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David Melville (inventor)
David Melville (March 21, 1773 - September 3, 1856) was an American inventor, credited with the first gas street lighting in America, and the first American patent for gas lighting. Melville was born in Newport, Rhode Island to David and Mary (West) Melville. He was apparently able to light both his house and his street with gas by 1805-1806, using hydrogenous gas made by burning coal and wood. In 1876 the American Gas Light Journal stated that "in 1806 he had so far succeeded that he was enabled to light more than twenty rooms on his premises; by means of a large lantern he lighted Pelham street as it had never been lighted before." In 1916, Walton Clark stated: :The first recorded instance of the use of gas for domestic illumination in the United States fixes the date at 1806. In that year David Melville of Newport, R.I., lighted his house and the street in front it with gas manufactured upon his premises. This was one year before the first public gas lighting venture in Englan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diagram Of Double Gas Apparatus At Newport Light House, From David Melville’s 1817-1818 Meteorological Diary - Newport Historical Society
A diagram is a symbolic representation of information using visualization techniques. Diagrams have been used since prehistoric times on walls of caves, but became more prevalent during the Enlightenment. Sometimes, the technique uses a three-dimensional visualization which is then projected onto a two-dimensional surface. The word ''graph'' is sometimes used as a synonym for diagram. Overview The term "diagram" in its commonly used sense can have a general or specific meaning: * ''visual information device'' : Like the term "illustration", "diagram" is used as a collective term standing for the whole class of technical genres, including graphs, technical drawings and tables. * ''specific kind of visual display'' : This is the genre that shows qualitative data with shapes that are connected by lines, arrows, or other visual links. In science the term is used in both ways. For example, Anderson (1997) stated more generally: "diagrams are pictorial, yet abstract, representat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Letter Signed David Melville, Washington City, To Thomas Jefferson, Monticello, Virginia, January 23, 1822
Letter, letters, or literature may refer to: Characters typeface * Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet. * Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabet, either as written or in a particular type font. * Rehearsal letter in an orchestral score Communication * Letter (message), a form of written communication ** Mail * Letters, the collected correspondence of a writer or historically significant person ** Maktubat (other), the Arabic word for collected letters **Pauline epistles, addressed by St. Paul to various communities or congregations, such as "Letters to the Galatians" or "Letters to the Corinthians", and part of the canonical books of the Bible * The letter as a form of second-person literature; see Epistle ** Epistulae (Pliny) ** Epistolary novel, a long-form fiction composed of letters (epistles) * Open letter, a public letter as distinguished from private corresponde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is an American seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, and northeast of New York City. It is known as a New England summer resort and is famous for its historic Newport Mansions, mansions and its rich sailing history. It was the location of the first U.S. Open tournaments in both US Open (tennis), tennis and US Open (golf), golf, as well as every challenge to the America's Cup between 1930 and 1983. It is also the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport, which houses the United States Naval War College, the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, and an important Navy training center. It was a major 18th-century port city and boasts many buildings from the Colonial history of the United States, Colonial era. The city is the county seat of Newport County, Rhode Island, Newport County ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benjamin Silliman
Benjamin Silliman (August 8, 1779 – November 24, 1864) was an early American chemist and science educator. He was one of the first American professors of science, at Yale College, the first person to use the process of fractional distillation in America, and a founder of the '' American Journal of Science'', the oldest continuously published scientific journal in the United States. Early life Silliman was born in a tavern in North Stratford, now Trumbull, Connecticut, to Mary (Fish) Silliman (widow of John Noyes) and General Gold Selleck Silliman. He was born in August 1779, several months after British forces took his father prisoner and his mother had fled their home in Fairfield, Connecticut, to escape 2,000 British troops who burned Fairfield center to the ground. Silliman was educated at Yale, receiving a B.A. degree in 1796 and a M.A. in 1799. He studied law with Simeon Baldwin from 1798 to 1799 and became a tutor at Yale from 1799 to 1802. He was admitted to t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Winslow Lewis
Winslow Lewis ( Nathaniel Winslow Lewis; 11 May 1770 – 20 May 1850) was a sea captain, engineer, inventor and contractor active in the construction of many American lighthouses during the first half of the nineteenth century. Life and career A resident of Wellfleet, Massachusetts, Lewis began developing his ideas during the embargo of American shipping during the Napoleonic wars. He created a new lighting system based on Argand lamps; in 1812 the United States Congress purchased his patent rights for the system. In so doing, it awarded him a contract to equip all American lighthouses with the lamps; the fitting took four years. In 1815 Lewis won another contract with Samuel H. Smith, Commissioner of Revenue, which gave him a monopoly over the provision of winter pressed Spermaceti oil for lighthouses throughout the eastern seaboard.Amy K. Marshall,"Frequently Close to the Point of Peril: A History of Buoys and Tenders in U.S. Coastal Waters, 1789-1939.'" A Master's Thesis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Watertown, Massachusetts
