Birdsill Holly

Birdsill Holly Jr. (November 8, 1820 – April 27, 1894) was an American mechanical engineer and inventor of water hydraulics devices.

When Holly was born his father moved the family to Auburn to join the crew constructing the new prison facility.

When the prison was completed, Birdsill Sr. found a job at the Auburn Theological Seminary in construction, after which he tried to farm without much success.

Holly grew up in the Seneca Falls, New York, area since his father was able to find work as a millwright and general mechanic.

[4][5] Holly divorced his wife Elizabeth sometime before 1870 and married his adopted daughter Sophia, twenty-eight years his junior.

In a Master's thesis published in 1996, The Life And Times Of Birdsill Holly, Madelynn Frederickson writes that the Lockport society shunned the couple, who moved away temporarily in hopes that the scandal would be forgotten.

[11] Holly's company facilities doubled when he built a similar system for the city of Lockport water works department.

[11][16] His technological innovations provided the impetus for similar city water works construction projects across the United States.

[4][11][19] Holly designed and invented all the necessary control regulators and measuring devices to run a heating system for a city district.

The plan was never realized due to a lack of finances; he was unable to gather enough investors for such an expensive and highly speculative project.

Although Holly's skyscraper was never built, the Skylon Tower, measuring 775 feet (236 m) high from the bottom of the falls, was constructed near the proposed site.

[24] The concept of similar heights for skyscrapers became popular in New York City shortly before Holly's death in 1894, but did not originate from his architectural designs.