Alexander K. Rider

Esteemed Inventor and Freemason

Alexander K. Rider

Freemasons possess inquisitive minds. They seek the deeper meanings of life and of themselves, thereby becoming wholesome men, servants, and leaders both in the lodge and in the world. Thus it is no surprise that many Freemasons excel in science and industry.

Alexander Kirk Rider, a lesser-known Masonic figure, was a man who possessed a brilliant mind. He was a skillful engineer who turned inventor, and, during the U.S. Civil War rose to prominence. Rider not only played a significant role in manufacturing parts and equipment for the ironclad warship USS Monitor, but also would run the largest and most successful hot air engine enterprise in the world.

Born in Belfast in 1820, Rider was the son of Job Rider, an Englishman, thriving engineer, and lifelong researcher of the rotary steam engine. In 1841, aged twenty, he emigrated to America aboard the three-masted wooden ship Siddons. After a nearly two-month voyage, Rider arrived in New York City and began an apprenticeship at the Phoenix Iron Foundry, a steamship metalworks in lower Manhattan. Within eight years, he built a reputation as a skilled worker who, in the words of mechanical engineer Holbrook Fitz-John Porter in an address to the New York State Legislature, possessed “an inventive faculty” and was known to be “a valuable member of the staff.”

In 1845, after marrying Isabella Jones, Rider would devise new sweeping propeller wheel molds, which helped develop a truer screw. Porter said “the works became famous for their propellers and probably cast more than all the other foundries put together.” Rider soon became a foreman of the foundry in 1850, when the company re-established as the DeLamater Iron Works. Formed by Cornelius H. DeLamater, a Rhinebeck, New York native, the company became a phenomenal success and Rider was placed in charge of its entire foundry, where he began to design and invent engine patents for steamships.

In 1861, due to the Civil War, the United States government contracted DeLamater Iron Works to build ironclad warships for the Navy. DeLamater partnered with John Ericsson, a Swedish naval engineer and inventor who, upon approval from President Abraham Lincoln, began constructing the USS Monitor. It was a new concept in design that employed a variety of inventions which earned the attention of the maritime world. The impetus to build the Monitor was the development of the iron-plated CSS Virginia for the Confederacy, news of which prompted Ericsson to pen a letter to Lincoln.

In his correspondence to the president, he wrote: “having introduced the present system of naval propulsion and constructed the first screw ship-of-war, please look carefully at the enclosed plans.” Because of the ship’s low-profile, he added “I cannot conclude without respectfully calling your attention to the now well-established fact that steel-clad vessels cannot be arrested in their course by land batteries” and “our great city [Washington, DC] is quite at the mercy of such intruders [Confederates], and may at any moment be laid in ruins, unless we possess means which, in defiance of Armstrong guns, can crush the sides of such dangerous visitors.”

Though physically debilitated from an earlier occupational accident sustained in the foundry, Alexander Rider, who developed many models for Ericsson’s projects, may have been involved directly in the engineering process of the USS Monitor. It is believed that Rider’s cut-off valve patent in late 1861 was used during the ship’s construction. At the time, both Rider and Ericsson were highly touted steam engine inventors, who later would exclusively partner in a company that would revolutionize America.

Built at Brooklyn Naval Yard, the USS Monitor cost roughly $275,000 to develop, and took 101 days to complete. It spanned 179 feet in length, travelled at a speed of six knots, and utilized one vibrating-lever steam engine and a sophisticated propeller shaft. The ship was armed with two 11-inch 280 mm smoothbore Dahlgren guns, and a rotating gun turret. On January 30, 1862, the ironclad was launched into the East River, and on March 8, it engaged the CSS Virginia in an epic duel during the Battle of Hampton Roads that resulted in a draw, but began a new age of naval warfare.

Rider, who kept his permanent residence in New York City, relocated in late 1861 with his son Thomas to Hydeville, Vermont. As Rider recovered from his lingering work-related injury, it was in this small mill town where he would continue to devise new patents to improve his hot-air engine model.

Though many iron foundries existed around New York, close relationships were formed among inventors, draftsmen, builders, and machinists. It was a close knit, but competitive, fraternity of exceptional men and minds. For that reason, Rider likely desired the strong camaraderie he had experienced living in New York City.