Watertown is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, and is part of Greater Boston. The population was 35,329 in the 2020 census. Its neighborhoods include Bemis, Coolidge Square, East Watertown, Watertown Square, and the West End. Watertown was one of the first Massachusetts Bay Colony settlements organized by Puritans, Puritan settlers in 1630. The city is home to the Perkins School for the Blind, the Armenian Library and Museum of America, and the historic Watertown Arsenal, which produced military armaments from 1816 through World War II. History Archeological evidence suggests that Watertown was inhabited for thousands of years before European colonization of the Americas, colonization. In the 1600s, two groups of Massachusett, the Pequossette and the Nonantum, had settlements on the banks of the river later called the Charles, and a contemporary source lists "Pigsgusset" as the native name of "Water towne." The Pequossette built a fishing weir to trap herring at the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He named the area in honor of "God's merciful Providence" which he believed was responsible for revealing such a haven for him and his followers. The city developed as a busy port as it is situated at the mouth of the Providence River in Providence County, at the head of Narragansett Bay. Providence was one of the first cities in the country to industrialize and became noted for its textile manufacturing and subsequent machine tool, jewelry, and silverware industries. Today, the city of Providence is home to eight hospitals and List of colleges and universities in Rhode Island#Institutions, eight institutions of higher learning which have shifted the city's economy into service industries, though it still retains some manufacturin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beavertail Lighthouse
Beavertail Lighthouse was built in 1856 and is the premier lighthouse in Rhode Island, marking the entrance to Narragansett Bay. The lighthouse lies on the southernmost point of Conanicut Island in the town of Jamestown, Rhode Island in Beavertail State Park, on a site where beacons have stood since the early 18th century. The light provides navigation for boats and ships entering Narragansett Bay in the East Passage between Conanicut Island and Newport, Rhode Island on Aquidneck Island. Other lighthouses are visible from Beavertail Lighthouse, such as Castle Hill Lighthouse, Point Judith Light, and Rose Island Light. History Records of the town of Jamestown from 1712 make reference to a beacon, and they mention a watch house in 1705. A wooden tower was built in 1749 (attributed to architect Peter Harrison), and the light became the third lighthouse established in the Thirteen Colonies, known at the time as "Newport Light". A fire was lit at the top of the tower, as was co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
19th-century American Inventors
The 19th (nineteenth) century began on 1 January 1801 ( MDCCCI), and ended on 31 December 1900 ( MCM). The 19th century was the ninth century of the 2nd millennium. The 19th century was characterized by vast social upheaval. Slavery was abolished in much of Europe and the Americas. The First Industrial Revolution, though it began in the late 18th century, expanding beyond its British homeland for the first time during this century, particularly remaking the economies and societies of the Low Countries, the Rhineland, Northern Italy, and the Northeastern United States. A few decades later, the Second Industrial Revolution led to ever more massive urbanization and much higher levels of productivity, profit, and prosperity, a pattern that continued into the 20th century. The Islamic gunpowder empires fell into decline and European imperialism brought much of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and almost all of Africa under colonial rule. It was also marked by the collapse of the large S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1773 Births
Events January–March * January 1 – The hymn that becomes known as ''Amazing Grace'', at this time titled "1 Chronicles 17:16–17", is first used to accompany a sermon led by curate John Newton in the town of Olney, Buckinghamshire, England. * January 12 – The first museum in the American colonies is established in Charleston, South Carolina; in 1915, it is formally incorporated as the Charleston Museum. * January 17 – Second voyage of James Cook: Captain Cook in HMS Resolution (1771) becomes the first European explorer to cross the Antarctic Circle. * January 18 – The first opera performance in the Swedish language, ''Thetis and Phelée'', performed by Carl Stenborg and Elisabeth Olin in Bollhuset in Stockholm, Sweden, marks the establishment of the Royal Swedish Opera. * February 8 – The Grand Council of Poland meets in Warsaw, summoned by a circular letter from King Stanisław August Poniatowski to respond to the Kingdom's threate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1856 Deaths
Events January–March * January 8 – Borax deposits are discovered in large quantities by John Veatch in California. * January 23 – American paddle steamer SS ''Pacific'' leaves Liverpool (England) for a transatlantic voyage on which she will be lost with all 186 on board. * January 24 – U.S. President Franklin Pierce declares the new Free-State Topeka government in "Bleeding Kansas" to be in rebellion. * January 26 – First Battle of Seattle: Marines from the suppress an indigenous uprising, in response to Governor Stevens' declaration of a "war of extermination" on Native communities. * January 29 ** The 223-mile North Carolina Railroad is completed from Goldsboro through Raleigh and Salisbury to Charlotte. ** Queen Victoria institutes the Victoria Cross as a British military decoration. * February ** The Tintic War breaks out in Utah. ** The National Dress Reform Association is founded in the United States to promote "rational" dress for w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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