Comments for The Rumseian Society http://jamesrumsey.org Devoted to the history and inventions of James Rumsey Thu, 22 Mar 2012 14:05:25 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ Comment on Rotary Steam Engine 1 by jamesrumsey http://jamesrumsey.org/rumseys-1791-rotary-steam-engine/#comment-211 Thu, 22 Mar 2012 14:05:25 +0000 http://jamesrumsey.wordpress.com/?page_id=18#comment-211 The evidence that Fulton got his ideas from Rumsey is very circumstantial- at best, they seem to have known each other. But Fulton did not work under Rumsey, and their designs have little or nothing in common. Rumsey expressed a dislike of paddlewheels for propulsion ( after Symington put one on his steamboat) and Fulton used one. Rumsey went to great lengths to create a compact but overly-elaborate steam engine, unlike any others, for his last steamboat, Fulton simply asked Boulton and Watt to supply him with one of their engines to fit his boat. Symington’s success may have inspired Fulton more than Rumsey.

]]> Comment on How the Rumsey Rotary Steam Engine Works by Sara Wright http://jamesrumsey.org/2011/12/14/how-the-rumsey-rotary-steam-engine-works/#comment-199 Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:52:47 +0000 http://jamesrumsey.org/?p=302#comment-199 Hi,

Can you please give me an e-mail contact? I’d be happy to say, but don’t want alot of info in public, so to speak, for now. If it doesn’t come through with this reply, you can find mine if you follow my blog info.

Thanks.

Sara

]]> Comment on How the Rumsey Rotary Steam Engine Works by jamesrumsey http://jamesrumsey.org/2011/12/14/how-the-rumsey-rotary-steam-engine-works/#comment-196 Wed, 29 Feb 2012 18:53:09 +0000 http://jamesrumsey.org/?p=302#comment-196 Howdy,

We appreciate you asking. Could you first tell us a little more; what publication, periodical, etc. the story is for?

all the best,
Nick Blanton

]]> Comment on How the Rumsey Rotary Steam Engine Works by Sara Wright http://jamesrumsey.org/2011/12/14/how-the-rumsey-rotary-steam-engine-works/#comment-195 Wed, 29 Feb 2012 17:16:59 +0000 http://jamesrumsey.org/?p=302#comment-195 Hello.

I am working on a story, a short history of the steamboat. I am looking for illustrations of Rumsey’s work and was wondering if I might obtain use of the illustration of the diagram showing how the steam engine/boat operated?

]]> Comment on Rotary Steam Engine 1 by jamesrumsey http://jamesrumsey.org/rumseys-1791-rotary-steam-engine/#comment-14 Sun, 07 Aug 2011 20:11:05 +0000 http://jamesrumsey.wordpress.com/?page_id=18#comment-14 Susan Skiles wrote to Charles Morrow’s son ( and James’ nephew) John Morrow in 1816, from “3 Springs Warren City Kentucky” , looking to see if there were still any letters of the inventor. It would seem that she had had a hard life. ( The letter, plus one other and one from her son James Rumsey Skiles are in the Historic Shepherdstown Collection at the Duke University Library).

As we state on the Inquires page, there’s no evidence Fulton had anything to do with Rumsey in London. Though one of Fulton’s later close friends, Joel Barlow, did know Rumsey- and so Fulton would almost certainly have heard of Rumsey- Fulton is not mentioned in any of Rumsey’s letters, or any other period documents with information of his time in England. There’s also nothing in Fulton’s 1807 design that owed anything to Rumsey’s ideas. Fulton used a paddlewheel; Rumsey disliked them. Fulton was able to buy a good steam engine, Rumsey was forced to try to invent his own. However, if Rumsey’s negotiations with Boulton and Watt hadn’t failed, he would have been able to bring their steam engines to the US and use one on his own steamboat twenty years before Fulton was to win the same advantage for his, which was probably the greatest tragedy in Rumsey’s professional life.

]]> Comment on Rotary Steam Engine 1 by Brisbin Skiles http://jamesrumsey.org/rumseys-1791-rotary-steam-engine/#comment-13 Sun, 07 Aug 2011 18:50:40 +0000 http://jamesrumsey.wordpress.com/?page_id=18#comment-13 Thank you for this wonderful piece of history and enlightenment. My cousin, Frances Skiles Gilfillan, did a genealogy of the Skiles’ family in 2007. Included in it to my delight was our James Rumsey, his daughter Edna Susan Rumsey and grandson James Rumsey Skiles, son of Jacob Skiles and Edna. Recounted from Warren County Kentucky History: are the accounts of James Rumsey, INVENTOR of the steamboat and whom George Washington encouraged to bring his vessel for demonstration on the Potomac River in 1787, a full twenty years before Robert Fulton constructed the Clermont. In fact, Robert Fulton was James Rumsey’s apprentice and took credit for the invention after Mr. Rumsey’s untimely death in England while promoting his steamboat there.

]]> Comment on The Rumsey Monument by giles snyder http://jamesrumsey.org/the-rumsey-monument/#comment-2 Thu, 30 Jun 2011 20:18:25 +0000 http://jamesrumsey.wordpress.com/?page_id=30#comment-2 My great grandfather, Harry Lambright Snyder, was a member of the Rumseyan Society and helped with the monument. He was the editor of the Shepherdstown Register and, like him, I’m a journalist. I’d love to come over sometime to talk about Rumsey and what you guys are up to these days for a possible story.

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