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Hacienda La Esperanza Sugar Mill Steam Engine
Society
Main Category
Sub Category
Era
Date Created
Location Country
us
Coordinates
18.46901, -66.52282
Address1
Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico
Address2
Barceloneta
City
Manatí
State
Country
Zip

The La Esperanza sugar mill steam engine is one of the few remaining American links to the pioneer beam engines of the English inventors Thomas Newcomen (1712) and James Watt (1769). The engine was built in 1861 in Cold Spring, New York, by the West Point Foundry. The general arrangement and details, including the Gothic embellishment, are typical of machinery of the period. The straight-line motion of the piston rod is accommodated to the arc of the moving beam end by a parallel motion. Watt regarded this ingenious linkage as the invention of which he was most proud.

The sugar cane plantation was founded in 1850 by Don Jose Ramon Fernandez y Martinez, Marquis of La Esperanza. The Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico restored the machinery as part of a sugar museum.

Typical beam steam engine of the mid-19th century, directly connected to sugar crushing rolls
Image Credit
Public Domain (National Park Service)
Image Caption
Hacienda La Esperanza Sugar Mill Steam Engine

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