Chartered in 1852, and named after Colonel Noah Lee, a hero of the American Revolution, Rider became a member of Lee Lodge 30 F&AM in Castleton, Vermont. The lodge was long-admired for its brotherhood, philanthropy, and strong patriotic spirit.

Upon the close of the Civil War in 1865, Rider returned with his son to New York City and resumed collaborating with Ericsson at DeLamater Iron Works. In 1869, Rider invented a molding screw for propellers, and, in 1871, patented an automatic cut-off for steam engines, which improved upon Ericsson’s aspirating air engine. In addition to Rider, DeLamater took a special liking to his son Thomas, who proved to be a great addition to the operation. Rider would design; Thomas would render the drawings.

As an inventor, Rider constantly kept a journal of engineering thoughts and ideas. Instead of outlining a new marvelous patent, and with his heart still full of Masonic glee, Rider doodled on a sheet of paper the Square and Compasses and the All-Seeing Eye of Craft Masonry, plus Royal Arch Masonry’s six-pointed star, Mark Masonry keystone, and what even could be his personal Mark Mason’s mark. He also wrote “Holiness to the Lord, Walden, Orange Co., NY” and the date March 19, 1874.

His son, Thomas J. Rider, also joined Wallkill Lodge and was raised to the Sublime Degree of Master Mason on May 16, 1876. He was appointed Senior Deacon and occasionally sat as an acting Warden.

In 1872, with Rider’s hot air engine model in demand globally, he removed with his entire family to Walden, New York to form a partnership with George C. Wooster, named Rider, Wooster & Company. A large brick and mortar foundry was built with towering steam stacks along the active Wallkill Valley Railroad on 29 Grant Street and proved to be a perfect location for distributing the highly sought after engines to market.

Known for its abundant and highly successful knife factories, Walden in the 1870s was a blue collar town that offered membership to several fraternal orders, such as the Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, and Wallkill Lodge 627 F&AM, of which business partner Wooster had been a loyal member since 1872.

After embracing his fraternal pride once more, Rider decided to affiliate with Wallkill Lodge in 1874. He elegantly signed his name on the rolls, and enthusiastically joined the likes of Thomas W. Bradley (president, New York Knife Company), James Kidd (gristmill and tavern owner), and Charles D. Wooley (inventor and soap manufacturer) as Masonic brothers.

By 1879, Alexander K. Rider dissolved Rider, Wooster & Company, and he established what would become the world’s largest manufacturer of hot air engines, the Rider Engine Company. While the factory remained in Walden, Rider’s unique engine, invented in 1875, “energized heat from a slow burning wood or coal fire, used expanding and contracting air—instead of dangerous steam—to produce power.” Moreover, “these imposing machines operated in near silence, had barely minimum moving parts, and were extremely simple to use.” They became popular for pumping water to upper floors in multistory buildings and were used by railroads for filling water tanks and by western ranchers for watering their cattle. With engines being made exclusively in Walden, and with sales offices in New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, and England, Rider engines would make their way into the homes Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Khedive of Egypt, King Edward VII, and were sold to various high-end hotels, colleges, and universities. By the 1890s, more than 10,000 hot air engines were sold across the globe including the British Isles, Australia, Asia, and the Middle East.
After a long battle with stomach cancer, Alexander K. Rider passed away at the age of 72 on September 14, 1893, in Walden, New York. The local Middletown Times-Press noted that “he was a well-educated man and was so thoroughly familiar with engines of all kinds and with everything pertaining to them.” The obituary mentioned “he was widely known and was esteemed by all who had the pleasure of his acquaintance.”

In 1897, the company reorganized as the Rider-Ericsson Engine Company but, in 1939, closed its doors and dissolved, making Rider’s company the longest-lived manufacturer of hot air engines the world has ever known.

Alexander K. Rider, who during his lifetime obtained more than 35 patents, was buried in an unmarked grave in the Wallkill Valley Cemetery in Walden, New York. He will be remembered forever as a brilliant inventor and accomplished brother of our ancient and honorable Free and Accepted Masons.

Written by W. Bro. Kyle A. Williams

Bro. Williams, a collector of New York Masonic history, is Worshipful Master of Wallkill Lodge 627 in Walden, New York, where he also is lodge Historian.