Born in Pompey, New York in 1832, Sweet got only some schooling at the district school. He started working young as a farm hand, became a carpenter's apprentice, and settled as architect and builder in the South.[2]
At the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 he returned to the North.[2] From 1862 to 1864 Sweet worked as mechanical draftsman in England, and upon his return to the States was engaged in bridge building and invented several things. At the Paris Exhibition of 1867 he introduced a linotype machine.[3]
In 1880 Sweet was a key founder of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and its third president in the year 1884–1885. In 1914 the ASME awarded him the John Fritz Medal "for his achievements in machine design, and for his pioneer work in applying sound engineering principles to the construction and development of the high-speed steam engine." In 1914 he also received the honorary degree of Doctor of Engineering from Syracuse University.[2]
In 1894, Sweet admitted that his relatives had carved the Pompey stone as a hoax.[6]
^ASME History and Heritage (1980). Mechanical Engineers in America Born Prior to 1861: A Biographical Dictionary. New York: ASME. LCCN79-57364. OCLC6579756.
^ abc"John Edson Sweet". Journal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. 38. American Society of Mechanical Engineers: 473–477. 1916.
Beauchamp, William M. (April–June 1911). "The Pompey Stone". The American Antiquarian and Oriental Journal: 12–15. ISSN1068-3321.
Further reading
Smith, Albert William (1925). John Edson Sweet: A Story of Achievement in Engineering and of Influence Upon Men. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers. LCCN25008850. OCLC559844.