Read, Nathan

Nathan Read, (born July 2, 1759, Warren, Mass., U.S.—died Jan. 20, 1849, near Belfast, Maine), American engineer and inventor.

Read attended and taught at Harvard University, and soon thereafter he invented technology to adapt James Watt’s steam engine to boats and road vehicles. He devised a chain-wheel method of using paddle wheels to propel a steamboat, and in 1791 he was one of four recipients (with John Fitch, James Rumsey, and John Stevens) of the original U.S. steamboat patents. He was also an innovator in windmill, waterpower, and threshing technology.