OLIVER

See also:

• EVANS, CHRISTMAS (1766-1838)
• EVANS, EVAN HERBER (1836-1896)
• OLIVER EVANS (1755–1819)
• EVANS, SIR GEORGE DE LACY (1787–1870)
• EVANS, SIR JOHN (1823-1908)

EVANS (1755–1819)  , American mechanician, was born at Newport, Delaware, in 1755 . He was apprenticed to a wheelwright, and at the age of twenty-two he invented a machine for making the card-teeth used in carding wool and cotton . In 1780 he became partner with his brothers, who were practical millers, and soon introduced various labour-saving appliances which both cheapened and improved the processes of flour= milling . Turning his attention to the steam engine, he employed steam at a relatively high pressure, and the plans of his invention which he sent over to England in 1787 and in 1794-1795 aresaid to have been seen by R . Trevithick, whom in that case he anticipated in the adoption of the high-pressure principle . He made use of his engine for driving mill machinery; and in 1803 he constructed a steam dredging machine, which also propelled itself on land . In 1819 a disastrous fire broke out in his factory at Pittsburg, and he did not long survive it, dying at New York on the 21st of April 1819 .