In the summer of 1775, a thirty-four-year-old Connecticut farmer named Ezra Colton was enrolled at Hartford College when he quietly redirected his academic energy toward an altogether different kind of thesis: a one-man, hand-cranked submarine designed to blow up British warships from underneath.
The vessel, known among his small circle of collaborators as the 'Acorn', was roughly the size and shape of two large tortoise shells bolted together. It was built from oak, sealed with tar, and fitted with foot pedals, a hand crank for propulsion, a rudder, and a detachable powder keg with a clockwork fuse. One man would pilot it below the waterline, auger a screw-mounted bomb into the hull of an enemy ship, then pedal away before the timer expired. Elegant in theory. Somewhat terrifying in practice.
On the night of 6 September 1776, Colton's associate, a volunteer soldier named Phineas Ward, descended into New York Harbour and aimed the Acorn at HMS Cerberus, a 28-gun British frigate anchored near Staten Island. Ward spent forty-five minutes cranking through tidal currents before reaching the hull. Then the drill bit hit copper sheathing and refused to bite. He tried three times. The bomb drifted free. It detonated in open water, startling a British longboat crew but causing zero structural damage to anything except Ward's nerves.
The mission failed. The Acorn was never used operationally again. Colton eventually moved to France, corresponded with figures at the fringes of the revolutionary scientific community, and died in 1826 having received almost no formal recognition for the contraption he'd spent four years and most of his savings building.
What he did receive, about 118 years posthumously, was the grudging acknowledgement of the United States Navy, which named a submarine tender after him in 1945. A boat named after the man whose boat didn't sink anything. History does enjoy a quiet joke.
Did Colton deserve more credit, or does a weapon that doesn't work not really count? Drop your take below.