Frank McDowell Leavitt

Frank McDowell Leavitt (1856–1928) was an American engineer and inventor. Leavitt devised one of the earliest machines for manufacturing tin cans[1] and later invented the Bliss-Leavitt torpedo, the chief torpedo used by United States Navy in World War I.[2] Leavitt was part of an emerging cadre of American engineers whose design feats were putting United States manufacturing might on the map at the dawn of the twentieth century.[3]

Frank McDowell Leavitt
BornMarch 3, 1856
Athens, Ohio
DiedAugust 6, 1928
Scarsdale, New York
NationalityAmerican
OccupationEngineer
SpouseGertrude Goodsell
Parent(s)John McDowell Leavitt and Bethia Brooks Leavitt
Engineering career
ProjectsDeveloped the Bliss-Leavitt torpedo

Early life and career beginnings

Frank M. Leavitt was born at Athens, Ohio, on March 3, 1856, the son of Rev. John McDowell Leavitt, later president of Lehigh University, and his wife Bethia (Brooks) Leavitt of Cincinnati, Ohio.[4] Leavitt married Ohio-born Gertrude Goodsell at Brooklyn, New York, on November 8, 1893, and settled in Brooklyn Heights, New York, where he pursued his career as an engineer. Within a decade of his marriage, Leavitt had patented an early – and lucrative – process to manufacture tin cans.[5]

Bliss-Leavitt torpedo
Main article: Bliss-Leavitt torpedo

By 1904, Leavitt had turned his attention to weaponry: he began working with the civilian contracting firm E. W. Bliss Company of Brooklyn to design a new type of torpedo. The recently concluded Russian-Japanese War had caught the attention of United States Naval officials, because both nation's fleets had lost most of their battleships to underwater explosives. The race was on to perfect the deadly armaments, and the United States Navy was becoming the world leader in torpedo technology.[6]

Final years and legacy

Frank M. Leavitt, who served as chief engineer for the E. W. Bliss Company for many years, died at his home in Scarsdale, New York, on August 6, 1928. The Ohio-born inventor and his wife had no children. His sister Anna Goodrich Leavitt, who married USN Commander James C. Cresap, had a grandchild named in honor of the inventor: U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Frank McDowell Leavitt Davis, who graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. Davis later commanded a naval torpedo bombing plane squadron in World War II, and perished while on duty in a crash off Malta in 1946.[7] Frank McDowell Leavitt Davis is honored with a plinth at the Naval Academy cemetery, where he is interred.[8] Frank M. L. Davis and his father, Lieutenant Ralph Otis Davis, were both assigned to the Navy submarine service.

See also

Further reading
  • Hellions of the Deep: The Development of American Torpedoes in World War II, Robert Gannon, Penn State Press, 1996, ISBN 0-271-01508-X
  • Iron Men and Tin Fish: The Race to Build a Better Torpedo During World War II, Anthony Newpower, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006, ISBN 0-275-99032-X
  • The Devil's Device: The Story of Robert Whitehead, Inventor of the Torpedo, Edwyn Gray, Published by Seeley, 1975, ISBN 0-85422-104-2

References
  1. The Federal Reporter, Vol. 67, District of Columbia Court of Appeals, May-July 1895, West Publishing Co., St. Paul, Minn., 1895
  2. Compressed Air Magazine: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Useful Application of Compressed Air, William Lawrence Saunders (ed.), New York, 1903
  3. "Mechanical Engineers, in Big Demand, Win Quick Success". The New York Times. October 19, 1913.
  4. The Sons of the American Revolution, New York State Society, 1893–94, Edward Hagaman Hall, The Republic Press, New York, 1894
  5. "Milestones: Aug. 13, 1928". Time. August 13, 1928.
  6. Hellions of the Deep: The Development of American Torpedoes in World War II, Robert Gannon, Published by Penn State Press, 1996, ISBN 9780271015088
  7. The Boone Family, A Genealogical History of the Descendants of George and Mary Boone who Came to America in 1717; Containing Many Unpublished Bits of Early Kentucky History, By Ella Hazel Atterbury Spraker, Jesse Procter Crump, Published by Genealogical Publishing Company, 1974 ISBN 978-0-8063-0612-4
  8. USNA Cemetery Documentation Project (schenker) (September 8, 2005). "0538C- Davis, F. M. L..doc" (PDF). Archived from Files/Section 4/0538C- Davis, F. M. L.pdf the original (PDF) on September 27, 2012. Retrieved January 21, 2019. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)


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