Frank McDowell Leavitt

Background

Frank McDowell Leavitt was born in Athens, Ohio, the son of the Rev. John McDowell and Bithia (Brooks) Leavitt. Shortly after his birth his parents moved to New York and later to Orange, New Jersey.

Education

He attended the public schools and prepared for college at Orange, New Jersey. He entered Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey, at the age of fifteen years, studied engineering, and graduated four years later with the class of 1875.

Career

His first year out of college was spent with Frederick E. Sickels in New York, working on the design of steam steering apparatus for the United States navy. He then became chief draftsman for Bliss & Williams, Brooklyn, New York, manufacturers of sheet-metal-working machinery. After serving five years with this company he accepted the position of master mechanic of the Texas Division of the Mexican National Railway Company, but resigned after a year to become superintendent of the Graydon & Denton Manufacturing Company in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Two years later, in 1884, he returned to E. W. Bliss & Company, successor to Bliss & Williams, in Brooklyn, as assistant superintendent, and remained with the company, with the exception of two years, 1900-1902, for the rest of his life.

From the beginning of his career Leavitt showed a marked ingenuity in conceiving and designing mechanisms to accomplish a given purpose. He possessed, too, an unusual ability to visualize a problem, so that with his great knowledge of mechanical motions and forces he could design in detail the most difficult mechanism in the simplest forms. Over three hundred patents were granted to him between 1875 and 1921.

The first six years of his service with E. W. Bliss & Company were taken up chiefly with the perfection of sheet-metal-working machinery. He was the first to build a successful automatic tin-can body-making machine. He invented, too, the toggle drawing press for making kitchen utensils and other articles. This type of press was the forerunner of the huge power presses used in making automobile bodies, frames, and similar pieces of equipment produced in quantity. After he had risen to the position of superintendent of the Bliss company he was called upon to install all of the machinery in the plant of the United States Projectile Company for the manufacture of shells and other "common" projectiles.

Later, as chief engineer of his company, he made an extended tour abroad visiting the British, German, and Austrian torpedo and projectile plants. While abroad he purchased the American rights to the Whitehead submarine torpedo. He did not, however, purchase any torpedo manufacturing machinery and upon his return to the United States he undertook first to design machinery of this type. He continued, too, his work in sheet-metal machinery until about 1900. From that time until his death he was concerned primarily with the improvement of torpedoes. For two years he worked independently, then he returned to the Bliss company to continue the work, becoming also director of the organization. All of his patents acquired between 1900 and 1910 were purchased by the company. They included patents for the introduction of steel for the air flask; Curtis turbines for propulsion; the combustion of fuel in the air supply and the generation of steam in connection with that combustion; a new and dependable gyroscope steering apparatus and a host of other innovations.

His improved Whitehead torpedo became known as the Bliss-Leavitt and became standard equipment in the United States navy. Under Leavitt's leadership the torpedo was still further improved in succeeding years so that at the beginning of the World War it measured twenty-one inches in diameter and more than twenty-one feet in length; possessed a reliable range of 13, 500 yards; was controlled by a superheated steam and combustion gas turbine; and carried over two hundred pounds of high explosive.

During the war and for two years afterward Leavitt, as "a dollar-a-year man, " was in charge of the Committee on Experimental Power of the Bureau of Steam Engineering of the Navy Department at Washington and worked continuously on the problem of developing a steam plant for the propulsion of aircraft. The result of this work was the design of an aircraft steam boiler which, with all appurtenances, control apparatus, and necessary water, delivered about 1, 000 horse-power and weighed but a little over 2, 000 pounds. This was his last engineering work. He died in Scarsdale, New York.

Achievements

• Leavitt devised one of the earliest machines for manufacturing tin cans and later invented the Bliss-Leavitt torpedo, the chief torpedo weapon used by United States Navy in World War I.

Works

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  • ORIGINAL PATENT APPLICATION NUMBER 13,173 FOR IMPROVEMENTS IN STARTING VALVES FOR AUTOMOBILE TORPEDOES. (NEW YORK, USA.).
  • ORIGINAL PATENT APPLICATION NUMBER 14,658 FOR IGNITION DEVICE FOR AIR HEATERS OF AUTOMOBILE TORPEDOES. (NEW YORK, U.S.A.).
  • ORIGINAL PATENT APPLICATION NUMBER 8,061 FOR IMPROVEMENTS IN STEERING MECHANISM FOR TORPEDOES (NEW YORK).
  • ORIGINAL PATENT APPLICATION NUMBER 28,124 FOR IMPROVEMENTS IN STEERING APPARATUS FOR AUTOMOBILE TORPEDOES (NEW YORK).

Connections

Leavitt was married on November 8, 1893, to Gertrude Goodsell of New York.

Father:

John McDowell Leavitt

Mother:

Bithia (Brooks) Leavitt

Spouse:

Gertrude Goodsell