Ingersoll

Evans subsequently placed him in charge at
Nanking during a troubled period at that port.
With his special knowledge and interest in ord-
nance, Ingersoll took a prominent part in the
rejuvenation of naval gunnery begun in Evans*
squadron at this time. After study at the Naval
War College and service on the General Board
of the navy, he commanded the cruiser Mary-
land, 1905-07, and was then selected as Admiral
Evans' chief of staff for the world cruise of the
American fleet* This involved unusual responsi-
bilities, for Evans because of illness was on deck
only twice after the fleet left Trinidad. Upon
Evans' giving up the command at San Francisco,
July 1908, Ingersoll also went ashore. He was
made rear admiral July n, 1908, and was on the
General Board until his retirement on Dec. 4,
1909. Afterward he lived at La Porte, Ind., a
genial and beloved figure, honorary life-com-
mander of the American Legion post, and a fre-
quent speaker on civic occasions. He was slight-
ly below medium height, erect of carriage, an
unassuming man but of marked attainments in
his profession. As an expert in ordnance he was
recalled to active service in the World War,
July 1917-January 1919, as president of the
Special Naval Ordnance Board which passed
upon thousands of inventions submitted during
the war. IngersolTs wife was Cynthia Eason,
daughter of Seth Eason, whom he married at
La Porte on Aug. 26,1873. He had one son, Capt
Royal Eason Ingersoll, U. S. N.

IWho's Who in America, 1928-29; L. R. Hatnersly,
The Records of Living Officers of the U. S. Navy and
Marine Corps (7th ed., 1502); L. D. Avery, A Geneal.
of the Ingersoll Family in America (1926); obituary
notices in the La Porte Herald-Argus, Apr. 21,1931, and
the N. Y. Times, Apr. 22, 1931.} j^ W.

INGERSOLL, SIMON (Mar. 3, i8i8-July
24, 1894), inventor, son of Alexander S. and
Caroline (Carll) Ingersoll, was born on his fa-
ther's farm at Stanwich, Conn. Until he was
twenty-one years old he lived at home, obtained
a country-school education, helped in the farm
work, and came to be recognized as an "all
around" ingenious mechanic. He was called upon
locally to do all sorts of jobs but inasmuch as
the income from such work was insufficient to
support a wife, upon his marriage in 1839 to
Sarah B. Smith in Stanwich, he moved across
Long Island Sound to Astoria, L. L, and en-
gaged in truck-gardening. Nothing definite is
known of him for the succeeding twenty years.
Presumably he spent much of his time in me-
chanical experimentation, for soon after return-
ing to Connecticut in 1858 he applied for and
received patent No. 20,800 for a special type of
rotating ^baft for a steam engine (House Execu-

Ingersoll

five Document 105, 35 Cong., 2 Sess,, II, 320).
About this time, too, he built and demonstrated
on the streets of Stamford, where he resided, a
steam wagon which was greatly ridiculed. He
obtained a number of patents in the sixties, in-
cluding a friction clutch, a gate latch, and a
spring scale. All of these patents were assigned
to others, in return, apparently, for money to
carry on his work and to support his family.
About 1870 he again returned to truck fanning
on Long Island for he could not obtain any fur-
ther advancements on his future inventions, nor
had he derived any money from his earlier pat-
ents. By selling the patent rights to one of his
latest inventions he obtained sufficient capital to
buy a stall in Fulton Market, New York, where
he sold his garden produce. There in a conversa-
tion with several strangers about his inventions,
he was urged by one of them, a contractor, to
devise a machine to drill rocks. The upshot of
this chance conversation was that the contractor
gave Ingersoll fifty dollars to design such a ma-
chine. Securing working space in a small ma-
chine shop in New York owned by Jose F.
Navarro and managed by Sergeant and Culling-
worth, Ingersoll built several experimental mod-
els and a full-size drilling machine. He devoted
approximately a year to this work and finally
secured patent No. 112,254 on Mar. 7, 1871
(Rouse Executive Document 86, 42 Cong., 2
Sess., p. 131). This is the basic patent of the
Ingersoll rock drill. That same year he patented
several improvements for the drill and then sold
all of his patent rights to Navarro for a nominal
sum. The latter then organized the Ingersoll
Rock Drill Company which after many years of
successful operation was merged into the Inger-
soll-Rand Company. With the proceeds of this
sale and $400 from the sale of his market stall,
Ingersoll returned to Stamford and bought an
interest in a machine shop, the firm being known
as Ingersoll, Betts, & Cox, where he continued
his inventive work. Between 1873 and 1893 he
was granted sixteen patents, most of which per-
tained to rock drills and accessories. In addition
he secured four patents for a gun and projectile
for throwing life lines. None of his inventions
yielded any appreciable financial return and at
his death he was practically penniless. His first
wife died in 1859 leaving five children, and he
later married Frances Hoyt of Stamford who
survived him.

t [W. B. Kaempffert, A Popular Hist, of Am. Inven-
tion (1924) ; E. W. Byrn, The Progress of Invention in
the Nineteenth Century (1900); G. D. Hiscox, Com-
pressed Air, Its Production, Uses, and Applications
(1901) ; Bncyc. of Conn, Biog. (1917), vol. IX; W. L.
Saunders, "The Hist of the Rock Brill and of the In-
gersoll-Rand Company/' Compressed Air Mag.> June

472