David Christian Henny

Background

David Christian Henny born on November 15, 1860 in Arnhem, the Netherlands, of rugged Dutch ancestry. His father was David Henny, his mother was Berindina (Lorentz) Henny, a cousin of the famous physicist Hendrik Antoon Lorentz.

Education

Henny was educated at the Polytechnic School of Delft and graduated with the degree in civil engineering in 1881.

Career

In 1884 Henny emigrated to the United States. Until 1892 he was engaged in general engineering work. He then became associated with the Excelsior Wooden Pipe Company, as general manager and chief engineer, 1892-1902, and later, 1902-1905, as general manager of the Redwood Manufacturing Company of San Francisco. In 1902, at Pittsburgh, California, he built the first large factory in the United States equipped with individual motor drives.

His successful achievements led to his appointment in February 1905 as supervising engineer for the Pacific division of the United States Reclamation Service, in which capacity he served for four years and intermittently as consulting engineer for a considerable period thereafter. His work included an extensive program of dam construction in the West. In 1910 he began his long practice as a consultant and maintained an office at Portland, Oregon, for the remainder of his life.

He served as a member of many consulting boards for both governmental and private agencies in the United States, Cuba, and Puerto Rico in connection with land reclamation, power, flood control, and allied problems. He was an authority on the construction of dams and in an advisory capacity or otherwise contributed no little to the excellence of those built in the western part of the United States.

One of his important achievements was the invention of the "Henny shear joint. " This he designed while he was on the board of consulting engineers for Boulder Dam, on the Colorado River, which was the highest then built--about 730 feet. He patented this invention and gave the United States Reclamation Service free use of it. This joint was employed in the design and construction of Grand Coulee Dam on the upper Columbia River, which contained 11, 500, 000 cubic yards of concrete--the greatest amount of any dam built up to that time.

In 1927 he was a member of the consulting board concerned with the proper location and design of Owyhee Dam in Oregon, Deadwood Dam in Idaho, and Gibson Dam in Montana. At the time of his death he was consulting engineer to the Los Angeles County Flood Control District and chairman of the Bonneville Dam Commission on the lower Columbia River. He was also a member of the consulting board for Fort Peck Dam upon the upper Missouri River.

In 1933 he prepared, for the American Society of Civil Engineers, a paper of outstanding merit entitled "Stability of Straight Concrete Gravity Dams. "

He died on July 14, 1935.

Achievements

• Henny is remembered as a prominent hydraulic engineer, whose most important achievements was the invention of the "Henny shear joint, " a special joint between the upstream and downstream faces of concrete blocks used in the construction of massive concrete dams. He was posthumously awarded the Norman medal of the society, for his paper of outstanding merit entitled "Stability of Straight Concrete Gravity Dams. "

Works

More photos

• book

  • Report to the Federal Power Commission on uses of Deschutes River, Oregon

    (This book was digitized and reprinted from the collection...)

Membership

Henny was vice-president of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1932-1933 and chairman of its special committee on irrigation hydraulics for a long period. In 1933 he was made an honorary member of the Royal Institute of Engineers of Holland.

Connections

In 1893 Henny married, in San Francisco, Julia Antoinette Hermanie Wetzel. They had four children; David, who died in his senior year at college, Frances Berindina, George Christian, and Arnold Lorentz. His wife was his companion on many of his field trips, and he survived her only six weeks, dying after a brief illness.

Father:

David Henny

Mother:

Berindina (Lorentz) Henn

Spouse:

Julia Antoinette Hermanie (Wetzel) Henny

Sister:

Frances Berindina Henny

Son:

Arnold Lorentz Henny

Son:

George Christian Henny

Son:

David Henny

References

• Who's Who in America, VOL. 18. 1934-1935
• Who's Who in Engineering A Biographical Dictionary of the Engineering Profession 1931