A Practical Hero

This article illustrates history and evolution of hero turbine. In 1830s, William Avery, a mechanic, designed and built a Hero turbine that could manage significant, useful work. It powered several gristmills and sawmills in New York State, and even drove a locomotive. Ambrose Foster and William Avery were granted a patent on September 28, 1831 for their improvement in the Steam Engine, commonly called the Reacting Engine. The Avery engine probably had other problems such as noise, vibration, the difficulty in sealing the rotary coupling, and the problem of speed regulation. These problems would have been difficult to solve with 1830s technology. Although one is said to have driven a mill for 20 years, the Avery engine probably had problems that were too difficult to solve in the 1830s. The only memorial to William Avery around Syracuse is a New York State historical marker on Route 92 near his family’s farm in Oran. It claims that the steamboat he built and launched there in 1823 became the first on the Erie Canal. Avery also built the machinery for the first steamboat on Lake Ontario, as well as for several other lake steamers.