Background
Frederick Ellsworth Sickels was born on September 20, 1819 in Gloucester County, New Jersey, not far from Camden, and was the son of John and Hester Ann (Ellsworth) Sickels.
Frederick Ellsworth Sickels was born on September 20, 1819 in Gloucester County, New Jersey, not far from Camden, and was the son of John and Hester Ann (Ellsworth) Sickels.
He had a gradeschool education in New York City, where his father, who was a practising physician, had established his residence. His chief interest in his youth was in engineering and mechanical work, and at the age of sixteen he went to work as rodman for the Harlem Railroad. A year later he began an apprenticeship as machinist in the Allaire Works in New York City and at the same time, because of his great interest in invention, studied physics and mechanics in his spare moments.
In 1841, he perfected his first invention. This was the first successful drop cut-off for steam engines devised in the United States, the basic patent for which was granted him on May 20, 1842.
With this mechanism the admission of steam to an engine cylinder was stopped or cut off before the end of the piston stroke, and the expansive force of the steam in the cylinder was utilized. The immediate adoption by steam engine builders of this device, with the three improvements patented between 1843 and 1845, brought him a considerable fortune, all of which he subsequently lost in fighting infringers.
In 1846 he turned his attention to the study of steering vessels by steam engines, and on July 2, 1849, he applied for a patent on his "mode of steering ships, " presenting his steam-steering apparatus. While this patent was pending (a matter of eleven years) he proceeded with the construction of a full-size steam-steering unit, and at the same time tried to find some ship owner who would permit his vessel to be used to try out the apparatus.
Having been unsuccessful in this at the time the machinery was completed in 1854, he placed it as a working exhibit in the Crystal Palace, New York. At last in 1858 he succeeded in having the equipment installed on the coastwise steamer Augusta, plying between Savannah, Ga. , and Fernandina, Florida.
Two years' demonstration proved its practicability, but Sickels found no purchasers, and after he received his patent, No. 29, 200, on July 17, 1860, he took the unit to England. His success there was no better than at home, although he was granted three British patents, and in 1867 he returned to the United States.
His brother meanwhile had made installations on a Hudson River steamer, a United States frigate, and the steamer Great Eastern. During the succeeding six years Sickels continued his fruitless efforts to interest ship builders and owners. In the end, financially ruined, he abandoned the project. Turning to civil engineering, he went west to engage in railroad and bridge construction.
About 1890 he was made consulting engineer of the National Waterworks Company of New York and in 1891 was detailed as chief engineer of its operations at Kansas City, Missouri. In this service he died suddenly at the age of seventy-six years. He was buried at Paterson, New Jersey.
He was married to Rancine Shreeves, and was survived by his widow and five children.