JAMES B. EADS - 1900 - PREFACE - I MUST mention with particular gratitude several books that were invaluable in preparing this sketch, in supplementing the usual biographical dictionaries and naval histories. These are Captain Mahans The Gulf and Inland Waters Boyntons picturesque History of the American Navy during the Great Rebellion Mr. Fiskes, 6 Mississippi Valley in the Civil War Sneads The Fight for Missouri Mr. C. M. Woodwards bHistory of the St. Louis Bridge Mr. Estill McHenrys edition of Eadss Papers and Addresses, with a biography two memoirs by Seiiores Fran cisco de Garay and Ignacio Garfias, of the Mexican Association of Civil Engineers and, above all, several memoirs and addresses and the history of the Jetties by Mr. Elmer L. Corthell, C. E., without which I could scarcely have written this Life. I must also cordially thank for kind personal aid and advice Chancellor Chaplin of Washington University, Dr. William Taussig, Mr. Albert Bushnell Hart, Major George Montague W heeler of the Engineer Corps retired, Messrs. Winston Church ill, William L. Wright, C. Donovan, E. L. Corthell who was as obliging as he was helpful, Estill McHenry and John A. Ubsdell, Mrs. Susan F. Stevens, and especially my mother - to whose help and encouragement this Life of her father is due. L. H. ROCKPORT M, ass., July 30, - 1900 - CONTENTS OHAP. PAGE I. EARLY T RAINING . . l 11. THE GUNBOATS . v . 22 111. THE BRIDGE . . . C 49 IV. Tm JETTIES . . . 75 V. THE SHIP-RAILWAY a . 105 JAhlES B. EADS EARLY TRAINING J E B S U CHANAENA DS w as born in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, May 23, 1820. Both the Eads family, who came from Maryland, and his mothers people, the Buchanans, who were originally Irish, weregentlefolk but Jamess father never was very prosperous. The son, however, went to school, and he showed early a very special love for machinery, observing with great interest everything of that kind that he came upon. For a while the family lived in Cincinnati from there they removed in 1829 to Louisville. In those days, when steamboats were the best of conveyances, the Ohio River formed a natural highway between JXUES B. EADS the two towns. On the trip the s m d boy of nine hung around the engine of the boat, considering it with so much wonder and admiration that finally the engineer, who found him an apt pupil, explained the various parts of the mechanism to him. He really had understood his lesson well, for two years later, in the little workshop that his father had fitted up fop, he made a small engine which . ran by steam. Besides he made models of sawmills, fie engines, steamboats, and electrotyping ma chines. Except such chance instruction as that which he found on the boat, he had had no teaching in mechanics, but worked with the ingenuity of many a bright boy for he is by no means the only one who ever took apart and put together the family clock, or even a lever-watch, with no other tool than a penknife. One of his inventions, which shows not so much his talent as his true boyishness, was a small boxwagon, open only underneath and with a hole in front, which, suddenly produced before his mother and sisters, ran mysteri EARLY TRAINING 3 ously across the room. The motive power concealed within this agreeable toy was found to be a live rat. So much is often said of the precocity of youthful geniuses, that it is good to know that young Eads was after all a real fleshand-blood boy, a boy so mischievous that, as he was the only son, his father hired a neighbor boy to come and play with him...