Background
Charles Wilson Copeland was born in 1815 in Coventry, Connecticut, United States. He was the son of Daniel Copeland, a builder of steam-engines and boilers in Hartford.
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Charles Wilson Copeland
Edit ProfileEducation
Under his father’s guidance Charles received his first lessons in the profession which was to become his life-work. These were followed by a course at Columbia College.
Career
At the age of twenty-one, Copeland was appointed superintendent of the West Point Foundry Association. There he began the design of the machinery of the Fulton, the first steam war-vessel to be constructed under the direct supervision of the United States Navy Department. In 1839 he received an appointment from the government under which he signed himself “Naval Engineer” and was entrusted with the designs of the machinery for the Mississippi and Missouri and later for the Susquehanna, Saranac, and Michigan.
In 1850, this work for the government completed, he was appointed superintendent of the Allaire Works in New York City, where he designed and supervised the construction of a large number of merchant steamers, two of which, transatlantic steamers of the Collins line, broke the record of their day.
During the Civil War, his experience as a marine engineer was used by the government in the adaptation of merchant steamers for service in the Southern blockade. At the close of the war, he became the constructing engineer for the United States Lighthouse Board, which position he held nearly to the time of his death.
Achievements
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Copeland was a charter and life member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and maintained an interested and helpful relation to the work of this society.
Personality
Copeland was simple and kindly in manner and frugal in personal economy.
