
Thomas L. Karnes
Shreve, Henry Miller (21 October 1785–06 March 1851), steamboat captain, army engineer, and steamship designer, was born in Burlington County, New Jersey, the son of Israel Shreve and Mary Cokely, farmers. During the American Revolution British forces had destroyed the Shreve home, so Shreve’s father took his family to the frontier in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, when Henry was about three years old....
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Taylor, David Watson (1864-1940), naval architect and naval officer
William M. McBride
Taylor, David Watson (04 March 1864–28 July 1940), naval architect and naval officer, was born in Louisa County, Virginia, the son of Henry Taylor and Mary Minor, farmers. Taylor’s early education was at home before attending Randolph-Macon College from 1877 to his graduation in 1881. He received an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy in October 1881 and enrolled that month as a cadet-engineer, graduating in June 1885 with the highest academic marks achieved since the academy’s founding in 1845. Taylor served on the USS ...
