American Biography

DICTIONARY OF American Biography VOLUME X TROYE-ZUNSER Edited by DUMAS MALONE Charles Scribner's Sons New York Winans Winans tural school for negroes on Skidaway Island, problems, of the new system of transportation, near Savannah, Ga. This last, which, was espe- and devised a.model "rail wagon," haying the cially dear to him, did not prosper. In 1883, when "friction wheel" with outside bearings, thus set- Wimmer celebrated the golden jubilee of profes- ting, for at least a century, the distinctive pattern sion, Pope Leo XIII conferred on him the title for railroad wheels. In Winans' model car in of archabbot and the privilege of wearing the one of the upper rooms of the Exchange, the cappa magna for pontifical functions. At that venerable Charles Carroll [q.v.1 of Carrollton, time his missionaries were in twenty-five states in the presence of most of the prominent men of of the Union, ministering to over 100,000 souls, Baltimore, was drawn along a track on the floor especially among Germans, Irish, Italians, In- by a ridiculously small weight suspended over a dians, and negroes. During the last period of his pulley by twine. Shortly afterward, when George life Wimmer also educated boys from Bohemia to W. Whistler, Jonathan Knight, and William G. become missionaries among their countrymen, McNeill [qq.v.] were sent abroad by the railroad and in 1885 foundec a priory in Chicago (later company to study the railroad system of England, St. Procopius Abbey, Lisle, 111.). In 1886 he Winans went also. While abroad he allowed his sent Fathers to Colorado who established a priory patent wheel to be used for experimentation, with which became Holy Cross Abbey, Canon City. the result that he was ruthlessly plundered of its On his deathbed he gave consent to a foundation most valuable feature. in Ecuador, South America, which was later dis- Upon his return he entered the service of the continued. Of middle stature and robust ex- Baltimore & Ohio as engineer (1829-30), assist- terior, Wimmer was a man of a very practical ing Peter Cooper [g.w.] with his famous Tom mind and marked determination. In the begin- Thumb engine. As a member of the firm of Gil- ning of his career he had to oppose an exag- lingham & Winans, about 1834 he took charge gerated asceticism on the part of some of his of the Mount Clare shops of the railroad com- followers and the attempt of the Ordinary of the pany, devoting the next twenty-five years to the diocese to limit his activities. In 1858 a religious improvement of railroad machinery. He planned charlatan who succeeded in entering the ranks of the first eight-wheel car ever built for passenger his monks and who used the tendency of the purposes and is credited with the innovation of prelate towards mysticism for his personal ad- mounting a car on two four-wheeled trucks. In vantage almost disrupted his work and had to be 1842 he constructed a locomotive known as the expelled (1862). In general, the abbot believed Mud-Digger, with horizontal boiler; it was put that missionary activity would revive the former into service in 1844. In !848 ne produced the glory of his order. He himself never considered heavy and powerful "camelback" locomotive, earthly gain, and the poorer the petitioners, the noted for power on steep, grades. Unlike most surer they were of obtaining help. inventors, Winans was eminently practical; at [Oswald Moosmuller, St. Vincenz in Pennsylvanien his shop more than one hundred locomotives (1873), and Bonifaz Wimmer (1891) ; St. Vincenz were constructed for the Baltimore & Ohio com- Gemeinde and Erzabtei (1905) and St. Vincent's (1905), pamphlets published by the Archabbey Press; pany during the period when the "camelback" Wissenschaftliche Studien und Mittheilungen aus. dem was in favor. In time, however, the company Benedictiner-Orden (1881), vol. I, pp. y-xiv, vol. II, PP- 35i~6i ; Gerard Bridge, Early St. Vincent (1920) ; decided that locomotives of less weight were S. J. Wimmer, in .Records Am. Cath. Hist. Soc, vol. more economical on the rails. Numerous pam- Ill (1891) ; Felix Fellner, Ibid., Dec. 1926, pp. 299— 301 ; obituary in Studien und Mittheilungen aus dem phlets and bitter newspaper communications to Benedictiner—und dem Cistercienser-Orden, vol. IX prove the superiority of his "camelback" proved (1888) ; letters of Wimmer in St. Vincent archives.] unavailing in the face of experience, and about F.F. i860 Winans retired from locomotive building. WINANS, ROSS (Oct. 17, 1796-Apr. 11, Meanwhile, in 1843 ne had been invited, doubt- I877), inventor and mechanic, was sixth in de- less through Whistler's influence, to go to Russia scent from Jan Wynants, who came to America to furnish rolling stock for the railroad between from the Netherlands about 1662. The seventh Moscow and St. Petersburg. He declined, but child of William and Mary Winans, first cousins, sent his sons Thomas De Kay Winans [q.v.