Stevens Institute of Technology - Link Yearbook (Hoboken, NJ)

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auction. Baron Steuben was very anxious to ' purchase the island, but as he would not bid at l auction, the land was sold in 1784 for about 2l'S90,000, to Colonel John Stevens, who thus became the founder of Hoboken. : Colonel John Stevens was born in New York, in 174-9, of English lineage. Ile was a graduate of Kings College Cnow Columbia Uni- versityj in 1768, a member ofthe New York bar in 17713 'l'reasurer of New Jersey during the perilous days of the Revolution: and a pioneer citizen alike of New York and Hoboken. where he located his family estate. He was not forty years of age when he saw Jolm Fitch's steamboat making headway against the tide on the Dela- ware. off Burlington, N. J.. and was at once seized with enthusiasm for the new means of locomotion. He studied the boat and her mechanism. and in 1792, under the new patent system he had himself petitioned into existence, he took out patents for steam propulsion. E' Experiments were hotly pushed. and in 1708, nearly a decade before Fulton ran his 'Clermont'. Colonel Stevens as builder, owner, and captain, had a steamboat on the Hudson. The first condensing double-acting engine made on this continent, was built for this boat at the Soho works in lfelleville, N. J. Six years later he equipped with double screws another predecessor of Fulton's craft. 'l'he short four- bladed screw which he designed for these boats has shown great vitality against later comcrs. Colonel Jolm Stevens continued prolific in in- i vention and enterprise. He patented the mulli- tubular boiler in the United States in 1803, and in England in 1805, established in 181 1 , between Hoboken and New York, the first steam ferry in the world: in 1812, before work began on the Erie Canal, he urged on the State authorities of New York the superiority of a railroad: before 1812, with the aid of his son Robert, he made steam navigation on the Delaware a commercial success: in 1813 he designed an ironelad ship which fully embodied the 'Monitor' type, and which was the first ironelad ever worked out for construction, in 1813 also he put into operation the first of numerous double-hull ferryboats carrying a paddlewheel driven by circling horses, in 1817 he obtained a charter, the first in America, for a railroad from the Delaware to the Raritan: in 1823 he secured acts of legislature for the in- corporation of the Pennsylvania Railroad: and in 1826 he built a steam locomotive with multi- tubular boiler, which he operated on a circular track at twelve mifes per hour, carrying passengers at his own expense, on his own property at A 'all XLNS FOCNIJICR PRESIDENT MORTON 'it The Stevens Family-A Family ol' l'Inginccrs, by F. Deli. Furman. Twcn Iyf rc

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Stevens-From the Beginning A Sketch N the log of the Half Moon, that staunch little ship of Henry Hudson and his daring crew, we find the earliest record of C'astle Point. Due to an en- counter with the Indians of Manhattan Island, Hudson was. in the year 1609, forced to anchor in 1Yeehawken Cove. The serpentine rocks of an adjacent cliff made such an impression on Robert Juet, the mate, that he wrote an account of it in his logbook, attributing the color to the presence of a Copper or Silver Myne. The island from which this cliff jutted,was well known to the Indians long before Hudson's time and was called by them Hopoghan Ii2ll'lilllgl1N or Land of the Pipe Bowl, as it was there that they secured the stone from which they fash- ioned their pipe bowls. It was by transforming this name that the Dutch arrived at the present name of Hoboken. The territory of Hoebuck was, in 1680, transferred by the Indians to Michael l'auw, Burgomaster of Amsterdam. Ownership changed many times. due both to political reasons and to the depredations of the moody Indians, although it may be said that the Indians had good cause for their attacks on the Dutch. It is inter- esting to note that the first brewery in America was built in Hoboken in 16-1-0. Even though it was the only one ever built here, Hoboken soon acquired, and held for many years, a most envied reputation in the consumption of the foamy drink. The career of the island was varied and tumultuous through the time of the Revolution. At the beginning of the Revolution the island was owned by 1Yilliam Bayard who had built a mansion and many barns and planted large orchards. His sympathies were for the Colonists for a time, but when New York fell in 1775. he became a Tory. Thus it was that his land became subject to raids by both armies. Before the end of the war his buildings had been razed, his orchards destroyed, and his livestock driven away. As he had taken arms against his country, Bayard's estate at Hoebuck was confiscated by the State of New Jersey and sold at public T-uwrly-four

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Hoboken. This was the first engine and train that ever ran on a railroad in America -built by a. man verging on his eightieth year. Sucl1 a record as this, very few men are privileged to make. Of Colonel Stevens' eleven children, those who distinguished themselves most were John Cox, Robert Livingston and Edwin Augustus. Robert was born in 1787. When he was but seven- teen years of age he helped his father buildand fit out thefirst screw steamship. The first sea trip of a Steamship was cap- tained by Robert. five years later, when he took the Phoenix , a sidewheeler, from Hoboken to the Delaware. This trip was ,not made to establish a record, but it was rather one of necessity, Col. Stevens being unable, because of Fulton's Hudson River monopoly, to navigate on that river. 'It was now as a builder of steamships that Robert Stevens made himself famous, each successive boat being faster, until in 1832, with the handsome 'North Ameriea,' using forced draft, he attained a speed of fifteen miles an hour. For a quarter of a century, and while he gave his atten- tion to that line of work, he stood at the head of the naval engineering profession in this country: and his inventions and improvements up to 1840 were so valuable and numerous that a bare catalogue would fill pages. We may specify, for example, the invention. as early as 1818, of the cam-board cutoff, being the first use of steam cxpansively for navigation purposes: the universally prevalent forms of ferry-boat and ferry-slipg the overhanging guards: the fendersg the spring piling, the adoption of the walking beam in 1821: the invention of the split water wheel in 18Q6g the invention of the balance valve for beam engines in 18313 the location of the steam- boat boilers on the wheel guards: and the increase of strength in the boilers until they could stand fifty pounds to the square inch, although English naval engineers had got no further than five pounds as late as 184-8. Nothing could be sharper than the contrast between the lines of an ordinary steamboat and those of a fast clipper, yet it was Robert Stevens who designed and built in 18-H the 'Mariaf a yacht literally as fast as his steam- ers. She was the conqueror of the 'America', owned in part by John C. Stevens and Edwin A. Stevens, just before the lat- ter wcnt across the Atlantic to capture, in the Solent, the famous cup which now glist- ens on Uncle SZUIIVS sideboard. ow cmmrsrnn' tknoanouv LOOKING TH ROUGH GATE Y'11-wily-si.: