1From Benjamin Franklin to Jared Eliot, 13 February 1750 (Franklin Papers)
(London, 1775), p. 57. William Nelson, “Josiah Hornblower and the First Steam-Engine in America, with some notices of the Schuyler Copper Mines at Second River, N.J.,” 2 N.J. Hist. Soc.
The first of these men may have been Keane Fitz Gerald, or Fitzgerald, of Poland St., London, F.R.S., 1756, who contributed papers on such diverse subjects as improvements to and uses for the steam engine, improvements to the thermometer and barometer, and methods of “checking the too luxuriant Growth of Fruit-Trees”;
3From Benjamin Franklin to Ebenezer Kinnersley, with Associated Papers, 20 February 1762 (Franklin Papers)
’s visit founded the important works at Soho. Subsequently he became associated with James Watt in developing the steam engine and provided the working capital that made Watt’s great achievement possible. He had many scientific interests and was elected F.R.S. in 1785.
4From Benjamin Franklin to Matthew Boulton, 22 May 1765 (Franklin Papers)
For Boulton, the Birmingham engineer and the associate of James Watt in developing the steam engine, see above,
5To Benjamin Franklin from Matthew Boulton, [22 February 1766] (Franklin Papers)
On Matthew Boulton, Birmingham engineer, associated with James Watt in the development of the steam engine, see above, a model of the steam engine in its then state of development.
6From Benjamin Franklin to Matthew Boulton, 19 March 1766 (Franklin Papers)
The model of a steam engine Boulton had asked him to return.
7To Benjamin Franklin from Joseph Priestley, 21 September 1766 (Franklin Papers)
An Aeolipile or aeolipyle is described as an apparatus in which a globe or cylinder may be made to revolve by the discharge of jets of steam from projecting bent tubes. It has been called the first steam engine. The word is sometimes also used for a blowpipe. The editors confess their inability to understand Priestley’s use of the word here or to find any reference to such an apparatus in his
8To Benjamin Franklin from Francois Willem de Monchy, 4 November 1766 (Franklin Papers)
...left-hand column can be read, too much is illegible to permit any useful reconstruction of the whole. The right-hand column is clearer and seems to consist of a tabulation of the costs of the parts of the steam engine and its house. It appears to read as follows, with the breaks between lines indicated here by slant lines: “Cylynder £35 / Beam 10 [
9To Benjamin Franklin from François Willem de Monchy, 9 January 1767 (Franklin Papers)
knew well. Desaguliers made several improvements in steam engines and evidently worked on one erected to draw water from a coal pit at Griff in Warwickshire.
10To Benjamin Franklin from Anthony Tissington, 17 May 1767 (Franklin Papers)
That is, steam engines.