Background
Evan William Jones was born in 1852 in Monmouthshire, Wales, the son of Evan Jones, an ironworker. The father brought the family to America in 1854 and settled in Ironton, Ohio, where he obtained employment in the steel mills.
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Evan William Jones
Edit ProfileEducation
Young Evan attended the public schools of Ironton until he was thirteen.
Career
When Evan Jones entered the mills as an apprentice in the machine shops, thus beginning a lifetime of association with iron and machine works. After spending his early life in various plants in the region of Ironton and Portsmouth, Ohio, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he went to Portland, Oregon, in the employ of the Union Iron Works, of which he was soon made manager and later president.
In 1888 he became interested in the difficulties involved in burning Oregon fir, then the cheapest available fuel for the local industries. The high moisture content of the fir acted to deaden the fire each time a fresh supply was thrown into the furnace, with the result that constant high boiler pressures could be maintained only with great difficulty. Jones solved the problem by building a machine that would supply the wood to the furnace from below the fuel bed, in effect using the green fuel as grate bars to support the burning pieces. As a result, the fresh fuel was gradually dried out as it was pushed upward into the combustion zone of the fire bed and the fire was not harmed by the addition of new fuel.
The first machine that Jones built was designed to force standard four-foot lengths of wood into the furnace and was operated by hand levers. This machine proved that the idea was practicable, and Jones added a steam ram to drive the wood and made several machines that were operated in 1889. He then turned his attention to the design of a stoker for use with bituminous coal.
In 1892 he obtained permission to equip two boilers of the Portland Cable Railway Company with his coal stokers. These were without doubt the first power-driven mechanical underfeed stokers to be put into operation, and are the ones from which the modern underfeed stoker developed. Tests at the Portland Cable Railway Company in February and March 1892 showed a saving in fuel of 25. 6 percent. when the stokers were used instead of hand firing.
The Under-Feed Stoker Company of America was formed to manufacture the Jones Stoker, and Jones obtained a block of stock for his invention and rights. The company became involved in litigation growing out of attempts to infringe the patents, and the stock fell in value. Jones then became a port engineer for the North West Commercial Company, in charge of their vessels and a small iron works at St. Michaels on the Yukon.
He contracted pneumonia during a particularly trying season in the North and died at Portland at the age of fifty-six.
Achievements
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Evan William Jones designed his first machine to force standard four-foot lengths of wood into the furnace and was operated by hand levers. This machine proved that the idea was practicable, and Jones improved it by adding a steam ram to drive the wood and made several machines that were operated in 1889. He then designed a stoker for use with bituminous coal, which was his chief accomplishment and input to the area of mechanical engineering.
Connections
Evan William Jones was married at Ironton, Ohio, to Margaret Helen Abrams, also of Welsh descent, and after her death at the age of thirty-two, he was married a second time, to a sister of C. W. Idleman of Portland. His second wife survived him.
