<Tr> <Th> Occupation </Th> <Td> Engineer, innovator </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th_colspan="2"> Signature </Th> </Tr> <P> John Ericsson (born Johan) (July 31, 1803--March 8, 1889) was a Swedish - American inventor, active in England and the United States, and regarded as one of the most influential mechanical engineers ever . Ericsson collaborated on the design of the steam locomotive Novelty, which competed in the Rainhill Trials on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, won by George Stephenson's Rocket . In America he designed the US Navy's first screw - propelled steam - frigate USS Princeton, in partnership with Captain Robert Stockton, who unjustly blamed him for a fatal accident . A new partnership with Cornelius H. DeLamater of the DeLamater Iron Works in New York resulted in the first armoured ship with a rotating turret, the USS Monitor, which dramatically saved the US naval blockading squadron from destruction by an ironclad Confederate vessel, CSS Virginia, at Hampton Roads in March 1862 . </P> <P> Johan Ericsson was born at Långban in Värmland, Sweden . He was the brother of Nils Ericson, a distinguished canal and railway builder in Sweden . Their father Olaf Ericsson (1778--1818) had worked as the supervisor for a mine in Värmland . He had lost money in speculation and had to move his family to Forsvik in 1810 . There he worked as a director of blastings during the excavation of the Swedish Göta Canal . </P>

The monitor was designed by swedish born engineer