Oliver Evans

Oliver Evans

Quick Facts

Significance:

Oliver Evans was an inventor and mechanical genius, who developed new technologies which paved the way for the Brandywine Valley to become a major industrial center in the late 1700s.

Place of Birth:

Newport, Delaware

Date of Birth:

September 13, 1755

Place of Death:

New York City

Date of Death:

April 15, 1819

Place of Burial:

New York City

Cemetery Name:

Trinity Cemetery (unmarked grave)

Oliver Evans was a central figure to the industrial development which took place in the Brandywine Valley in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Evans was born in Newport, Delaware in 1755, one of 12 siblings. His father, a cordwainer (shoemaker) by trade moved the family to a farm in northern Delaware when Evans was an infant. His childhood is not well documented beyond his love of reading and learning. Apprenticed to a wheelwright at the age of 17, Evans would continue his informal education, reading every book he could get his hands on. When the Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, Evans enlisted into a Delaware militia company, though he did not see any combat for the duration of the war.

In his early 20s, Evans began inventing machines to improve the efficiency of wool production. He also began to experiment with designing steam engines, and at the age of 27 applied for a patent on a steam-powered wagon. Though this was denied, his inventiveness and mechanical aptitude were becoming apparent to all. That same year he married Sarah Tomlinson, in Old Swede’s Church in Wilmington, Delaware.

Evans’ association with the Brandywine Valley and the mills there had been growing from an early age, but it was his designs for a new kind of flour mill that really established his reputation. Beginning in 1783, when he took over the construction of a flour mill established by two of his brothers, Evans formed a revolutionary vision of the flour milling process. Rather than seeing each step of the process of milling wheat into flour as distinct and separate, he saw it as a seamless integrated whole. Through improvements to existing machinery, and the wholesale invention of new technologies, Evans created a novel kind of flour mill which essentially automated the entire process, greatly reducing the amount of labor needed to produce flour, as well as remarkably improving the quality of the final product. His successful prototypes took some time to be embraced by other flour producers in the Brandywine Valley and northern Delaware, but by 1790, he was being personally awarded patents for his breakthrough technologies by then Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson.

Evans did not restrict his inventiveness to one field. Over the course of his life he developed a slew of new machines, improved numerous existing technologies, and drafted designs for many more fantastical ideas. These include several types of high-pressure steam engines, an amphibious vehicle, new designs for steamboats, a machine gun, municipal lighting systems, perpetually baking bread ovens, and heating systems. However, his personal life was not always a happy one.

Evans had a prickly disposition, and did not appreciate criticism, even when well-intentioned and constructive. Additionally, many of his ideas were adopted without permission, or even stolen, by individuals and businesses around the United States. Much of his later life was spent in numerous legal disputes over patents and infringement, and he was quick to bring rivals to court. Subjects to bouts of depression, he withdrew from managing his many industrial operations in the 1810s. His wife Sarah died in 1816, and though he soon remarried, Evans himself passed in 1819, still feeling bitter over lack of appreciation of his inventions.

Though his personal life was often rocky and full of sadness, Evans still left an indelible mark on the history of the Brandywine Valley, Delaware, and the nation. Without his mechanical genius and visionary drive, the Brandywine Valley may not have grown to become one of the early centers of the Industrial Revolution, and the foundations for the commercial and industrial giant that the United States eventually became may never have been laid.

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Reflection Exercise & Question

1. Look around your home, school, or community and see if you can identify a problem or issue that you could invent a machine to help solve.
2. What is a technology or machine that was invented in the 1800's that we still use today? Do we take that technology for granted, or do we think about it all the time?

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Sources

• Reed, Paula, and Edith Wallace. 2019. A Historic Saga of Settlement and Nation Building: First State National Historical Park Historic Resource Study. New Castle, DE: National Park Service.
• Maynard, W. Barksdale. 2015. The Brandywine: An Intimate Portrait. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.