~\ Ross was born on a farm in Sussex County, N. J. and William in his stead. He received a good common-school education and During the Civil War his sympathies were while on a journey to New York City picked up with the Confederacy. He experimented with a a book which led him to a study of mechanical steam gun, which was seized by the Union troops principles. In Baltimore in 1828 to sell horses onthesuspicionthat itwas intended for the South. to the new Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (Hunger- As a member of the Maryland legislature which ford, post, I, 77), he became interested in the met in Frederick in 1861, he shared in the mis- 37.1 Winans Winans fortunes of that body. He was twice arrested, in With Joseph Harrison [q.v.'], a member of the May and September 1861, and twice released on Philadelphia firm of.Eastwick & Harrison, loco- parole. motive builders, Thomas Winans, against the In his later years Winans and his family spent competition of all foreign bidders, secured the an immense sum on the development of the contract to equip the Russian railroad in five "cigar-steamer," a long, narrow vessel which left years with locomotives and other rolling stock. the shape of its hull as a heritage to the mod- The firm of Harrison, Winans & Eastwick, or- ern ocean liner. He was much interested in ganized for the Russian enterprise, established projects for improving Baltimore, and published shops at Alexandrovsky, near St. Petersburg, and numerous pamphlets on problems of local hy- completed their-contract more than a year before giene and water supply. He also wrote several the time agreed upon. One contract led to an- unorthodox works on religious subjects, the most other, so that orders, approximating nearly $2,- significant of which was One Religion: Many 000,000, which included all the cast iron for the Creeds (1870). He erected, as a philanthropy, first permanent bridge over the Neva River at more than a hundred houses for rental at mod- St. Petersburg, were added to the original award erate rates to working people, but his invest- of $5,000,000, and the contemplated visit of a ment of over $400,000 proved ultimately a failure. few months was prolonged to a residence of five He married twice: first, Jan. 22, 1820, Julia De years. In Russia, on Aug. 23, 1847, Winans Kay of New Jersey, who died in 1850; second, in married Celeste Revillon, a Russian of French 1854, Elizabeth K. West of Baltimore. He had and Italian descent. They had four children, of four sons and a daughter, Julia, who became the whom only two survived their father. In 1851 wife of George W. Whistler, Jr., half-brother of he returned to America, leaving his brother to the artist James McNeill Whistler [q.v.]. ' fulfill the remaining contracts, which were [Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, completed by 1862. In 1866 the firm, including and Sun (Baltimore), Apr. 12, 1877; Baltimore News, George W. Whistler, Jr., now Winans' brother- Apr. 12, 18, 1911; J. T. Scharf, Hist, of Baltimore City and County (1881) ; J. E. Semrnes, John H. B. Latrobe in-law, was recalled to Russia under a new con- and His Times (1917) ; Edward Hungerford, The Story tract of eight years' duration, but in 1868 the of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (1928) ; manu- script geneal. in the possession of the Md. Hist. Soc, government took over their interests by the pay- which has also a volume of Winans pamphlets thought ment of a large bonus. to be complete; Winans MSS. in the possession of Regi- With the exception of visits to Europe, Win- nald Hutton, Esq., a descendant, in Baltimore, consist- ing of letters, diaries, account-books, and miscellaneous ans thenceforth resided in Baltimore at "Alex- papers bearing on numerous patents; Annual Reports androffsky," the house he had begun to construct of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.] £.L. in 1853, named in memory of his Russian experi- WINANS, THOMAS DE KAY (Dec. 6, ence. To a country residence near Baltimore he 1820-June 10, 1878), engineer and inventor, eld- gave the name "Crimea." On but two occasions est son of Ross Winans [q.v.~\ and Julia (De did he emerge from his retirement: upon the Kay) Winans, was born at Vernon, N. J., but completion of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad he was taken to Baltimore when but ten years old. consented to serve as a director in order to lend Inheriting his father's mechanical tastes, he was it the benefit of his skill and experience; and at apprenticed, after a common-school education, the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 he estab- to a machinist, under whom he displayed such lished a soup station opposite his home, where skill that before he attained his majority he was four thousand persons were fed daily.

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