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LEWIS H. NASH, Inventor

THE STORY OF LEWIS HALLOCK NASH, M.E., E.D.
Adapted from writings by his son, Harold L. Nash, 1931

In 1877, at the age of 25, Lewis H. Nash stood on the stage of the auditorium of Stevens’ Institute of Technology dressed in style of the day with high winged collar, large cravat, a borrowed Prince Albert coat, and trousers carefully pressed to resemble two stovepipes. Lewis no doubt felt honored to be the class valedictorian, graduating with the highest grade average of his classmates, who numbered 23 four years earlier but through attrition had dwindled to nine at graduation.

At the age of seventeen, Lewis H. Nash had completed the courses of training given by the public schools of South Norwalk. He desired to continue his education, but as his parents were unable to pay for college, he took an apprenticeship course as a machinist at the Norwalk Iron Works. During this time, Lewis learned of a new institution, called Stevens Institute of Technology, which was being organized solely for the purpose of training men in the new area of Mechanical Engineering. He completed his four years of apprenticeship, having accumulated from his meager earnings enough to nearly pay his way through Stevens. Borrowing the remainder, he joined its third class and gave himself earnestly to his college studies and activities. He was elected into Tau Beta Pi, a coveted honor for scholastic merit, and graduated at the head of his class with the degree of M.E. He had reached his first objective in life -– a degree acclaiming him a Mechanical Engineer, but this was only the beginning of his studies and achievements. In the words of his own valedictory address: "The future is bright before us, opening to our view a prospect sublimer by far than any which the pen of the historian can unfold."

In seeking employment, Lewis H. Nash initially found that his apprenticeship was of greater value in securing work than his degree, and, so for a short time he worked as a machinist in New Haven. In the meantime, he continued to work on an idea which had followed him all through college, regarding the design of a new type of water measuring device. He built a model and took it to the National Meter Company of Brooklyn, New York. In a test, the invention did not work satisfactorily, but its merits were appreciated, and he was employed with instructions to perfect the meter.

In a few short months, Mr. Nash produced the "Crown" meter, the first of a large class of single piston rotary meters, which practically superseded all other forms of water meters being manufactured at that time. Altogether, he received sixty or more patents on water meters, and his reputation became such that it was written that "Lewis H. Nash knew more about water meters than any other individual".

One type of meter, the "Gem", was built in sizes up to 36 inches. The quantity of water that could be delivered by such a meter was nearly 500,000 gallons per hour. This presented a problem in testing, as that amount of water could never be taken from the water supply of any city. In fact, a single meter of that size would pass enough water to supply a large town. Mr. Nash was given the task of devising a testing plant which re-circulated the water. He accomplished this very satisfactorily by the use of a vertical screw pump which lifts the water to a reservoir, from which it passes through the meter to be tested and thence over a weir where it is measured. The accuracy of the arrangement, and also of the meters, was very gratifying. Mr. Nash wrote up this device in an article which can be seen in the Stevens’ Indicator of January, 1901.

After being with the National Meter Company for seven years, Lewis Nash began the study of the gas engine and subsequently received sixty or more patents covering their design and operation. All of these patents were assigned to the National Water Company. Many of them were extensively used by engine manufacturers, one of them being the two cycle engine with piston controlled valves, which is said to have been manufactured at one time by more than two thousand firms. Another patent covers the starting of gas engines by the use of compressed air, and this feature was adopted by all makes of large gas engines. The National Meter Company built the Nash engine in sizes up to about 400 horsepower. These engines were used in municipal electric lighting and pumping plants as well as for general power purposes. Probably the largest installation of the Nash Engine was at the Phoenix Tube Company in Brooklyn, and consisted of two Nash Gas Engines, totaling 500 horsepower, operating on producer gas. The engines were directly connected to dynamos and although they operated under violently fluctuating load conditions, they ran in a most satisfactory manner, both in regulation and economy modes. The Company claimed that the Nash Gas Engine running on producer gas, using anthracite buckwheat coal, was the most economical of power products, costing twenty cents per 100 horsepower-hour.

