enjamin Franklin Isherwood was born in New York City on October 6, 1822 to the former Eliza Hicks. His father died young; Eliza then married John Green, an engineer whose great–grandfather was Captain DuClose, a distinguished military engineer on the staff of General Lafayette during the Revolutionary War. At the age of nine young Benjamin was enrolled in the Albany Academy, but was expelled five years later for “serious misconduct.”

In 1844, at the age of 22, Benjamin joined the United States Navy and saw action during the Mexican War. Prior to this he worked for the Utica and Schenectady Railroad and trained under William C. Young, one of the most prominent engineers of that period. Isherwood then worked on the Croton Aqueduct, followed by an engineering job on the Erie Canal. Designing and constructing lighthouses for the Treasury Department was Isherwood’s last employment before joining the Navy.

When the Mexican War ended, Benjamin Franklin Isherwood was assigned to the Washington Navy Yard where he assisted his old boss, Charles B. Stuart, in designing ships and experiments with steam as a source of power for propelling ships.

In 1861 Isherwood was appointed Engineer–in–Chief of the United States Navy and in 1862 became the first Chief of the Bureau of Steam engineering, a post he held for eight years. When the Civil War began the Navy had 28 steam vessels and during the war the number grew to 600. The design and construction of the machinery necessary to accomplish this was done by Isherwood. He designed ships that were fast enough to pursue the blockade runners.

In 1863 and 1865 he published the first and second volumes of Experimental Researches in Steam Engineering which were translated into six languages and became a standard engineering text upon which future steam experimentation was based. In 1870—71 Isherwood conducted experiments that resulted in a propeller that was used by the Navy for the next 27 years.

Benjamin Franklin Isherwood retired from the Navy in 1884. He died in 1915 and was buried in Oakland Cemetery. The steam engineering building at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, is named “Isherwood Hall” in his honor. In the USNI proceedings of 1941 George W. Dyson stated that Isherwood might possibly be the greatest engineer the United States Navy had developed.

(Author’s Note: One small section of Oakland Cemetery on Nepperhan Avenue is especially historical. Dr. Charles Leale, the US Army surgeon who came to President Lincoln’s assistance the night of April 14, 1865 when he was shot at Ford’s Theater, is buried there alongside the John Copcutt Mausoleum. Across the roadway are the graves of Elisha Graves Otis, inventor of the safety elevator, and his sons, Charles, former trustee of Oakland Cemetery, and Norton, former Yonkers mayor and member of Congress. Next to their plot is that of the Hicks–Isherwood Family. Nearby is the grave of Frederick weed who bought Sherwood House and its surrounding property in 1834. This property remained in the possession of the Weed family until 1923. Weed’s daughter married Henry Hicks, and their daughter married Rudolph Eickmeyer, famous photographer, whose father’s electrical inventions helped mechanize the hat–making industry in Yonkers.)

—Tom Flynn