Murdock seems to have had a very clear idea of the possibilities of steam propulsion on the common roads. Had circumstances permitted he might well have been expected to have solved the problem in 1796 quite as completely as his successors did in 1835. But he was a quarter of a century ahead of the time. Even the moderate public interest that existed later on had not manifested itself at all in his day and the condition of the English highways offered almost insuperable obstacles to steam vehicular travel. Personally his lack of self-assertiveness and his feeling of dependence upon Boulton and Watt also held him back. So he remained simply one of the pioneer investigators pointing the way for others.
Oliver Evans
Born in 1755 or 1756, in Newport, Del. Died in Philadelphia, April 21, 1819.
Little has been preserved respecting the early history of Oliver Evans, who has been aptly styled “The Watt of America.” His parents were farming people, and he had only an ordinary common-school education. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a wheelwright or wagonmaker, and continued his meager education by studying at night time by the light that he made by burning chips and shavings in the fireplace.
While yet an apprentice his attention was turned to the subject of propelling land carriages without animal power. But the lack of definite knowledge in regard to steam power compelled him to abandon his plans, although his experiments were continued for a long time. Soon after attaining his majority he was engaged in making card-teeth by hand, and in connection therewith developed several labor-saving improvements. He also invented improvements in the construction of machinery of flour mills that effected a complete revolution in the manufacture of flour. These improvements consisted of the elevator, the conveyor, the hopper-boy, the drill and the descender, which various machines were applied in different mills so as to perform mechanically every necessary movement of the grain and meal from one part of the mill to the other, causing a saving of fully one-half in the labor of mill attendance and manufacturing the flour better. These improvements were not accepted by the mill owners at the outset, and Evans spent many discouraging years before he could finally persuade the manufacturers of the utility of his inventions. In the end, however, he lived to see his inventions generally introduced, and he profited largely thereby.
OLIVER EVANS
In the year 1786, Evans petitioned the Legislature of Pennsylvania for the exclusive right to use his improvements in flour mills and steam carriages in that State, and in the year following presented a similar petition to the Legislature of Maryland. In the former instance he was only successful so far as to obtain the privilege of the mill improvements, his representations concerning steam carriages being considered as savoring too much of insanity to deserve notice. He was more fortunate in Maryland, for, although the steam project was laughed at, yet one of his friends, a member, very judiciously observed that the grant could injure no one, for he did not think that any man in the world had thought of such a thing before, and therefore he wished the encouragement might be afforded, as there was a prospect that it would produce something useful. This kind of argument had its effect, and Evans received all that he asked for, and from that period considered himself bound in honor to the State of Maryland to produce a steam carriage, as soon as his means would allow him.
For several years succeeding the granting of his petition by the Legislature of Maryland, Evans endeavored to obtain some person of pecuniary resources to join with him in his plans; and for this purpose explained his views by drafts, and otherwise, to some of the first mechanics in the country. Although the persons addressed appeared, in several instances, to understand them, they declined any assistance from a fear of the expense and difficulty of their execution.