Christopher Colles facts for kids
Christopher Colles (born 1739, died 1816) was an amazing engineer and inventor from Ireland who later lived in America. He was known for many big projects, like a water distribution system for New York City, ideas for canals to connect the Atlantic Ocean to the American interior, and even the first road atlas of the northeastern United States.
People at the time called him "ingenious" (meaning very clever) and "restless." Many of his ideas were super ambitious, and not many of them became truly successful. Some people even called him a "visionary projector" in a not-so-nice way, meaning he had big ideas but couldn't make them happen. However, he was also recognized for being the first to imagine a waterway to the West, which later became the famous Erie Canal.
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Early Life and Learning
Christopher Colles was born in Ireland in 1739. From a young age, he was really good at math and understanding how things worked. After his father passed away, his uncle, William Colles, who was also a mathematician and engineer, raised him. Later, a geographer named Richard Pococke taught him.
Pococke helped Colles get his first job as a paymaster on the River Nore. Colles then worked on different projects in Limerick, Ireland, including building canals and other structures. He even worked for a time with an Italian architect named Davis Ducart. In 1767, Colles surveyed Limerick and later published his findings as a map. He married Anne Keough in Dublin in 1764.
Moving to America
After his uncle William died, Colles moved to America in 1771, landing in Philadelphia. He tried to find work as an engineer or architect, but nothing came up. So, Colles started giving public lectures about science and engineering. He taught about things like how water moves (hydraulics), how machines work (mechanics), and how air and gases behave (pneumatics).
Colles really wanted to do actual engineering. He designed and built a steam engine for a local factory using his own money. The engine didn't work well after a few tries. It wasn't because of his design, but because he didn't have enough money to build it strongly.
He hoped that if important scientists praised his work, he could get more money for a better engine. He asked David Rittenhouse and the American Philosophical Society to review it. They saw the engine's problems but said good things about Colles himself. They believed he understood mechanics and could do the work, saying he was "worthy of Public encouragement."
But he didn't get any funding from them. The society knew Colles because he used their facilities for his lectures. However, some members didn't trust him, calling him a "showman." This made him very disappointed. In 1774, Colles left Philadelphia and moved to New York. There, he truly began his career, coming up with the big projects he would be remembered for.
Big Ideas and Projects
In New York City, Colles suggested building a new water distribution system. This system would use wells, a steam engine to pump water, a reservoir to store it, and pipes to send water all over the city. The city leaders thought the project was too big, but they still gave him some money.
By 1775, Colles started organizing the project. Within months, he finished the well, the pump, and the reservoir. But when the British army invaded New York City in 1776, work on the project stopped. Colles was friends with John Lamb, whose father made scientific tools. John Lamb was part of the Sons of Liberty, a group that supported American independence. Colles also supported the Americans. Because of this, he decided to move his family out of the city, which was now controlled by the British. His water system was never finished and was later destroyed by the British.
During the Revolution
During the American Revolution, Colles moved around a lot to avoid the British. He went to New Jersey, then to Kingston, New York, and possibly to Albany. During this time, he taught artillery (how to use cannons) in the Continental Army under General Henry Knox at the Pluckemin Academy. He stayed there until Baron von Steuben took over. It's not clear why Colles went to Kingston, but he stayed there until the British burned it in 1777. He might have worked on forts and barricades in upstate New York. It's also unclear if he moved to avoid the British or to find work as an engineer.
As the war ended, Colles wrote a letter to General George Washington in 1783. He suggested clearing obstacles from a part of the Ohio River. This would open the entire river for boats, from Fort Pitt all the way to the Mississippi River. Washington thought it was a great idea but believed it was almost impossible to do. He said the country was too "juvenile" (young) and didn't have enough resources yet. Washington told Colles to try "works of more immediate public utility" – projects that would help people right away.
Canals and Roads
In the 1780s, Colles surveyed the waterways in upstate New York. In 1785, he showed the New York State government a plan to improve the waterways in the Mohawk Valley. In his pamphlet, Proposal for the Speedy Settlement of the Waste and Unappropriated Lands on the Western Frontiers of the State of New York, Colles suggested building canals and locks along the Mohawk River and Wood Creek. Once finished, these would connect the Hudson River and Lake Ontario. This would create a water path from the Atlantic Ocean to the middle of North America.
His plan also suggested giving land to canal workers and settlers along the route. He believed these land grants and the improved waterways would quickly settle the frontier. He presented his plan to the New York State government. They liked the idea, but only if private companies paid for it. Colles couldn't raise enough money, so he had to give up on the project.
