Thomas Fitch Rowland was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of George and Ruth Caroline (Attwater) Rowland. His first Rowland ancestor in this country is said to have been Henry, who was in Fairfield, Connecticut, as early as 1649; he was also a lineal descendant of Thomas Fitch, a colonial governor of Connecticut.
Thomas received his early education in New Haven.
At the age of thirteen Rowland entered his father's grist mill as the miller's boy. Upon the construction of the New York & New Haven Railroad through New Haven a few years later, the grist mill was demolished and Rowland entered the employment of the railroad, becoming the first apprentice in the machine shop.
While in this service he fired the third passenger train that was sent over the railroad from New Haven to New York. In 1850 he gave up this work to accept an appointment as second assistant engineer of the steamboat Connecticut, plying between Hartford and New York; but when control of the company owning this vessel changed hands in 1852 and all of the employees were discharged, he obtained a job with the Allaire Works of New York, an old established engine-building concern. A year or two later Rowland left this company and in the succeeding six or eight years was variously employed about New York in the designing and construction of steamboat machinery.
In 1859, in association with Samuel Sneden, a prominent builder of wooden vessels, he established a business at Greenpoint, L. I, for the construction of wooden and iron steamships and for structural iron works. The first contract the new firm obtained was with the Croton aqueduct department for a wrought-iron water-pipe, 71/2 feet in diameter and a quarter of a mile long. It was to be located on top of the high bridge over the Harlem River for the purpose of carrying water from the aqueduct to the new reservoir in Central Park. This work, requiring 450 tons of wrought-iron plate and 400 tons of castings, was successfully carried out. The partnership was severed in 1860 and Rowland thereafter continued business alone under the name of "The Continental Works. "
At the outbreak of the Civil War he began the manufacture of gun carriages and mortar beds for the navy department and fitted out most of the steamers purchased from the merchant service, which vessels took part in the capture of Port Royal and were known as the "Porter Mortar Fleet. "
In 1861 Rowland contracted with John Ericsson for the building of an iron-clad floating battery, afterwards known as the original Monitor.
In the 1870's he built a number of ferryboats for the Union Ferry Company, New York, and constructed steamboats for Cuban waters. For many years he experimented in the art of iron and steel welding and about 1887 designed the process and apparatus used by his company in the manufacture of the Fox corrugated and Morison suspension furnaces widely used for many years in the internal furnace type of boiler. At the same time he incorporated his business as the "Continental Iron Works, " and served as the president until his death. He died in New York City.
Rowland was known as an inventor of the iron-clad floating battery called "Monitor". He built the monitors Montauk, Catskill, and Passaic, the double-turreted monitor Onondaga, and the light-draft gunboats Cohoes and Muscoota. Thomas constructed ferryboats and steamboats for Cuban waters. He also began the design and manufacture of steam engines and boilers especially adapted for use in the oil industry, and was engaged in designing and constructing gas-manufacturing plants in various parts of the country.
Rowland married, in 1855, Mary Elizabeth Bradley of New Haven, Connecticut, and was survived by three sons.
