Birdsill Holly

Birdsill Holly Jr. (8 November 1820 – 27 April 1894) was a mechanical engineer and inventor of water hydraulics devices. He is known for inventing mechanical devices that improved city water systems and firefighting. He patented an improved fire hydrant that is similar to those used currently. Holly was a co-inventor of the Silsby steam fire engine. He founded the Holly Manufacturing Company that developed into the larger Holly Steam Combination Company that distributed heat from a central station and developed commercial district heating for cities in the United States and Canada.

1869 Birdsill Holly fire-hydrant

Personal life

Birdsill Holly Jr. was born 8 October 1820 in Auburn, New York.[1] His father was Birdsill Holly, Sr. and his mother was Comfort Holly. When Holly was born his father moved the family to Auburn to join the crew constructing the new prison facility. When the prison was completed, Birdsill Sr. found a job at the Auburn Theological Seminary in construction, after which he tried to farm without much success. The family moved to Seneca Falls, New York, where there was a water-powered industry with many jobs. Holly grew up in the Seneca Falls, New York, area since his father was able to find work as a millwright and general mechanic.[2]

Holly was forced to drop out of school at the age of 10 when his father died prematurely; he was only in the third grade before he had to start supporting his family. He was influenced by his father and took an interest in similar trade skills of mechanical engineering. Holly started an apprenticeship at a cabinetry shop before he apprenticed in a machine shop. In his late teens Holly became a superintendent in a machine shop and later an owner of a machine shop in Uniontown, Pennsylvania.[3][4]

Holly divorced his wife Elizabeth sometime before 1870 and married his adopted daughter Sophia, twenty-eight years his junior. In a college thesis published in 1996 by Madelynn Frederickson ("The Life And Times Of Birdsill Holly"), she writes that the Lockport society shunned the couple, who moved away temporarily in hopes that the scandal would be forgotten.[5]

Holly died on 27 April 1894 at 7 pm at the age of 74.[1] He suffered from a chronic illness and the cause of death was listed as heart failure.[6]

Career
Silsby steam fire engine
Silsby steam fire engine carriage in Brenham, Texas
Silsby steam fire engine in Brenham
1869 invention US94749 A
Birdsill Holly hydrant patent drawings

Holly moved back to Seneca Falls in his early twenties and became one of the partners of a new firm called Silsby, Race and Holly in 1845.[7] The firm manufactured hydraulic machinery and steam-powered fire engines.[8] As the firm's visionary, Holly contributed significantly to their success.[9] In 1849 he received his first patent, which was for a rotary water pump.[7]

Holly was a co-inventor of the Silsby steam fire engine, which was first produced in 1856. Over 1,000 were made, becoming the most popular steam fire engine built in the United States.[4] The unconventional rotary motion steam-cylinder engine and pump were Holly's inventions (US39259A and US12350A). The first of these machines weighed up to 9,500 pounds and produced 60 pounds of steam pressure, enough to propel four streams of water over 200 feet. The greatest distance recorded for a stream was 364 feet on 24 September 1881 in Reading, Pennsylvania.[10]

Holly left Seneca Falls in 1851 for Lockport, New York, where he established the Holly Manufacturing Company in 1859 with the financial assistance of Washington Hunt and Thomas Flagler.[7] The company produced sewing machines, cistern pumps, and rotary pumps. Holly built the Lockport Fire Protection and Water System in 1863, which used pumps powered by water turbines and steam engines to bring water to hydrants in the city.[8] His system was adopted by Covington, Kentucky, in 1871.[11] He patented a fire hydrant in 1869 used for fire protection.[12]

Holly's inventions used pressure to pump water directly into the main city water supply lines, since there were no water towers at the time for pressure from a local water supply reservoir for drinking water and fire protection.[8] The pumps ran at various speeds according to usage. It was regulated by the pressure in the discharge main.[8] Holly's company facilities doubled when he built a similar system for the city of Lockport water works department. He applied his water works system equipment in over two thousand cities in the United States and Canada.[8]

Holly's system of pumping water into Lockport's city mains was unique. It not only supplied drinking water for domestic service, but also stored water under pressure for hydrants in a city fire protection service.[8][13] His technological innovations provided the impetus for similar city water works construction projects across the United States.[14]

Holly’s interests switched from fire protection systems to central heating. He wondered if there was a more efficient way to heat several nearby buildings rather than using individual small boilers in each building. He set up an experimental steam heating system at his home in Lockport in 1876. Holly ran an underground pipe from his house to a steam boiler 500 feet away in the backyard.[15] Through this wooden pipe he ran steam and found that there was little heat loss. He repeated the experiment with a 100 foot pipe to a neighbor's. The experiment was successful and he convinced others of the possibility of wide-scale central steam heating.[3][8][16]

District heating from a central station
(click image to see how system works)

