John P. Holland
Have you ever heard of John P. Holland? He invented the first submarine. He was born on February 24, 1841, in the Coastguard residence in Liscannor. The first submarine Holland made was the Holland Number 1. It was planned in St. John’s School and was built in Todd & Raftery’s shop in Paterson, NJ. It saw the light of day in 1877. It was 14 feet long and was powered by a primitive 4-horse power engine and carried one man. It was brought down to the Passaic River and launched before a big audience. But someone had forgotten to insert two plugs and the submarine sank.
The next day Holland removed parts from the sunken sub and started a new submarine. Fifty years later, the little sub was rescued from the Passaic River and, together with Holland’s papers, is now preserved in the Paterson N.J. town museum.
Holland’s sixth sub was the most successful sub so far. It was 53 feet long and driven by a 45-horse power gas engine for underwater travel. It carried 15 people and had a torpedo tube in the bow.
John P. Holland died on August 12, 1914. He is buried in Totowa, New Jersey, less than one mile from where he launched his first submarine. In 1976 his grave was marked with a large headstone. Castle Street in Licannor has been renamed Holland St. in his honor.
By: David Guardiola
E. Raymond Appleby Elementary School
Samuel Colt
Samuel Colt was an industrialist. Colt’s mother died when Colt was almost two years old. He was one of seven children. Sara Caldwell, Colt’s mother committed suicide later in life. His father remarried when Colt was 4 and from then on, his stepmother, Olive Sergeant, raised him.
Sam got a horse and a pistol at an early age and his fascination with it led him to a life profession. He was sent to a farm in Glastonbury at age 11, where he did chores and attended school. At Glastonbury, the Compendium of Knowledge, an encyclopedia of scientific nature, which he read instead of his bible studies, influenced him. It provided motivation and ideas to him.
Using the ideas and technical knowledge he had gotten earlier from the encyclopedia, he built a homemade gunpowder battery and exploded it in Ware Lake. He discovered which way the wheel spun on the gun. Each spoke always came in direct line with a clutch that could be set to wait a minute…the Colt Revolver was made!
While making guns in 1835, Samuel Colt traveled to England, following in the footsteps of a Bostonian who had patented a revolving flintlock. He secured his first patent number 6909, but in spite of the arguments from gun makers and British officials, no fault was found with the gun. It is thought that it was this incident that brought the production of his firearms to Paterson, New Jersey. Shortly after his arrival home he rushed to Washington and on February 25, 1836 he was granted a patent for a revolving gun .On August 29, 1839, he protected the basic principles of his revolving-breach loading, folding trigger gun named the Paterson Pistol. He quickly formed a corporation of New York and New Jersey businessmen in April 1839. It was the first practical revolver.
By: Danielle Hamilton
E. Raymond Appleby Elementary School
