Jump to content
 







Main menu
   


Navigation  



Main page
Contents
Current events
Random article
About Wikipedia
Contact us
Donate
 




Contribute  



Help
Learn to edit
Community portal
Recent changes
Upload file
 








Search  

































Create account

Log in
 









Create account
 Log in
 




Pages for logged out editors learn more  



Contributions
Talk
 



















Contents

   



(Top)
 


1 American career  





2 French career  





3 Personal life  





4 References  



4.1  Bibliography  







5 External links  














Benjamin B. Hotchkiss






العربية
Deutsch
Español
Français

Հայերեն
Malagasy

Polski
Русский
Svenska
Українська
 

Edit links
 









Article
Talk
 

















Read
Edit
View history
 








Tools
   


Actions  



Read
Edit
View history
 




General  



What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Cite this page
Get shortened URL
Download QR code
Wikidata item
 




Print/export  



Download as PDF
Printable version
 




In other projects  



Wikimedia Commons
 
















Appearance
   

 






From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 


Benjamin Berkeley Hotchkiss
Born

Benjamin Berkeley Hotchkiss


(1826-10-01)October 1, 1826
DiedFebruary 14, 1885(1885-02-14) (aged 58)
Paris, France
Resting placeHillside Cemetery, Sharon, Connecticut
Occupation(s)Gunsmith, engineer
Spouse(s)Maria Bissell Hotchkiss
"Miss Cunningham"
Parent(s)Asahel Augustus Hotchkiss
Althea Guernsey
The Hotchkiss Revolving Cannon, 1874
The Hotchkiss rapid fire 37 mm multi-barrel gun "canon-revolver", manufactured from 1879

Benjamin Berkeley Hotchkiss (October 1, 1826 – February 14, 1885) was one of the leading American ordnance engineers of his day.

American career[edit]

Hotchkiss was born in Watertown, Connecticut, and moved to Sharon, Connecticut in childhood; his early experiments were made there in his father's hardware factory. Starting in the 1850s, he was employed as a gunmaker in Hartford, working on Colt revolvers and Winchester rifles.

Hotchkiss patented a line of projectiles for rifled artillery that were used extensively in the American Civil War.[1][2][3]

French career[edit]

After the American Civil War, the U.S. government showed little interest in funding new weapons. In 1867, Hotchkiss moved to France and set up a munitions factory, first in Viviez, near Rodez, then in Saint-Denis, near Paris, named Hotchkiss et Cie. At about this time, he developed a revolving barrel machine gun (in French: "canon-revolver") known as the Hotchkiss gun; the gun was made in four sizes from 37 mm to 57 mm, the largest intended for naval use. After his death, the Hotchkiss company also developed in 1897 and later manufactured in large numbers an air-cooled, gas-actuated infantry machine gun which was widely used by several countries, particularly France and the United States during the First World War.

Personal life[edit]

On May 27, 1850, he married Maria Bissell Hotchkiss,[4] who after his death founded The Hotchkiss SchoolinLakeville, Connecticut, and the Hotchkiss Library in Sharon. Hotchkiss committed bigamy when he married a Miss Cunningham in a French civil ceremony in Paris in 1867; they had one daughter, who died at the age of nine.[5]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Ripley 1984, pp. 296–297.
  • ^ Light Hotchkiss projectiles at CivilWarArtillery.com
  • ^ Heavy Hotchkiss projectiles at CivilWarArtillery.com
  • ^ "Maria BISSELL-HOTCHKISS". Musee de Chevau. Musee de Chevau. Retrieved February 23, 2017.
  • ^ Birmingham, Stephen (1992). "What Made Maria Do It?". In Kolowrat, Ernest (ed.). Hotchkiss: A Chronicle of an American School. New York: New Amsterdam Books. pp. 6–7. ISBN 1-56131-058-1.
  • Bibliography[edit]

    External links[edit]


  • t
  • e

  • Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Benjamin_B._Hotchkiss&oldid=1101657510"

    Categories: 
    1826 births
    1885 deaths
    American engineers
    19th-century American inventors
    American pioneers
    People of Connecticut in the American Civil War
    Hotchkiss et Cie
    Military personnel from Connecticut
    People from Watertown, Connecticut
    People from Sharon, Connecticut
    American inventor stubs
    Hidden categories: 
    Articles with short description
    Short description matches Wikidata
    Use mdy dates from January 2022
    Pages using infobox person with multiple spouses
    Pages using infobox person with multiple parents
    Articles with hCards
    Articles with FAST identifiers
    Articles with ISNI identifiers
    Articles with VIAF identifiers
    Articles with WorldCat Entities identifiers
    Articles with GND identifiers
    Articles with LCCN identifiers
    Articles with DTBIO identifiers
    Articles with SNAC-ID identifiers
    All stub articles
     



    This page was last edited on 1 August 2022, at 04:54 (UTC).

    Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.



    Privacy policy

    About Wikipedia

    Disclaimers

    Contact Wikipedia

    Code of Conduct

    Developers

    Statistics

    Cookie statement

    Mobile view



    Wikimedia Foundation
    Powered by MediaWiki