Holly formed a company of investors interested in his steam concept of central heating with a capital of $25,000.[15] He merged the new company with the Holly Manufacturing Company to establish the Holly Steam Combination Company in 1877.[17] Its goals were to commercially distribute heat from a central station and develop district heating for towns and cities in Canada and the United States. Holly’s district heating system used a large boiler at a central plant. This system provided steam to a group of town buildings in a surrounding city district through a circuit of insulated water pipes that distributed steam and returned it as water after being condensed. The pipes were insulated to reduce heat loss. The serviced buildings were metered with a steam quantity recorder invented by Holly.[18] The consumer was charged for the heat consumed from the steam supply in accordance with coal comparison rates.[3][8][16]

Holly designed and invented all the necessary control regulators and measuring devices to run a heating system for a city district.[19] He patented 150 inventions in his lifetime.[4] He was a friend of inventor Thomas Edison. Edison once asked Holly to become an assistant at his research laboratory in Menlo Park, but the latter refused as he wished to concentrate on his own businesses instead.[20]

Unrealized plans

Holly dreamed of constructing a nineteen-story skyscraper. He thought that Niagara Falls would become a tourist attraction someday, so he proposed the idea of building a 700-foot (210 m) structure on Goat Island near the falls for viewing. The plan was never realized due to a lack of finances; he was unable to gather enough investors for such an expensive and highly speculative project. Although Holly's skyscraper was never built, the Skylon Tower, measuring 775 feet (236 m) high from the bottom of the falls, was constructed near the proposed site.[21] The concept of similar heights for skyscrapers became popular in New York City shortly before Holly's death in 1894, but did not originate from his architectural designs.[22]

Works

The following are some of his 150 patents:

References
  1. "Birdsill Holly dead". Buffalo Evening News. Akron, Ohio. 28 April 1894. p. 13 – via Newspapers.com .
  2. Daisy, Michael (2015). "Who Invented The Fire Hydrant? The Story of Birdsill Holly". The Inventor Spot. Halcyon Solutions Inc. Retrieved 2 January 2016. While Holly was only one of many involved in the development of the fire hydrant, innovations he introduced are largely responsible for the fire hydrant we take for granted today.
  3. Rogers 2010, p. 89.
  4. Hart, Marion (2012). "Birdsill Holly, Jr". Retrieved 1 January 2016.
  5. Hare, Heather (2020). "Attempts to hide scandalous private life may have caused inventor's national obscurity". The Buffalo News. The Buffalo News newspaper. Retrieved 27 June 2020. But Lockport society was scandalized when Holly divorced his wife, Elizabeth, with whom he had four sons, and married his adopted daughter, Sophia.
  6. "Well-Known Inventor Dying". Buffalo Evening News. Akron, Ohio. 26 April 1894. p. 13 – via Newspapers.com .
  7. Daisy, Michael (2015). "Who Invented The Fire Hydrant? The Story of Birdsill Holly". Retrieved 3 January 2016.
  8. "Lockport Cave & Underground Boat Ride". Dennis Stierer. 2016. Retrieved 1 January 2016.
  9. Morris A. Pierce (2018). "Documentary History of American Water-works". Department of History. University of Rochester. Retrieved 11 August 2020. Under superintendent Holly the company made sewing machines, a variety of pumps, and other metal goods, as shown in their 1867 and 1868 catalogs cited below.
  10. King 1896, pp. 21–24.
  11. "Covington" , Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed., Vol. VI, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1878, p. 531.
  12. Hinds 2012, p. 45.
  13. Purdue 1997, pp. 1,10.
  14. ScrantonPub 1920, p. 33.
  15. "Steam Heating". Buffalo Morning Express. Buffalo, New York. 2 February 1878. p. 4 – via Newspapers.com .
  16. Hager 2016, p. 2168.
  17. "The Holly Steam Heating Service". Times Union. Brooklyn, New York. 6 March 1879. p. 3 – via Newspapers.com .
  18. "A Steam Meter". Times Union. Brooklyn, New York. 6 March 1879. p. 3 – via Newspapers.com .
  19. "Heated by Steam". The Indiana State Sentinel. Indianapolis, Indiana. 20 November 1878. p. 2 – via Newspapers.com .
  20. Hinds 2012, p. 36.
  21. "Skylon Tower". Niagara Falls Info. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  22. Hinds 2012, p. 37.

Sources
  • King, William T. (1896). History of the American steam fire-engine. Pinkham Press. p. 21.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Purdue (1997). Landmarks in Mechanical Engineering. Purdue University Press. ISBN 978-1-55753-093-6.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Rogers, Dave (6 January 2010). Inventions and Their Inventors. M-Y Books Distribution. ISBN 978-1-906986-58-2.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • ScrantonPub (1920). Water and Sewage Works. Scranton Publishing Company. The Holly system, as all know, consisted of pumping directly into the mains without the intervention of standpipes or reservoirs, the pumps running at a widely varying speed according to consumption. The Holly system gave the initial impetus to water works construction in the early years following the Civil War, and soon had many imitators. The essence of the system was an automatic pump regulator actuated by the pressure in the discharge main.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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