Background
Jacob Perkins was born on July 9, 1766 at Newburyport, Massachusetts, United States.
Jacob Perkins was born on July 9, 1766 at Newburyport, Massachusetts, United States.
Jacob went to school in Newburyport until he was twelve and then was apprenticed to a goldsmith in Newburyport named Davis.
Perkins made himself known by a variety of useful mechanical inventions, and in 1818 came over to England with a plan for engraving bank-notes on steel, which ultimately proved a signal success, and was carried out by Perkins in partnership with the English engraver Heath.
Perkins also experimented with high-pressure steam boilers.
He retired in 1834, and died in London on the 30th of July 1849.
He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1813.
Jacob was married on November 11, 1790 to Hannah Greenleaf of Newbury and together they had nine children.
His second son, Angier March Perkins (1799 - 1881), also born at Newburyport, went to England in 1827, and was the author of a system of warming buildings by means of high- pressure steam. His grandson, Loftus Perkins (1834 - 1891), most of whose life was spent in England, experimented with the application to steam engines of steam at very high pressures, constructing in 1880 a yacht, the "Anthracite, " whose engines worked with a pressure of 500 lb to the sq. in.