Samuel Morey (October 23, 1762 – April 17, 1843) was an American inventor, who worked on early internal combustion engines and was a pioneer in steamships who accumulated a total of 20 patents.

Morey realized that steam could be a power source in the 1780s, and he probably appreciated a steamboat's potential from work on his father's ferry and the locks he designed along the Connecticut river.

In the early 1790s he fitted a paddle wheel and steam engine to a small boat and powered it up and down the Connecticut River.

Morey's may have been the first successful use of a steam power paddle wheel, which was the best method of propulsion until the propeller, invented by Fitch, was perfected.

Making over 4000 experiments, this early scientist patented an internal combustion engine in 1826 to anticipate the age of the motor car and airplane.

Finally, in 1797 he went to Bordentown, New Jersey (a stop on Fitch's failed Philadelphia-to-Trenton passenger service), because it was “sickly in New York”, and built a boat employing two side-mounted paddle wheels.

In 1815, Morey patented a “revolving” steam engine,[2] described at length in the American Journal of Science in 1819 by John Sullivan, its purchaser.

This engine met with some commercial success; recorded applications include tugboats, a glass factory, and a sawmill in the Boston naval yard.

Morey received one more steam patent in 1817 but his interest had been captured by experiments with flammable vapors, which had started some time before.

In an 1834 letter to Silliman, Morey wrote: “It is now more than twenty years since I have been in the constant, I may say daily practice of making experiments on the decomposition of water, by mixing with its vapor that of spirits of turpentine, and a great portion of atmospheric air.”[2] This would seem to understate the scope of some research that led to such diverse discoveries as the liquid fueled internal combustion engine, a method for carbonating water, and odd bubbles formed by molten resin.

Eventually he experimented with anything he could find: “tar, rosin, rough turpentine, or the spirit, or alcohol, or any kind of oil, fat, or tallow; mineral coal, pitch-pine wood, and the knots, birch bark, pumpkin, sun-flower, flax, and other seeds; as well as many other substances.” His experiments are described at length over several articles in the American Journal of Science and Arts.

Morey was not the first to use water-gas for lighting, and his devices, including the patented 1818 American Water Burner, simply used the gas immediately instead of piping it to be burnt elsewhere, done as early as 1792 in England.

A letter from Reverend Dana of Orford written in October 1829 tells of Morey's trip to Baltimore, “I am told, the Capt.

is determined to make one more vigorous effort, to sell his patent right for some of his modern inventions [he later singles out the vapor engine], and if he does not now succeed, he will give the matter up, and return to Orford, to spend his days in quiet.”[2] Morey did not find a buyer, and as he was then in his late 60s, it made sense to stop traveling up and down the east coast and call it quits.

His internal combustion engine is the first documented in the United States, and his use of liquid fuel and a heated surface carburetor was world's first.

Morey notes in his unpublished 1824 draft that:Is there not some reason to expect that the discovery will greatly change the commercial and personal intercourse of the country.

Recently, Morey's work has received renewed attention by people other than locals and engineers, in particular American comedian Jay Leno, who is an avid car collector.

Rush and Muhlenburg: Dear Sir: — Perhaps I ought to have written sooner, but with all my exertions, and they have been as important as they ever were with you, I could not perfect, to my mind, the application of the "new power" to a boat until within two weeks.

The boat is about nine teen feet long, 5 \ wide and the engine occupies only about eighteen inches of the stern, and sometimes goes between 7 and 8 miles per hour.

I expect to leave here in two or three days for home to arrange my business for winter, and if possible to collect some money for you and Mr. Garrett, as well as some for myself, which I could do were there any in the country, as I have more than $3,000 of salable personal property and good debts.

Sept., 1829.Captain Samuel Morey, a native of Connecticut, but a resident of Oxford, N. H., began his experiments in 1790, and that year propelled his boat by a stern wheel, from Hartford to New York City, at the rate of five miles an hour.

In a letter written to William A. Duer, Esq., some years later, Captain Morey says : " As nearly as I can recollect, it was as early as 1790 that I turned my attention to improving the steam engine and in applying it to the purpose of propelling boats.

In June, 1797, I went to Bordentown, on the Delaware, and there constructed a steamboat and devised the plan of propelling by means of wheels on the side.

Brent informed Morey that his letter had arrived in JM’s absence “and I have just received his directions, since his return, to forward the enclosed exemplification of the Patent alluded to, to you, and to return you fifty cents, and I herewith do so.” Samuel Morey (1762–1843) was an inventor who held a number of patents, including a steam-operated spit (1793), a windmill (1796), a steam pump (1799), and the internal combustion engine (1826).

[10]In 2004, 10 of Morey's patents, including the one for the internal combustion engine, were rediscovered in the Dartmouth College archives.