William Longstreet was born on October 6, 1759, near Allentown, New Jersey, United States. He was the son of Stoffel and Abigail (Wooley) Longstreet, and a descendant of Dirck S. Langestraet who emigrated from the Netherlands to New Netherland in 1657.
William was educated in the country school near his home and early showed a marked mechanical skill.
About 1780, either through a book which Longstreet secured or through local discussions of the work being done by Oliver Evans and John Fitch in nearby communities, he became greatly interested in the steam engine. It is possible that he attempted the construction of an engine at this time, but the public ridicule to which he was subjected deterred him from working very seriously on such a project.
In 1780s he established his own home in Augusta, Georgia and applied himself earnestly to the construction of a steam engine. With the financial aid of one Isaac Briggs, he had made such good progress by 1788 that on their petition, the General Assembly of Georgia, February 1, 1788, passed an act securing to "Isaac Briggs and William Longstreet, for a term of fourteen years, the sole and exclusive privilege of using a newly constructed steam engine invented by them. " With this protection Longstreet proceeded to build engines and apply them to useful work. He had already patented in Georgia the so-called "breast roller" of cotton gins, which was operated by horsepower and was of incalculable value to the growers of sea-island cotton.
He then undertook the construction of steam-operated gins, but because of lack of money he completed only a few. They were built and put into operation in Augusta but were almost immediately destroyed by fire. Longstreet also designed a portable steam sawmill, a number of which he erected and operated in various parts of Georgia; one of these, near St. Mary's, was destroyed by the British in 1812. His third application of steam power was to propel a boat. As early as 1790 he solicited, by letter, the aid of Governor Edward Telfair in raising funds for such a purpose. The letter was published in the Savannah and Augusta newspapers but without avail. Sixteen years later, however, Longstreet succeeded in building a small steamboat which ran on the Savannah River against the current at the rate of five miles an hour. He died in Augusta, Georgia.
Longstreet married Hannah Randolph of Allentown, New Jersey, in 1783. He was the father of Southern author Augustus Baldwin Longstreet and grandfather of Confederate General James Longstreet.
