Fig. 1 The Original Twin-Screw Engine and Boiler
of Col. John Stevens. Built in Hoboken, N.Y., in 1804.

STEVENS INDICATOR
VOL. X.	APRIL, 1893. No. 2
THE FIRST STEAM SCREW PROPELLER BOATS TO NAVIGATE THE WATERS OF ANY COUNTRY.

by FRANCIS B. STEVENS.

• Introduction
• Screw Propeller Previous to 1802
• Screw Propeller of 1802
• Screw Propeller of 1803
• Twin-Screw Propeller of 1804
• Description of the twin-screw engine
• Propeller, Hub, & Blade
• What Colonel Stevens attempted & Why he Failed
• Introduction of the Screw Propeller into Use

The steam screw propellers of Col. John Stevens, in operation on the Hudson River from 1802 to 1806, were the first to navigate the waters of any country.

John Stevens was born in New York in 1749; was graduated at King's College, now Columbia, in 1768; was admitted to the bar of the Colonial Provinces of New York and New Jersey, in 1772; and was Treasurer of the State of New Jersey during the active period of the Revolutionary War. In 1784, he purchased Hoboken, then an island; and, residing there upwards of half a century, died in 1838.

On the 26th. of August 1791, patents for improvements in the steam engine were granted to John Fitch, James Rumsey and John Stevens. The latter took out three patents; one, for a method of propelling a steamboat by the reaction of water, and another, for a multitubular steam boiler.

In 1798 he was engaged with Chancellor Livingston, Nicholas J. Roosevelt and Isambard Brunel, then an exiled French royalist, afterwards the builder of the Thames Tunnel, in making experiments on steam propulsion on the Passaic River, New Jersey. They tried a horizontal centrifugal wheel, on a boat of 30 tons, drawing water from the bottom of the boat and discharging it at the stern. This is similar to the plan that Ruthven tried in England on the Water Witch," more than half a century afterwards. They also, unsuccessfully, attempted to use elliptical paddle wheels.

| Steam Engine Library |