The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1881-02-03
How a Great Engineer Got His Start.

James B. Eads was born in Indiana in
1920. He is slender in form, neat in
dress, genial, courteous md nearly sixty
years of age In 1888, his father started
down the Ohio River with his family,
proposing to settle in Wisconsin. The
boat caught fire, and his scanty furni-
ture and clothing were burned Young
Eads hardly escaped ashore with his
pantaloons, shirt and cap. Taking pas
sage on another boat this boy of thirteen
landed in st. Louis with his parents. his
little bare feet first touching the rocky
shore of the city on the very spot where
he afterward located and bull, the largest
steel bridge in the world over the Mis-
sissippi-one of the most 1ifficult feats
OF engineering ever performed in
America.
At the age of nine, young Eads made
short trip on the Ohio, when the en-
gineer of the steamboat explained to
him so clearly the construction Of the
steam engine, that before he was & year
older he built little working model of
it, so perfect in its parts and movements
that his schoolmates would frequently
go home with him after school to see it
work. A locomotive engine, driven by
concealed rat, was one of his next ju-
venile feats in mechanical engineering.
From eight to thirteen he attended
school after which, from necessity, he
was placed in dry goods store.
Over the store, in St Louis, where he
was engaged, his employer lived. He
was an old bachelor, and having observed
the tastes of his clerk, gave him his first
book on engineering. The old gentle
mans library furnished evening COM
panions for him during the five years he
was employed. Finally, his health fail
ing, at the age of nineteen, he went on a
Mississippi River steamer, from which
time to the present day that great river
has been to him an all absorbing study.
Soon afterward, he found partner
ship with :. friend, and built small
boat to raise cargoes of vessels sunk in
the Mississippi. While this boat was
building he made his first venture in
submarine engineering, on the lower
rapids of the river, by the recovery of
several tons of lead. He hired scow or
fatboat and anchored it over the wreck
An experienced diver, clad in armor,
who had been hired at considerable ex-
pense in Buffalo, was lowered into the
water; but the rapids were SO swift that
the diver, encased in strong armor,
feared to be sunk to the bottom. Young
Eads determined to succeed, and finding
it impracticable to use the armor, went
ashore, purchased a whisky barrel,
knocked out the head, attached the air.
pump hose to it, fastening several heavy
weighs to the open end of the barrel,
then swinging it on to derrick, he had
practical diving-bell, the best use I
ever heard made of a whisky barrel.
Neither the diver nor 4ny of the crew
would go down in the contrivance, so the
dauntless young engineer, having full
confidence in what he had read in books,
was lowered within the barrel down to
the bottom, the lower end of the barrel
being open. The water was sixteen feet
deep and very swift. Finding the wreck,
he remained in it full hour, hitching
ropes to pig-lead until ton or SO was
safely hoisted into his OVID boat; then
making signal by small line attached
to the barrel, he was lifted on deck, and
took command again. The sunken cargo
was soon successfully raised, and was
sold, and netted handsome profit;
which, increased by other successes, en-
abled enegetic Eads to build larger boats,
with powerful pumps and machinery Oh
them for lifting entire vessels.