Ross Winans

Ross Winans (1796–1877) was an American inventor, mechanic, and builder of locomotives and railroad machinery. He is also noted for design of pioneering cigar-hulled ships. Winans, one of the United States' first multi-millionaires, was involved in national and state politics, a southern-sympathizer and was a vehement "states' rights" advocate. His outspoken anti-federal stance as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, the lower chamber of the General Assembly, (state legislature) led to his temporary arrest on board a Baltimore and Ohio Railroad train returning from an early session of the legislature held in the western Maryland town of Frederick to avoid the Union Army-occupied state capital of Annapolis in April–May, 1861, to consider the possibilities of state secession, during the early decisive period of the American Civil War. Winans was related to James McNeill Whistler through marriage (Whistler's brother George married Winans' daughter Julia).

Ross Winans was born in Vernon Township, New Jersey on October 17, 1796. His parents were William and Mary Winans. He married Julia de Kay (1800-1850) in 1820 and they had five children. He moved his family to Baltimore, Maryland in the late 1820s and did business with the newly founded Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B. & O.).

Following the death of his wife Julia in 1850, he married Elizabeth K. West (1807-1889) in 1854.

Winans came from a New Jersey family of horse breeders, but successfully made the transition to other forms of motive power.

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