Author: Evans, Oliver
Biography:
Evans, Oliver (1755-1819: ANBO)
pseudonym Patrick N. I. Elisha, Poet Laureate
Oliver Evans was an inventor and engineer by inclination, a poet by necessity. "The Watt of America," he was born in Newport DE to Charles and Ann (Stalcop) Evans. He was apprenticed to a wheelwright in 1771 and began inventing mechanical devices and creating automated systems. His longterm goal was to promote steam locomotion on land. His first patents arose from designs that he had put to work in a water-mill that he owned in partnership with two brothers. Other millers were slow to adopt his improvements, however, or to pay for them if they did adopt them. Evans struggled to secure and renew his patents, and complained that the patents process did not allow inventors time enough to benefit from their creations. Apart from his one poetical work on that subject, he published in prose a Young Steam Engineer's Guide and a Young Mill-Wright and Miller's Guide. His first wife was Sarah Tomlinson, whom he married in 1783; they had seven children. After she died in 1816, he married Hetty Ward of New York City in 1818; but he died on a visit to New York a year later. (ANBO 22 Nov. 2018)