Background
Edwin Reynolds, the son of Christopher and Charissa (Huntington) Reynolds, was born on March 23, 1831 on his father's farm at Mansfield, Connecticut. He was a descendant of James Reynolds who was in Rhode Island in 1665.
Edwin Reynolds, the son of Christopher and Charissa (Huntington) Reynolds, was born on March 23, 1831 on his father's farm at Mansfield, Connecticut. He was a descendant of James Reynolds who was in Rhode Island in 1665.
He obtained a common-school education in his birthplace.
He worked for a while on the farm, and at the age of sixteen Edwin entered a local machine shop as an apprentice. Three years later he started on a journeyman's tour of various shops in lower New England.
In 1857 he went to Aurora, Indiana, where he became superintendent of the shops of Stedman & Company, builders of engines, sawmill machinery, and drainage boilers for Mississippi plantations. This business practically ceased in 1861, and Reynolds then returned East and secured a position with the Corliss Steam Engine Company at Providence, Rhode Island. In ten years he rose to be plant superintendent, a position he held until 1877.
His last notable work with this company was the construction of the great Corliss engine for the Centennial Exhibition in 1876, and the designing and building of a rolling-mill engine to run at a speed double that of previous designs. In 1877 he accepted the position of general superintendent of the Edward P. Allis Company of Milwaukee, Wis. , and undertook the development of the Reynolds-Corliss engine. Early in the 1880's his own inventions began to appear in the varied line of machinery manufactured by his company, which included large Corliss engines for pumping service, mining machinery, air compressors, blowing engines, and machinery for street-railway work. One of the greatest of his achievements during this period was the building in 1888 of the first triple expansion pumping engine for waterworks service in the United States. This engine is described as "doing continuously so high a duty as to place it among the most remarkable constructions of its class and time".
On December 4, 1888, he perfected and patented a blowing engine for blast furnaces, the design of which embodied a radical departure from accepted practice. It was selected by the Joliet Steel Company from competitive designs submitted by engineers in the United States and Europe, and after twenty-five years of continuous experimenting no improvements on the essential features of Reynolds' design had been made. That it was a valuable product for the Allis Company is evidenced by the fact that it yielded from a single steel concern over five million dollars' worth of business. Another notable accomplishment of Reynolds was the designing and building in 1893 of a horizontal-vertical, four-cylinder, compound steam engine of 12, 000 horsepower for the power house of the Manhattan Railway, New York City.
It is said that he sketched the design while he was traveling by train from Milwaukee to New York, so marvelously quick was his inventive genius. In the course of time he rose to be second vice-president and director of the Allis Company.
About 1902, at his suggestion, the movement was started which resulted in the establishment of the Allis-Chalmers Company, Milwaukee, with a capital of forty million dollars. Reynolds became the consulting engineer of the organization and continued to serve in this capacity until his death.
He was twice married: first, on September 28, 1853, in Mansfield, to Mary Spencer; and, second, in Milwaukee, on May 30, 1904, to Nellie Maria Nettleton. At the time of his death in Milwaukee he was survived by his widow and an adopted daughter; two children died in infancy.