"An Erickson Propeller on the Farmington Canal,"

Richard Reggie Smith Research/Editor Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0

The New Haven Morning Journal and Courier, dated Thursday, March 22, 1900

Read by Hon. F. J. Kingsbury Before Historical Society.

Hon. F. J. Kingsbury of Waterbury read an interesting paper entitled "An Erickson Propeller on the Farmington Canal," Monday night before a meeting of the New Haven Colony Historical Society. The paper was as follows:

This boat was on the east side of the basin a few rods north of the road leading to Cheshire Center. I was a small boy at the time, perhaps not more than 10 or 12 years old, but I remember perfectly the appearance of the boat and that it had the lack of not being in use, but of having been run into the creek for storage and to be out of the way.

I was probably near more interested than I can describe, for day about this sort and wondering who made it and what had become of it and I determined to make an effort to find out.

I wrote to Benjamin Doten, an old newspaper man living in Cheshire, intelligent and observant, and having a good memory. I also wrote to Henry Farnam of New Haven, who was one of the engineers of the Farmington canal when it was built and was familiar with its early history. He replied that he had no recollection of any boat having been run on the canal by steam and was quite sure that if there had been he should have known it. However, my recollection of the propeller was too clear to be discouraged by such negative evidence and I continued the inquiry. I was at last rewarded by Richard David Williams of Plainville, who arrived a young man at the time and told me the whole story. It was invented and built by Benjamin Dutton Beecher, an ingenious mechanic whose special lines on this occasion reached far beyond what his hand found to anything in a mechanical way. The boat was built at a boat yard and on a short stream called on the man "Mountain Brook" and launched into the canal near the plank road near the Prospect line, east-ward to Milldale.

It is a picturesque valley and is now occupied by the Meriden, Waterbury and Connecticut River railroad and far from the site of the old saw mill. The boat, when completed, was loaded with produce and drawn by oxen over the snow three or four miles to Beachport. Mr. Williams’ thought that they utilized a second hand steam engine for the boat. Mr. Beecher’s son says he invented and built a special engine for it, of which he has the drawings; but he may have used a second hand engine at once. The propeller was in the bow of the boat, as far as Mr. Beecher remembers, it represented by a print of the arm, the motion from the boat like the distance of the action of an auger or a gimlet point setting into the water.

Mr. Williams said that he was on her as an invited passenger when she took her first trip on the canal, from Beachport going to Winchell's basin, after that what is known as Farminton [sic]. The voyage was a success in meeting with and returned without accident. I learned from Benjamin W. Beecher that I learned that James Farrel of Waterbury, whom I knew well, had married a daughter of Mr. Beecher, and on visiting Waterbury found that the older and family still in communication with Henry E. Beecher of Plainville, a son of Benjamin D. Beecher, who gave me various other particulars of his father’s life and inventions.

Benjamin Dutton Beecher was born in Cheshire, Conn., November 2, 1791, and was educated at the academy there, the late Admiral Foote having been a school fellow and life-long friend. He learned the trade of a carpenter and at the age of 22 was out in the last war with England; he invented the first fanning mill for cleaning grain known to the world, which is still known as the "Watt-in-1830." In 1838 he was living in Woodbury, Conn., where several of his children were born. In 1832 or 1833, he moved to New York city. While living in Woodbury October 28, 1830, he received a patent for a grain threshing machine. In New York he bought a steam engine, which he commandeered and used for a variety of purposes and made improvements on the boat and engine. In 1834 when the cholera broke out in New York, he with all his family departed for New Haven and thence to Cheshire and then to Milldale. So great was the fear and the excitement that they left behind almost everything but the clothes that they wore and that at some point they were abandoned by a frightened carrier in a basin. He then took up his abode in Cheshire on the Mountain Brook, near where the boat was built and launched into the canal which I have stated. He also when his date became plenty, and he was in a hurry to complete his boat, invented and built a horse-power which he patented in December 1835. Capt. (afterward Admiral) Admiral Foote, who accompanied his friend Beecher, then used the boat and was well pleased with the trip. The propeller was placed in the bow of the boat rather than at the stern with the idea that the boat would be more easily handled by the wash, which for a long time was a serious obstacle to the use of steam on the canal. In 1840 Mr. Beecher took out a hint which was placed on the lake known as the Quassapaug, in Prospect, Conn., then taken to pieces and taken to New York, where it probably went through some arrangement with some interested capitalists, for the patent says that Erickson on arriving, stating in the result of the inquiry by our Capt. Foote, the reluctant Photo was in command at the time, but I am satisfied that during the summer of 1843 he sent for Beecher to conduct some experiments with the screw propeller. On his returning, had his attention turned to the subject of aerial navigation, and was satisfied that something could be made of it. His developments in Plainville library mountain contains several citations to this propeller, but very little in the way of models.

Congress, or the naval department, considered Beecher’s claims and afterward gave them experiment. The experiment came to an end by Those being killed in an explosion. Mr. Beecher died in Southington, Conn., January 17, 1858, and was buried in Plainville, where he had lived at one time. I have called the paper "An Erickson Propeller" because that name for this method of propeller has been generally adopted but it will correspond, if not in fact, however, that Beecher anticipates Erickson by a number of years. There is no doubt that he had the idea in his mind as early as 1830. The experiment of 1843 refers to the meeting of what was undoubtedly original with Beecher, as it refers to any other. I don’t say that Beecher did not have the means to perfect his work and as yet it is certainly as good. The accompanying out of the boat as well as that of the engine and several other of arm skeleton placing machine [sic], which were furnished me by his son. My recollection of the propeller is that it resembled much more closely the ordinary Erickson propeller than would appear from the cut. I think the cut only represents a skeleton, and the angle at which I viewed it may have simply shown the flanges. Mr. Beecher belonged to that rare class of native intellect to whom it was a pleasure to invest and to solve a mechanical problem, and to whom a success in it, as practical and city life as was gained from them, any secondary results. Therefore when he had succeeded in solving a problem it probably lost its interest for him and he did not pursue it to its practical and city life estate successful end. His son says that his favorite time was in the canal and if it fell to pieces in that way it would be a narrow escape from a great invention, but he owes it to the practical and city life in the history of a canal that is now things of the past. It perhaps seems small, but actually, when viewed in all its relations may deserve a place, with better memories, as being certainly one of the stepping stones of progress.