William Henry (gunsmith)
William Henry | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | December 15, 1786 | (aged 57)
Occupation(s) | Inventor, gunsmith, American revolutionary |
Spouse | Ann Wood Henry |
Children | John Joseph Henry |
William Henry (May 19, 1729 – December 15, 1786) was an American gunsmith, engineer, politician, and merchant from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and a delegate for Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress in 1784, 1785, and 1786. Henry is also noted for his contributions in development of the first steam engines.
Biography
William Henry was born near
Henry later served in many positions of public responsibility, including Assistant Commissary General to the Continental Army for the district of Lancaster and, in 1779, Commissary of Hides for Pennsylvania,
Henry was an intellectual who helped found Lancaster's Juliana Library-Company in 1759, which during the Revolution and after was housed in his residence, and he held membership in the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, whose first Transactions (1771) printed Henry's account of his invention of a "Description of a Self-Moving or Sentinel Register" to regulate the flue of a furnace. Henry invented a screw auger, manufactured and sold exclusively at his Lancaster store, and some credit him with inventing the steamboat: the twelve-year-old Robert Fulton, a Lancaster neighbor, visited Henry in 1777, who had been experimenting since 1763 on boats with steam engines on the Conestoga River (Fulton's own experiments began only in 1786 in England). Henry and his family were members of the Moravian Congregation at Lancaster.[5]
Henry was the earliest patron of painter Benjamin West, who lodged in Henry's home in Lancaster in 1756 and painted portraits of William and Ann Henry, probably shortly after their marriage. More significantly, Henry encouraged West to paint The Death of Socrates (1756), perhaps the first history painting produced in the colonies;[6] West credited Henry with having initiated the painter's interest in history painting, the genre for which the painter became famous.
Legacy
Henry's sons carried on his gun business, in Lancaster, in Philadelphia, in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, and then in Boulton, PA. One of his sons, John Joseph Henry, served as a sixteen-year-old rifleman on Benedict Arnold's march on Quebec in the fall and winter of 1775 (he was captured and imprisoned for much of 1776), and later served as president judge of the second District in Pennsylvania from 1795–1811.
See also
Notes
- ^ "Henry, William, (1729–1786)". Biographical Dictionary of the United States Congress. Retrieved August 25, 2014.
- ^ Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John, eds. (1898). Appletons' cyclopædia of American biography (2d ed.). New York: D. Appleton & company. p. 175. Retrieved August 25, 2014.
- ^ see Scott Paul Gordon, "The Ambitions of William Henry," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 136, no. 3 (2012): 253–284.
- ^ William Henry to Joseph Reed (April 25, 1780), quoted in Whitfield J. Bell, Jr., "William Henry (1729–1786)," in Patriot-Improvers: Biographical Sketches of Members of the American Philosophical Society, Volume One: 1743–1768 (Philadelphia, 1997), 349–61 (quotation, 356).
- S2CID 248826289.
- ^ Scott Paul Gordon, "Martial Art: Benjamin West's Death of Socrates, Colonial Politics, and the Puzzles of Patronage." William and Mary Quarterly 65, 1 (2008): 65–100.
References
- Jordan, Francis. The Life of William Henry, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1729–1786, Patriot, Military Officer, Inventor of the Steamboat; A Contribution to Revolutionary History. Lancaster, Pa.: New Era Printing Company, 1910.
- Purcell, L. Edward. Who Was Who in the American Revolution. New York: Facts on File, 1993. ISBN 0-8160-2107-4.
- Whitfield J. Bell, Jr., "William Henry (1729–1786)," in Patriot-Improvers: Biographical Sketches of Members of the American Philosophical Society, Volume One: 1743–1768 (Philadelphia, 1997), 349–61.
- Gordon, Scott Paul. Two William Henrys: Indian and White Brothers in Arms and Faith in Colonial and Revolutionary America. Jacobsburg Historical Society, 2010.
- Gordon, Scott Paul. "The Ambitions of William Henry." Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 136, no. 3 (2012): 253–284.
External links
- United States Congress. "William Henry (id: H000519)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
- "Jacobsburg Environmental Education Center". Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Archived from the original on February 23, 2004. Retrieved 2007-01-06.
- "Jacobsburg Historical Society".