Ericsson

Ericsson, John, engineer, was born on July 31, 1803, at Langbanshyttan, Wermeland, Sweden, and after having been employed in the survey of the Baltic and North Sea Canal, entered the Swedish army. In 1826 he visited England in order to introduce one of his earliest inventions, the caloric engine. He soon afterwards resigned his commission, and devoted himself entirely to mechanical pursuits. In 1836 he successfully applied the screw propeller for the purposes of navigation, and in 1839 migrated to New York, where he built the Princeton, the first steam warship having her machinery below the water-line, and so out of the reach of shot. He exhibited very numerous inventions at the Great Exhibition of 1851. A few years afterwards, during the American Civil War, he built the famous Monitor, the first ironclad with revolving turrets and with a minimum of freeboard, and her success at the battle of Hampton Roads, where she drove off the Merrimac, made Ericsson's name known to all the world. He subsequently employed his great abilities in perfecting a solar engine, and in designing torpedoes, and submarine guns. He lived in America until his death in 1889, but his body was sent in an American man-of-war to his native country, and there buried with much pomp. His elder brother, Nils (1802-1870), was also a distinguished engineer, and is chiefly remembered for his work in connection with railways and canals. t