Sylvanus Sawyer

John Sawyer,[1] his father, was a farmer, mill owner and lumberman. His mother was Lucy Balcolm Sawyer.[1] His siblings included Addison M.,[3][4] Joseph B., Catharine H., Mary W., and Aurelia M. Sawyer.[1] Joseph[2] and Addison[3] were Sylvanus' business partners, and Addison was Sylvanus' co-inventor on at least one artillery ammunition patent, as well as receiving at least two patents on his own.[5] From childhood Sylvanus showed great mechanical ingenuity; while he was a lad, he invented a reed organ. Due to an injury at age 12,[3] from then until age 21 feeble health unfitted him for farm labor, and he occupied himself largely with carpenter's and smith's tools. In 1839 he went to Augusta, Maine, with a view of working with his brother-in-law, a gunsmith, and, though his health soon forced him to return, he learned to repair firearms and do much similar work, in which he engaged until his majority at age 21. During this time he also made several inventions, including a steam engine, a screw propeller, and a small foot-powered railroad car.[2] However, lacking capital and experience, he was unable to manufacture any of these or otherwise profit from them, and they became public property.[3]

He went to Boston about 1843 and, while working in a machine shop there, invented a machine for preparing chair cane from rattan. Thousands of dollars had previously been spent in vain attempts to construct such a machine, but Sawyer's was successful, and after it was patented, on 24 June 1851 (“machinery for cutting rattan”),[6][7] he and his brother Joseph established a shop in East Templeton, where they manufactured chair cane with it. In the following December, the American Rattan Company was formed to use their machine, and erected a large shop in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.[2] Sawyer devised several auxiliary rattan-processing machines through at least 1855,[3][6][8] and, besides serving as director, was manager of the company's shop. His inventions were said to have entirely revolutionized the chair cane business, transferring it from southern India, China, and the Netherlands to the United States.[2]

In the summer of 1853 he invented improvements in rifled cannon projectiles, which were patented in 1855.[6] These included the placing of a coating of lead or other soft metal on the rear and sides of the shell, which was expanded laterally by the discharge and prevented the "windage" or passage of gas by the projectile, also filling the grooves of the rifling and obviating the use of helical projections. An arrangement of a percussion cap insured the explosion of the shell on impact.[9][10]

The Sawyer gun being demonstrated by Major General Benjamin Butler for Major General Wool at the Rip Raps (Fort Calhoun), 1861

In 1857–58, with his brother Addison, Sawyer conducted experiments on his invention, at his own expense, for the benefit of the U.S. Ordnance Bureau.[2] A further successful trial with a weapon of 24-pounder (5.86-inch) bore firing 42-pound rifled projectiles was conducted in 1859 at Fort Monroe.[11] The Secretary of War announced that the practicability of rifled cannon and projectiles had at last been demonstrated. It was recommended that four field guns be issued for practice, but before the order was carried into effect the American Civil War had begun.[2] Sawyer delivered the U.S. Army's first cast steel rifled artillery weapon, a 9-pounder ordered in June 1861.[12][13] The 24-pounders designed by Sawyer were mounted at Newport News, Virginia, with one on the Rip Raps (Fort Calhoun, later Fort Wool) in mid-1861.[3] An illustration of the latter weapon shows it mounted on a high-angle carriage.[14] The gun at Fort Wool was the only land-based Union gun in Hampton Roads that could reach the Confederate Sewell's Point battery, a distance of two miles, which it did with great accuracy, damaging the railroad iron-clad batteries.[2][15] A 32-pounder (or 30-pounder) Sawyer rifle (of 12-pounder (4.62-inch) bore) also did "great execution" on board the armed steam tug Fanny, but the Confederates captured this vessel on 1 October 1861. The Union recaptured her remains after the Battle of Elizabeth City, North Carolina on 10 February 1862. Fanny was grounded and "blown up",[16] but this gun was salvaged from her. It was preserved as a "30-pounder Sawyer rifle" at the Washington Navy Yard, D.C. as of 2012.[17] The Fanny also had an "8-pounder rifled cannon" that may have been a Sawyer design.[11]

Sawyer claimed that he was treated unjustly by the ordnance officers during the Civil War. Notwithstanding the report in his favor, his guns were not extensively adopted, but his improvements were incorporated in others that, he said, were infringements on his patents. He was advised by government officials to wait until the war had ended and then prosecute the chiefs of ordnance of the army and navy, but they both died shortly after its close, and nothing had been done in the matter. But he received several orders for guns directly from department commanders, to whom he furnished what are said to be the first batteries of cast-steel rifled guns made in the United States.[2] He patented other improvements in projectiles and fuzes in 1861–63,[9] and in 1864–65 built a shop for the manufacture of ordnance, as he anticipated orders from the United States, Mexico, Brazil, and Chile, all of which he had negotiated with.[3] However, the close of the wars in the United States and South America caused it to be turned to other uses.[2]

He took out patents on dividers and calipers in 1867, a steam-generator in 1868, a sole sewing-machine in 1876, and a centering watchmaker's lathe on July 10, 1882. He subsequently engaged in the manufacture of watchmakers' tools, but soon retired from business, and took much interest in agriculture.[2] In the early 1890s he developed a system for producing fertilizer by filtering Fitchburg's sewage.[1]

He served as an alderman in Fitchburg.[2]

Sylvanus Sawyer designed at least five types of rifled artillery guns and a full line of projectiles for them, including solid shot, shell, case-shot, and canister rounds.[3] His company initials of "S. & A.M. Sawyer" or "S. & J.B. Sawyer", found on orders for his weapons, indicate that he partnered with his brothers Addison and Joseph in designing and manufacturing artillery.[18] Both Sylvanus and Addison received patents for artillery projectiles and fuzes and were co-inventors on at least one patent.[9] However, their weapons were only purchased in limited or experimental quantities by the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy. A December 1861 report from Major General Benjamin F. Butler to Major General George B. McClellan states "I have also nearly ready eight rifled 5- and 6-inch guns of the Sawyer pattern...". These may correspond to the 4.62-inch, 5-inch, and 5.82-inch weapons Sawyer designed.[11]

• Field artillery in the American Civil War
• Siege artillery in the American Civil War

Contemporary rifled artillery

• James rifle
• Parrott rifle
• Brooke rifle
• Wiard rifle

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). "Sawyer, Sylvanus" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.