Ross Winans (1796-1877)
MSA SC 3520-14472
House of Delegates, Baltimore City, 1861
Biography:
Born October 17, 1796, in Vernon,
New Jersey. Son of William and Mary Winans. Married (1) Julia De Kay
(d. 1850), on January 22, 1820; (2) Elizabeth K. West, in 1854. Four
sons and two daughters, including Thomas De Kay Winans, William L.
Winans, and Julia Winans Whistler. Died April 11, 1877, in Baltimore,
Maryland. Buied, Greenmount Cemetery, Baltimore, Maryland.
Inventor and mechanic. Served in the Maryland House of Delegates
during special sessions held in the City of Frederick in 1861. During
this time, federal troops arrested him twice because of his Confederate
sympathies.
Winans gained fame during his many years of service with the
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. "As a member of the firm of Gillingham
& Winans, about 1834 he took charge of the Mount Clare shops of the
railroad company, devoting the next twenty-five years to the
improvement of railroad machinery. He planned the first eight-wheel car
ever built for passenger purposes and is credited with the innovation
of mountian a car on two four-wheeled trucks."1 His most
well know invention was the "camelback" locomotive. Winans retired from
the railroad around 1860, and devoted much of his time to other
pursuits. He published numerous pamphlets on topics ranging from
problems with the Baltimore water supply to religion.
Notes:
1. Dumas, Malone, ed. Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. 10 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936), 371.
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