Daniel Dod
(1778-1829)

Daniel Dod, son of Lebbus , was like his father , a man of rare mathematical and mechanical genius. The sketch of his life given below is by his relative , John Dod Ward of Jersey City. Daniel Dod was born 8 September 1778 in the northern part of Virginia; his parents were natives of Newark, New Jersey. The family returned to New Jersey during his early youth , and fixed their residence in Mendham, Morris County , where Daniel was bred , by his father , to the business of clock and watch maker , mathematical instrument maker and land surveyor; and in every vocation to which he directed his attention acquired superior skill. Besides his extensive acquaintance with theoretical and practical mechanics , his mathematical acquirements were such, that when Queen's (now Rutgers) College was resuscitated, it was proposed to offer him the mathematical chair.


He removed to Elizabethtown in 1812 , when , at the desire of Col. Aaron Ogden , he commenced and carried on , for several years, the building of steamboat machinery , with such success , that boats at Kingston and Sacketts ' Harbor on Lake Ontario -- Philadelphia -- Norfolk , Virginia -- Mobile , Alabama -- and New Orleans , were furnished with steam engines of his construction ; and the steamship "Savannah" , the first vessel which ever crossed the Atlantic by the aid of steam , was furnished with machinery designed and principally constructed by him at his works ; though some of the heaviest wrought iron work was made at Speedwell , near Morristown , by Steph en Vail , and some of the heavier iron castings were made in New York. He was killed by the bursting of a boiler , on board the steamboat "Patent", in the East River on 9 May 1823.