The life and death of Sylvester H. Roper, American Inventor

Firearms are not my specialty. Fortunately, I know people who know things that I don't. 

I relied on Ken Dusenberry back when I was writing Where Duty Calls,  the first book in Rebels Along the Rio Grande, my middle grade trilogy of historical novels set in New Mexico during the Civil War. Ken was an Army veteran, an historical Civil War reenactor, and knew a lot about everything, especially artillery. He was the one who told me, kindly but firmly, that pistols and rifles were not guns. They were firearms. Cannons and howitzers were guns. Unfortunately for me (and for a lot of other people. Ken was well respected and loved in a lot of different communities) Ken passed away before I completed the third book in the series.I still miss Ken and his witty and insightful advice. He made my first two books much better, and may be one reason why the first two were finalists for the Western Writers of America's prestigious spur award and the third was not.

I'm now working on another book set in the old west. The Winding Road to Wallace is an historical
romance set in New Mexico in the 1880s. It is far less fact based than the Rebels series, but I still wanted to avoid anachronisms and artifacts that were out of the time period or just plain wrong. I was lucky enough to have R.G. Yoho look at a very early draft of my manuscript. Bob, as those who know him call him, is from West Virginia and is passionate about the history and tales of the American West.  He's a prolific and award-winning author (I think he's up to 15 titles) and most of his works are Westerns or nonfiction about the west or American history, his latest being Destined to Ride Alone, a young adult novel about an orphan escaping a terrible past. Like me, he's a member of the Western Writers of America.

I can't remember what firearm I had placed in the hands of  Prudence Baker, the leading lady in my story. Prudence knows even less about firearms and guns than I do. In the opening scene, she levels an empty shotgun at a man she perceive to be a threat. It goes without saying that her rash action didn't help her much. Thank goodness for the story, and for Prudence, Bob Yoho let me know that there were better firearms to place in Prudence's hands. 

Bob suggested I give Prudence a Roper revolving shotgun like the one pictured above. This was an early cartridge-firing repeating shotgun and could carry and fire four rounds without reloading. It used a rather unusual open-bolt mechanism that I (and I assume Prudence) don't quite understand. When you fully cock the hammer, a shell drops into position between the bolt and chamber. Pulling the trigger causes the bolt to drop forward, chamber the cartridge, lock it in place, and fire it. Cock the hammer again and the fired casing leaves the chamber but stays in the rotary magazine, and a new shell slips into the firing position. As a result, you can fire four rounds before you have to unload four empty shells from the magazine carousel. Lucky for me, I had Bob to help me understand this process, while Prudence had Thomas Johnson to teach her how to shoot. 

The Roper revolving shotgun was invented by a man named Sylvester Howard Roper, who invented a lot of things besides arms. Born November 24, 1823 in Francestown, New Hampshire, he showed interest in mechanical contraptions form an early age. When he was twelve he made a stationary steam engine even though he had never seen one. Two years later, he built a locomotive engine. Roper left Francestown at a young age to pursue work as a machinist.In 1842 he filed for his first patent, which was on a padlock. 1854 he invented a small, handheld sewing machine. In 1861 he invented a hot air engine and filed  patents for several more. His most powerful engine could produce 4 HP. His last invention, filed with the patent office in 1894, was for a fire-escape.

Roper's interest in guns may have begun during the Civil War, when he worked at the Springfield Armory in Massachusetts. More formally known as the United States Armory and Arsenal, and opened in 1777, it was the first federal armory and one of the first factories in the United States dedicated to the manufacture of weapons.The Armory closed in 1968.

While Roper was there, the facility outpaced Confederate firearm production by a ratio of 32 to 1, a decisive factor in the outcome of the war. Advancements in machine manufacturing allowed the Armory to increase production capacity from just 9,601 firearms in 1860 to 276,200 in 1864. In addition to shear numbers, advancements in technology and design made the name Springfield famous for its muskets and rifles and inspired Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to write an anti-war poem about the factory. The Springfield Model 1903 continued to be used in both World War One and Two.

Roper invented the first shotgun choke, a set of short tubes that could be threaded onto the outside of a shotgun barrel. This allowed the shooter to vary how wide his shot would spread, suiting different targets and ranges.

He invented his revolving shotgun and a revolving repeating rifle sometime around 1866, when he filed for a patent on his creation. In 1882, he and the more famous gunmaker Christopher Miner Spencer were granted a joint patent for an even more sophisticated repeating shotgun mechanism. Roper continued to refine revolving magazines and repeating mechanisms, filing more patents in 1889.

But Roper's first love was engines, not firearms, and it was engines that gave him his most glory and was possibly the cause of his death. 

In 1863 he built one of the earliest automobiles, a steam carriage that he drove around his Boston neighborhood. The Roper steam velocipede, built in 1867, was a kind of bicycle with an attached steam engine, and may have been the first ever motorcycle. Sylvester Roper was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2002 because of this invention, which should figure prominently in every steampunk novel or movie.

The contraption had an oak and steel frame. It ran on handcrafted ash wheels, which must have produced a hard, bumpy ride. The rider placed his feet on footpegs that stuck out of the front axle, a position that was not ideal for steering.  

The engine was powered by vertical firetube boiler that was heated by charcoal. It had one cylinder on each side of the frame and used the rear axle as a crankshaft. Piston valves were driven by return cranks on the outside of the main cranks. The water-tank was in the seat, and the steam pressure gauge was connected by a rubber hose to the seat's front.

Roper exhibited his steam buggies and velocipedes at circuses and county fairs, where they were huge hits. 

Roper was 72 years old on June 1, 1896, when he arrived at the Charles River bicycle track, near Harvard Bridge in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He mounted one of his later velocipede models, a Columbia bicycle manufactured by Pope Manufacturing Company that had a steam engine added. Witness say Roper made several laps of the track and was clocked at a top speed 40 mph, outpacing even professional rider Tom Butler. Interestingly, the same Tom Butler was overtaken 10 feet from the finish by Major Taylor, a professional cyclist who is considered the first Black American global sports superstar, in the 1899 world 1 mile track cycling championship. But something was wrong with Roper that fine spring day. As he rode, he was seen to be unstable before the bike tipped over and he fell to the track, suffering a head wound. Witnesses ran to help him and found he was already dead. An autopsy identified the cause of death as heart failure, but it was never discovered whether the heart attack caused the crash or the crash caused the heart attack.   Sylvester Roper might not be as famous as some of his contemporaries, such as Elias Howe, the inventor of the modern lockstitch sewing machine, or Christopher Miner Spencer, who invented the Spencer repeating rifle and another of the early horseless carriages, but he is an interesting person and I'm glad Bob Yoho led me to him. Jennifer Bohnhoff is a former educator who writes contemporary and historical novels for middle grade through adult readers. Her next novel, On the Winding Road to Wallace, will be released in May of 2026. You can read more about her other fifteen books here, on her blog.