In 1789, Colles published A Survey of Roads of the United States. This was a set of maps, with three maps on each page, showing major routes between New England and Virginia. This Survey was the first complete road atlas ever published in the United States. It showed roads and important landmarks like lakes, rivers, crossings, farms, and taverns. Travelers could use it to find their way between cities and across the wild frontier.
Many of these maps were based on his own surveys from the war years in upstate New York. Others, especially in the south, used surveys done by two military surveyors, Simeon DeWitt and Robert Erskine. For his own surveys, Colles used a special measuring wheel called a perambulator, which he designed and built himself. Colles planned to sell the atlas by subscription, meaning people would pay in advance to help fund the project. He made it easy for travelers to buy only the map strips they needed for their specific route. Despite how useful and practical the Survey was, not enough people subscribed, so Colles couldn't continue it.
A Visionary Thinker
As Colles got older and his chances of success seemed to shrink, his projects became even bolder and more detailed. Even though his Survey atlas didn't make money, its technical quality encouraged Colles to propose another atlas. This one was called the Geographical Ledger and Systematized Atlas (1794). It was meant to be the Survey but expanded to cover the entire world!
The Ledger would have individual map sheets, each showing a small part of the world in great detail. It would also have an index, like a book, and would list major landmarks. The original Survey maps were even going to be part of the Ledger. Its name came from how you could find places: "the situation of places can be found as speedily as a merchant can find any particular account in his ledger." But again, this big plan didn't go anywhere; only the introduction and a few maps still exist.
Perhaps Colles's most ambitious idea was the Timber Canal. This was a plan for canals built entirely out of wood and raised above the ground, instead of being dug into it. He thought this would solve two problems: how hard it was to dig into the ground because of "enormous roots of the trees," and what to do with the "immense forests...[and] timber in abundance now constantly burning and rotting away." As he often did, Colles wrote down his ideas in a pamphlet called Proposal for a Design for the Promotion of the Interests of the United States (1808).
Like his other pamphlets, the Proposal was a very imaginative work. It described in great detail how the canals should be designed and built, how private companies would pay for them, and how settlers would benefit. Colles expected people to "flock towards the canals." He planned a first route across New Jersey, from the Navesink River west to Bordentown on the Delaware River. Of all his projects, the Timber Canal was the most revolutionary. Maybe that's why it was the least likely to ever be built. Nothing ever came of it.
Later Years
During the War of 1812, Colles set up and managed a special optical telegraph system. This system helped protect New York City from British attacks. It was probably the second telegraph system in the United States and the first in New York City. He was made a Captain in the New York Militia.
Colles spent his last years in New York City. There, he proposed one last big idea: a semaphore telegraph system. This system would use signals to send messages along the Atlantic coast, from Passamaquoddy Bay in Maine all the way to New Orleans. He did manage to build a small system between Sandy Hook, New Jersey, and New York City. It was used for a while to tell the city when ships were coming.
Earlier in his career, in 1784, Colles had built a solar microscope. He used it to show the public tiny insects and other small things that could only be seen under a microscope. In 1815, he collected his observations and published them in a pamphlet called An Account of the Astonishing Beauties and Operations of Nature. But his career was ending. In 1816, his friend John Pintard offered him a job as a caretaker for an old building that was going to house different scientific and art groups in New York. Colles was in this job for only a few months before he died in 1816. He was buried at St. Paul Church in New York City, in an unmarked grave.
Legacy
What we know about Christopher Colles mostly comes from what his friends and rivals remembered about him. We also learn from the few times his ideas were mentioned over the years, and especially from his many pamphlets. These writings were always detailed, sometimes sad, and occasionally very creative and forward-thinking.
He is seen as a technology pioneer in America. He was there at the very beginning of several important developments in American engineering history, like building canals, making maps, and creating water systems. However, because he didn't have much success, he is not very well known in history.
His lack of success has been explained by him being "one of those gifted men whose misfortune consists in being ahead of their times." This means his ideas were too advanced for the time he lived in. It was also hard to be so ambitious in a young country that wasn't fully developed yet. Colles "was urban in an agrarian age, and an inventor, geographer, and engineer before there were many." Colles himself blamed bad luck for his failures. He once sadly told his friend John Wakefield Francis, "Had I been brought up a hatter, people would have come into the world without heads."
Images for kids
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Christopher Colles, a portrait by James Frothingham.
