Phineas Davis

Background

Phineas Davis was born on January 27, 1792 on his father’s farm in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. He was the son of Nathan and Mary Davis.

Education

Davis attended the common schools near his home during the winter months and displayed at an early age an unusual amount of mechanical ingenuity.

Career

The farm yielded few opportunities in the field of mechanics and at the age of fifteen Davis left home.

Some months later he arrived in York, Pennsylvania, alone and unknown.

He soon found employment, however, with the local clock- and watch-maker, Jonathan Jessup, with whom he remained for six years, gaining a local reputation for his inventive skill, reliability, and ambition.

In 1821 he met and formed a partnership with Israel Gardner, the proprietor of an iron foundry and machine-shop for the manufacture of steam-engines. After making a few stationary engines of Davis’s design the partners began work on an iron-clad steamboat. In this undertaking they called in to assist them a local boat-builder and a fourth helper.

Several years were required to complete the boat, but on November 22, 1825, the Codorus was launched at York on the Susquehanna River and made one or two voyages to its headwaters.

Small as was its draft, the boat, which was sixty feet long and sheathed with sheet iron, was unsuited at certain seasons for the shallows of the river and was abandoned. The engine, designed by Davis, was of the high-pressure type, working under a pressure of one hundred pounds per square inch. In January 1831 when the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company issued an advertisement offering $4, 000 for the best locomotive delivered on or before June 1, 1831, Davis entered the competition. The requirements were that the locomotive must burn coal or coke, consume its own smoke, and draw fifteen tons’ weight at fifteen miles an hour.

Davis delivered his locomotive, “York, ” on time, transporting it by wagon to Baltimore, and won the prize against four competitors. Shortly thereafter the railroad company offered him, and he accepted, the managership of its mechanical shops. Moving to Baltimore with his family early in 1832, he continued to design locomotives and locomotive parts. Davis made a close study of all improvements through actual trial on the company’s road between Baltimore and Washington. When he was returning to Baltimore on one of these trial trips, a misplaced rail threw the engine off the track and Davis, who was on the tender, was crushed to death between the engine and the trailing cars, though no one else on board was injured.

Achievements

• Under Davis' superintendence the first steel springs were installed on the “York” in 1832, and that year he and Gardner placed in service the “Atlantic, ” first of the “Grasshopper” engines which were the standard type for many years on the railroad.

Connections

Davis married Hannah Taylor of York on November 15, 1826.

Father:

Nathan Davis

Mother:

Mary Davis

Wife:

Hannah Taylor

References

• American Steam Locomotives
• Impossible challenge II: Baltimore to Washington and Harpers Ferry from 1828 to 1994