Inventions in Everything: The Steam Man of Newark

U.S. Patent 75,874 is one perhaps one of the most non-descript patents to ever be awarded. Issued on 24 March 1868 to Newark, New Jersey-based inventors Zadoc P. Dederick and Isaac Grass, the letters patent proclaim their invention to be an “Improvement in Steam-Carriage”.

Sounds pretty mundane. In 1868, practical steam engines had been around for more than 150 years. Steam-powered trains had been invented in the early 1800s and were rapidly expanding as a major mode of transportation. Without reading any further than its title, a patent for an “improvement in steam-carriage” then might almost certainly be assumed to involve a modest improvement in steam engine technology for powering locomotives.

It’s only when you get to the basic description of the invention that alerts you that something very different is happening in this patent. Here’s the standout text:

This invention consists in connecting a steam-engine or other motor to a system of levers, which, in imitation of the action of the legs of a man, by the reciprocating motion of the piston, are made to walk over the ground, and draw a vehicle attached thereto.

If that text isn’t enough to alert you something very different from every transportation-related invention before it, perhaps your first look at the illustration of the invention would do the job:

For his part, inventor Dederick was something of a showman, who brought the prototype of his invention to the showiest place on Earth: Broadway! Early in March 1868, prior to the issuance of his patent, Dederick displayed his innovation to the public, earning the following coverage from the New York Express (and other newspapers that carried the story from the wires):

The inventor and exhibitor of the Newark Steam Man (Mr. Zado Dederick,) has improved the occasion of the Barnum fire excitement by hiring room s in the opposite house — on Broadway — for the purpose of exhibiting his eighth wonder of the world. As a speculative enterprise, the idea must have been a success, for at 10 o’clock this morning, a large number of persons had congregated at the door clamorously seeking admission.

Mr. Steam Man is a person of commanding presence, standing seven feet nine inches in his stocking vamps, weighs five hundred pounds, measures 200 inchies round the waist, and decidedly bucolic in general appearance. — The legs are made of iron cranks, screws, springs, ad infinitum, not quite as attractive in exterior as those we see in the weekly pictorials, but evidently of greater durability and strenth.– The motion of the legs is almost facsimile to that of the human extremities.

Nearly 160 years later, the sight of human-like automatons pulling carriages has unfortunately failed to become commonplace. The news coverage hints at why Dederick’s invention, despite its pending patent and all his prowess as a showman, didn’t catch on the way he might have hoped.

Mr. Dederick says that he can easily accomplish a mile in two minuytes on a level course, and offers to test this on Long Island Course as soon as the weather gets fine. The engine is four-horse power, and the man takes thirty inches in each stride. Perhaps the most extraordinary attribute of the animal is the faculty of stepping over all the obstructions not higher than a foot. (Of course all these assertions are the inventor’s, and not the result of the reporter’s investigations.)

Which is to say the Steam Man of Newark failed to demonstrate any of these capabilities while on public display. The reporter wrote the epitaph of Dederick’s and Isaac’s innovation:

Whether the steam man prove of any practical good or not, his is unquestionably a great curiosity.

That’s almost the final word for the invention. It did however serve as an inspiration for an early contribution to new genre of fiction, Edward Sylvester Ellis’ The Huge Hunter; Or, The Steam Man of the Prairies“, which was first published in August 1868 and is arguably the “first example in literature of a mechanical man”.

If not for Dederick’s March 1868 showcase exhibition of his “improvement in steam-carriage”, the era of robots in science fiction might have had to wait for decades longer to come to pass. When you consider the billions that intellectual properties derived from Dederick’s innovation has made publishers and movie-makers over the years, the Steam Man of Newark might just possibly be the most successful failed invention of all time.

From the Inventions in Everything Archives

The IIE team has never covered anything quite like The Steam Man of Newark. We’re stretching to identify the following articles that even mention robots in the archives!

• Outside the Box Thinking: Flying Robotic Firehoses
• How Does the Internet Know You’re Not a Robot?