1826 Detail

April 1, 1826 - The internal combustion engine named the "Gas Or Vapor Engine" is patented by American Samuel Morey.

Okay, now we're trying to get rid of it, at least in Democratic circles, or at least move away from anything that uses gas or vapor to propel the engine, but for the last almost two hundred years, the industrial revolution and transportation industries have been run on one or another versions of what Samuel Morey would patent in 1826. His idea for an internal combustion engine would eventually change the world and allow progress to grow over the next several decades until its use would be put into its highest production.

But why don't we know that much about either the man, Samuel Morey, or his initial patent for the "Gas or Vapor Engine," plus his other works on steamboat propulsion that came before Robert Fulton. I'm not sure of the reason why, while some use the term "obscure" to describe him, his contributions to both activities led to the United States becoming a world power, after it got rid of the British, and slavery, and focused on industrial power.

Morey was born in New Hampshire in 1762; his father became a General in the New Hampshire militia during the Revolutionary War. As Samuel came of age toward the end of the conflict, he joined the militia and rose to the rank of captain. His father was a rather wealthy man; he owned Orford, New Hamshire's first store, an inn, a ferry, sawmill, and two grain mills. So when Samuel became an adult and upon his father's passing, he inherited much of that, married, then on the fifteen hundred acres that the family owned on both sides of the Connecticut River, he logged the land and built log flumes to the river for ease of transport to the mills. He took on community responsibilities as well; in charge of the locks on the Connecticut and building the locks at Bellow Falls, Vermont.

But when did he start to invent and how many patents did Samuel Morey eventually own? He owned twenty patents, the first granted in 1793 for a steam power spit, and the last granted in 1833. That first invention was developed into a steamboat with paddle wheels in the early 1790's that took trips up and down the Connecticut River. There had been experimentation by others on that concept before, but the credit often goes to John Fitch, who patented a steamboat with oars on August 26, 1791, and Robert Fulton for taking it to known use, on what some term the first practical steamboat journey from New York to Albany on August 17, 1807. Morey attempted to exhibit his boat and get financial backers, but in 1797, while in Bordentown, New Jersey to show his two side mounted paddlewheel steamboat to investors, a series of problems occurred, unsure what, and Morey's experiments, without backing, seemed to slow. He still worked on the technology, recieving four patents after that point.

Morey knew both Robert Fulton and his backer, Chancellor Robert Livingston, and traveled and boarded Fulton's boat, voicing his displeasure over the ideas that Fulton had taken from his work to further his own.

What About the Internal Combustion Engine

Around 1814, Samuel Morey added to his experiments with steam, focusing work on the addition of turpentine to water which would lead to the internal combustion engine. Morey would run experiments in the cold Orford, New Hampshire winters using the residues in wood; sap, and how flames flowed differently around knots. He experimented with tar, rough turpentine, alcohol, fat, flax, seeds, and more. Morey made an initial practical test, heating water over his revolving engine, resulting in the coal or tar burning brighter when the steam passed over it. He thought the steam was decomposing, though that theory was later considered incorrect, in 1819, by French chemist Gay-Lussac, who thought it more likely that the steam allowed the vapors to flow more freely, producing the change in the flames.

However, it was Morey who was correct. He had produced water-gas. Oxygen plus carbon formed carbon monoxide and hydrogen a diatomic molecule. Both burn and form water and carbon dioxide, allowing Morey's discovery to create more efficient combustion. By 1824, while experimenting with vapor of turpentine mixed with air, he determined its flammability, and developed an engine to be powered by it. He worked on it for two years before filing his patent. The engine was similar to today's engines; two cylinders, a carburator, valves, and cams.

The patent was granted on April 1, 1826, Patent No. 4378.

After the Patent was Granted

Samuel Morey demonstrated his machine to eyewitnesses in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. The Philadelphia experiment used a boat and a wagon, essentially a car. However, unfortunately when he took the car onto the street, he fell off the vehicle after it started and it careened across Market Street into a ditch. It was the second car ride in the world. Despite his success (the engine worked), he could not find a buyer for his patent. By 1829, he had started to give up on its promotion. "I am told, the Capt. (Morey) Is determined to make one more vigorous effort (that was in Baltimore), to sell his patent right for some of his modern inventions (he later singles out the vapor engine), and if he does not now succeed, he will give the matter up, and return to Orford, to spend his days in quiet," Reverend Dana, Orford, October 1829.

And that, essentially, is what happened. Despite the fact that his internal combustion engine was the first in the U.S.A. and featured new concepts such as the use of liquid fuel, a heated surface carburator, and wire mesh to prevent the combustion from getting inside the carburator, Morey did not profit from his invention. His inventing days waned after his daughter passed in 1830. And a fire at the patent office in 1836 lost Morey's patent, allowing another man to reinvent and patent Morey's ideas again in 1872. The original patent was found again in 2004, in Dartmouth's library. Although Morey did not participate in great profit from the "Gas or Vapor Engine," he did not die penniless, having $17,042 in assets.

There is little evidence of Samuel Morey's accomplishments; no museum, although his house in Orford still surives, and there is a bridge named after him connecting the two towns where he lived, Fairlee and Orford. A sign in Fairlee also notes his inventions and patents. Patents that were signed by the some of the first Presidents of the United States; George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson.

"Samuel Morey, resident of Orford (New Hampshire) and later Fairlee (Vermont), successfully operated a steamboat on the Conn. River in 1793. Making over 4000 experiments, this early scientist patented an internal combustion engine in 1826 to anticipate the age of the motor car and airplane," Road Marker, Vermont.

Image above: Faint copy of original patent for the "Gas or Vapor Engine" issued to Samuel Morey, 1826, United States Patent Office. Image below: Montage (left) Captain Samuel Morey, Inventor of the Steamboat, 1809, A.C. Gow, Granite State Magazine. Courtesy Wikipedia Commons. (right) Example of a Combustion Engine using inspiration from Morey's patent. It was a three horsepower engine that ran on coal gas, 1896, Sir Dugald Clerk, the Tradition of Technology, Landmarks of Western Technology. Courtesy Library of Congress. Source Info: Wikipedia Commons; "The Unsolved Mystery of Samuel Morey," Leon Maurer, Dartmouth College; Library of Congress; United States Patent Office; "Scientist of the Day, Samuel Morey," 2020, Linda Hall Library.

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