User:Harrycroswell/Isaac Doolittle

Isaac Doolittle (August 3, 1721 – February 13, 1800) was an early American inventor, engineer, manufacturer, engraver, episcopal Church warden, and active patriot in the American Revolution. He was a bell-founder, clock and instrument maker, and a prolific brass, iron, and silver craftsman, known in his time as an "ingenious mechanic" or engineer.

He was the first American to manufacture and sell a printing press in 1769. However, his most notable contribution was likely his design and crafting of the moving and brass parts for the Turtle, the first submarine used in combat; in particular, his two-blade propeller was the first known use of a propeller in watercraft.

Early life
Isaac Doolittle was born in Wallingford, Connecticut, the son of Joseph and Elizabeth (Holt) Doolittle, of the large Doolittle family that could trace back to Rudolph of "Dolieta", a Norman noble who accompanied William the Conqueror; the family at some point changed their name from Dolieta to the more Anglo-friendly Doolittle. At an early age he apprenticed under the clockmaker Macock Ward in Wallingford, but moved to New Haven about the time he married Sarah Tood on November 10, 1743, and opened a shop across from Yale on Chapel Street.

Warden of Trinity Church
After opening his shop in New Haven, Doolittle became quite wealthy. In 1750, he was appointed by the Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson, along with Enos Alling, as one of two wardens of Trinity Church on the Green, the first Church of England church in Congregationalist New Haven. Against strong and determined Puritan opposition, in 1752 he obtained a deed for the church and oversaw the construction of the first Trinity Church in 1753, contributing the largest amount of money to its construction of any of its founding members. He continued on in the role of Warden for much of the next 36 years, from 1750 to 1765, again from 1770 to 1777, and 1783 to 1785.

Pre-war activities
At the height of the French-Indian War in 1758, the Connecticut General Assembly appointed him Armourner of the Forth Regiment.

By 1760, he was selling imported silver watches, and advertising clocks, bar-iron, "screws for colthiers" and surveyor's instruments and mariner's compasses in his Chapel Street shop. In 1764, he was appointed tax collector in New Haven for "Proprietors of the Township of Ludlow, in the Province of New Hampshire.

In 1769, after successfully duplicating the iron screw used in printing presses, he expanded his business to build and sell the first printing press made in America. The Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter of September 7, 1768 described it as a "Mahogany Printing-Press on the most approved construction, which by some good judges in the Printing Way, is allowed to be the neatest ever made in America and equal, if not superior to any imported from Great-Britain".

In August 1774 he advertised in New Haven newspapers that he had erected a bell-foundry, and was selling bells to order. He would continue to cast bells until his death in 1800.

Revolutionary War Activities
When the war started in 1774, Doolittle erected a gun powder mill in the nearby village of Westville, which turned out large quantities of powder during the war.

In 1775 he was appointed a commissioner in charge of erecting a beacon to be used to give an alarm if the British attacked New Haven.

The Turtle Submarine
According to Dr. Benjamin Gale, a doctor who taught at Yale, the many brass and mechanical (moving) parts of the Turtlesubmarine, the first submarine to engage in warfare, were built by Doolittle,. Though David Bushnell is given the overall design credit for the idea and guiding the operation of the Turtle by Gale and others, Doolittle is often credited if at all as only a hired "mechanic". However, the relationship was actually asymmetric in the other direction. In 1775, Busnell was a 35 year old Yale student and a former farmer in rural Connecticut who had sold his half-share in his Westbrook, Connecticut farm to his brother to fund his education as a medical doctor. Doolittle was a wealthy 55 year old head of a family of seven, and a pillar of the city New Haven as an armorer, tax collector, port inspector, lead-prospector, and gunpowder miller, experienced in both large metal construction of large screws and bells, pumps, navigation instruments, and the design and construction of clockwork devices, with his own foundry and team of apprentices at hand.

Though the design of the Turtle was necessarily shrouded in secrecy, based on his mechanical engineering expertise and previous experience in design and manufacturing brass bells, clocks, screws, and instraments, it seems likely Doolittle designed and crafted (and probably funded) the brass and the moving parts of the Turtle, including the propulsion system, the navigation instruments, the brass foot operated water-ballast and forcing pumps, the depth gauge and compass, the brass crown hatch, the clockwork detonator for the mine, and the hand operated propeller crank and foot-driven treadle with flywheel. According to a letter from Dr. Benjamin Gale to Benjamin Franklin, Doolittle also designed the mine attachment mechanism, "those Parts which Conveys the Powder, and secures the same to the Bottom of the Ship".

The most historically important innovation in the Turtle was the propeller, as it was the first known use of one in a watercraft: it was described as an "oar for rowing forward or backward", with "no precedent" design. In a letter by Dr. Benjamin Gale to Silas Dean it is described as as "a pair of oars fixed like the two opposite arms of a windmill" and as "two oars or paddles" that were "like the arms of a windmill...twelve inches long, and about four wide." As it was probably brass, it was thus likely designed and forged by Doolittle. Doolittle also likely provided the scarce commodities of gunpowder and lead ballast as well. The wealthy Doolittle, 20 years older than the Yale student Bushnell, was a founder and long time Warden of Trinity Episcopal Church on the Green, and was in charge of New Haven's port inspection and beacon-alarm systems – suggesting that Doolittle provided much of the political as well as financial leadership in building the Turtle, as well as its brass and moving parts.

Marriage and children
Isaac and Sarah Todd had nine children:

i. Thankful Doolittle was born on January 21, 1745 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut, was baptized on January 27, 1745 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut, and died on 17 May 1751 in Wallingford, New Haven, Connecticut at age 6.

ii. Sarah Doolittle was born on June 29, 1747 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut, was baptized on 16 Jul 1747 in Stafford, Fairfield, Connecticut, and died on 21 Jul 1832 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut at age 85,

iii. Abigail Doolittle was born on October 3, 1749 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut, was baptized in November 1749 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut, and died on 24 Oct 1794 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut at age 45.

iv. Mary Doolittle was born on March 12, 1752 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut, was baptized on April 8, 1752 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut, died on August 6, 1760 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut at age 8

v. Thankful Doolittle was born on January 21, 1754 in Wallingford, New Haven, Connecticut and died on February 16, 1827 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut at age 73.

vi. John Todd Doolittle was born on May 20, 1756 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut, and died in 1773 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut at age 17

vii. Isaac Doolittle Jr. was born on February 13, 1759 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut, and died on 15 September 15, 1821 in Cheshire, New Haven, Connecticut at age 62. He took over his father's shop after Doolittle senior's death in 1800 and continued to make clocks and maritime instruments.

viii. William Frederick Doolittle was born on April 14, 1761 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut.

ix. Elizabeth Mary Doolittle was born on March 16, 1765 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut, and died on April 5, 1811 in Guilford, New Haven, Connecticut at age 46.

Death and afterward
A number of his apprentices continued his work, indulging his nephew Enos Doolittle, his son Isaac Doolittle Jr. who continued his shop, Hezekiah Hotchkiss, Nathan Howell, Simon Jocelin, and his younger cousin Amos Doolittle. .

His grandson, Isaac Doolittle III, was a pioneering printer, and like his grandfather, an inventor, who introduced lithography into America with the publication of The Children’s Friend and other illustrated books.