Mr. Nash became chief engineer of the National Meter Company, but altogether, his relations with them were not of the happiest nature. The Company never prosecuted infringements of their gas engine patents, and Lewis Nash’s efforts were mostly unappreciated, for those at the head of the business not only failed to push his developments, but continually curtailed his authority.

His relations with the National Meter Company were constantly becoming more strained, and when Mr. Nash conceived the idea of a new type of air pumping equipment, he resolved not to assign the patents to the Company, but to manufacture the product himself. This was the beginning of the Nash Engineering Company, which was born on the third floor of his residence where he bent over the drawing board evenings and holidays, working on his invention. In 1905, he persuaded two of his friends to lend their names as officers and directors of the new corporation.

It required three more years of designing and testing before actual manufacture was started on the second floor, over a shop on Water Street in South Norwalk. In 1911, Lewis Nash and his family moved to South Norwalk, and three years later he severed his connections with the National Meter Company in order to devote his entire time to the Nash Engineering Company.

The process of rounding out a line of vacuum pumps and compressors and of creating a demand for the pumps was naturally slow. In the meantime, a micrometer plug gauge, another invention of Mr. Nash’s, was made. This sold a little more easily, and produced a slight profit for a short time.

In 1912, a steady demand had been found for the pumps, and the first floor of the present building on Wilson Point Road, was erected. No outside architect, engineer or contractor was employed in this work, as it was designed and built entirely from the plans and figures of Mr. Nash.

In that year, Lewis H. Nash’s eldest son, Douglas, graduated from Stevens, and it was his first task to superintend the construction of this reinforced concrete structure. Two years later, Harold, Lewis’s other son, also became affiliated with the Company. Also after graduating from Stevens. Since then, the brothers continued to be active in the management of its affairs.

The Nash Engineering Company had a steady, healthy growth, which was financed almost entirely by Mr. Nash and the earnings of the Company itself. Gradually, the whole first floor, half of which had previously been rented to various other struggling new industries, was occupied. In 1918, three additional floors were added to the building. The large demand for the Company’s product, extending at the time of the World War to a wide application in government war plants, soon made it appear that the building was still too small, and several supplementary buildings were erected. At that time, about 90% of the output of the Nash Engineering Company was used in some form of war work for the United States Government. The field of application for the Nash pumps became quite extensive, and new fields were continually being found for their use. Among the most common users of the pumps were the paper mills, chlorine manufacturers, air-line heating installers, oil refineries, and textile plants. The pumps were also installed for the conveying of dust, grain and potash, for filtration work and in sewage ejection.

Much of the credit for the development of the company can also be attributed to Irving C. Jennings, who kept in touch with the industrial demands, worked out alterations in the Company’s products to meet those demands, and contributed many valuable patents of his own. The five years from 1918 to his death on Nov. 17, 1923, seemed to mark the height of Lewis H. Nash’s very useful career. He lived to see his company grow to be a prosperous, well-established concern, and realized his heart’s desire when the organization could run by itself, and he could spend most of his time in the laboratory built for him, where he could work out his many inventions and ideas.

During the World War, he and his son, Harold, were working on an aeroplane engine which received very favorable comment from the "National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics" and such engineers as Elmer Sperry, the well-known inventor of the gyroscopic compass and stabilizing devices, with whom he became well acquainted. The war closed, however, before the engine was fully developed, and the invention was dropped. In 1921, Stevens Institute recognized Lewis H. Nash’s outstanding achievements by awarding him the degree of Doctor of Engineering (E.D.). In the following year, he was elected Representative to the Connecticut State Assembly.

Mr. Nash had high ideals for his profession. He felt that the Mechanical Engineer had a definite mission in life. To quote again from his Valedictory address, he states that the task of the Engineer is "to lighten common drudgery, to carry the comforts of life to the masses of the people, to give a man time for sociability and self-culture, and to enable him to rise to contemplation of grander problems than the struggle for earthly subsistence." Having set up this ideal as his guiding star, Lewis H. Nash seemed to have it ever in mind during the following forty-six years of his life.

 

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