(Originally published in 1906. This volume from the Cornel...)
Originally published in 1906. This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies. All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume.
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He was the son of Horace and Candace (Avery) Sweet, and was born on October 21, 1832 on his father's farm at Pompey, Onondaga County, New York. He was a descendant of John Sweet who settled in Salem, Massachussets, in 1631 (Smith, post, p. 19).
Educated in the district school, he developed a mechanical turn, decided to learn a trade, and in 1850 went to Syracuse, New York, and apprenticed himself to a carpenter and joiner.
In the winter of 1850-51 he found the opportunity to work in an architect's office and learned something of drawing and architecture; during another lull in carpentry he worked for an artist. He then engaged in designing and building until the Civil War, when he had charge of the construction of a hotel in Selma, Ala.
Until 1867 he worked as a draftsman, pattern-maker, and designer in Syracuse, with the exception of a period (1862 - 64) when he worked for the Patent Bolt and Nut Company, Birmingham, England, which was engaged in building a nail-making machine he and his brother had invented. In 1867 he personally exhibited at the Paris Exposition a typesetting machine which he had designed.
From 1868 to 1871 he was superintendent in a manufacturing plant, and then for two years engaged in bridge building in New York state. In 1873 he was appointed master mechanic and director of the machine shop of Sibley College, Cornell University, where he remained for six years. His method of instructing students in shop practice was to have them develop and construct tools and equipment for which there was need.
Thus were made standard gauges, straight edges, squares, and angles, the gauges being made by the use of a measuring machine (the first of its kind in the United States), devised by Sweet and built by the students, which read to the 10/100th of an inch.
In 1879 he resigned and returned to Syracuse, where in 1880 he organized the Straight Line Engine Company. From that time until his death he was the active head of the company, which enjoyed a world-wide reputation. He was much respected by his students, his employees, and all others who knew him.
He wrote Things That Are Usually Wrong (1906) and contributed many articles to technical journals and newspapers, beginning in the 1850s with a series of articles on architecture which ran for twelve years. He traveled extensively and carefully recorded his experiences.
He died in Syracuse and was buried there.
He played a leading part in the formation of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, of which he was president, 1883-84, and in 1914 received the John Fritz Medal--the highest award of the four national engineering societies--"for his achievement in machine design and for his pioneer work in applying sound engineering principles to the construction and development of the high-speed steam engine. " Under Sweet's direction the students built, too, one of the earliest American-made Gramme dynamos and a straight line reciprocating steam engine designed by Sweet. In 1914 he also received the honorary degree of Doctor of Engineering from the Syracuse University. He is known for building the first micrometer caliper in 1873, for making tools, and for inventing the “straight line” engine.
(Originally published in 1906. This volume from the Cornel...)
he was a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
On November 24, 1870, he married Caroline V. Hawthorne (d. 1887) of Fulton, New York; on May 9, 1889, he married Irene A. Clark of Syracuse.
