Simon Lake (September 4, 1866 – June 23, 1945) was a Quaker American mechanical engineer and naval architect who obtained over 200 patents for advances in naval design and competed with John Philip Holland to build the first submarines for the United States Navy.

Biography
[edit]
Born in Pleasantville, New Jersey on September 4, 1866.[1] He studied at the Clinton Liberal Institute in Fort Plain, New York. [2] Lake joined his father’s foundry enterprise after attending public faculties in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Lake had a powerful interest in undersea travel.

He constructed his first submarine, Argonaut Junior, in 1894 in response to an 1893 request from the US Navy for a submarine torpedo boat. In 1898 he adopted up with the 36-foot (eleven m) Argonaut 1, which he sailed from Norfolk, Virginia for one thousand miles (1,600 km) to Sandy Hook, New Jersey (which is actually 250 miles (four hundred km) north of Norfolk), arriving in November 1898.[3] As a result of classes realized on that journey, he rebuilt it into the 60-foot (18 m) Argonaut 2.

Neither Argonaut nor Lake’s following submarine, Protector, built in 1901, had been accepted by the Navy. Protector was the primary submarine to have diving planes mounted ahead of the conning tower and a flat keel. Protector additionally had a lock-out chamber for divers to leave the submarine. Four diving planes allowed Protector to take care of depth with out changing ballast tank ranges, and to dive degree with out a down-angle. He offered Protector to Imperial Russia in 1904 because the Osetr and spent the subsequent seven years in Europe designing submarines for the Austro-Hungarian Navy, Germany’s Kaiserliche Marine, and the Imperial Russian Navy (Osetr- and Kaiman-class submarines). Degree diving was a characteristic of a number of subsequent Lake designs, notably the primary three US G-class submarines. Lake, lacking Holland’s monetary backing, was unable to continue building submarines in the United States.

He lived in Milford, Connecticut from 1907 till his loss of life in 1945. In 1912, he based the Lake Torpedo Boat Company in Bridgeport, Connecticut, which constructed 26 submarines for the United States Navy throughout and after World Warfare I. Lake’s first submarine for the U.S. Navy, USS G-1 (SS-19½), set a depth file of 256 toes (78 metres) in November 1912.

In 1922 the United States and other nations signed treaties limiting the dimensions of their navies. This led to financial difficulties which pressured the Lake Torpedo Boat Firm to shut within the mid-1920s. He later affiliated with Ansantawae Lodge No. 89 in Milford, Connecticut. Lake was a member, Freemason of Monmouth Lodge No. 172 in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. Following the corporate’s closure, Lake continued designing maritime salvage techniques together with obtaining permission to partially salvage the Lusitania off the south Irish coast after which later a failed attempt to salvage gold from HMS Hussar, a British frigate that sank in 1780 in New York City’s East River together with his submarine, the Explorer. Maritime salvage during World Battle II. [4] Lake redesigned the previous USS O-12 (SS-73) as the Arctic exploration submarine Nautilus, used by Sir Hubert Wilkins in a 1931 expedition. He additionally suggested the United States Navy on submarine expertise.

He died on June 23, 1945.

Legacy
[edit]
By his death, Lake had witnessed the submarine’s arrival as a entrance-line weapon in the US Navy.

The US Navy constructed a category of two submarine tenders named in his honor, the Simon Lake class; USS Simon Lake (AS-33) was in service between 1964 and 1999.

In 1989 Simon Lake was inducted into the Toms River (New Jersey) Faculties’ Hall of Fame.

A Milford, Connecticut grammar school named in his honor closed in June 2010.[5] Lake’s Bay in West Atlantic City, New Jersey is the place he tested prototypes.

An Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey avenue, Simon Lake Drive, on the marina was named in his honor.[6]

References
[edit]

^ Famous Individuals in Atlantic County History, Atlantic County, New Jersey. Accessed March 31, 2008.

^ “Simon Lake Lifeless at 79”. Albany Occasions-Union. June 24, 1945. p. A2.

^ Poluhowich, John (1999). Argonaut: The Submarine Legacy of Simon Lake. Texas A&M College Press. pp. 52-59. ISBN 0890968942.

^ “Midget Sub To seek Riches On Sea Ground” In style Science, March 1933

^ “Milford’s Simon Lake Faculty to shut”. New Haven Register. 26 April 2010.

^ Atlantic Highlands By Randall Gabrielan

Bibliography
[edit]

Lake, Simon (1918). The Submarine in Conflict and Peace. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co.

John J. Poluhowich, Argonaut: The Submarine Legacy of Simon Lake. Texas A&M College Press, November 1999, ISBN 0-89096-894-2

Exterior hyperlinks
[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Simon Lake.

“Submarine – The Autobiography of Simon Lake” pdf file

“Lusitania Treasures To Be Raised” Fashionable Mechanics, February 1932

“Pumping Cargo From Sunken Ships – Submarine Builder Designs Unique Vessel For Bulk Salvage Work” Common Science, December 1934

“Child Submarine On Wheels To seek Treasure” In style Mechanics March 1933

“Arduous-Boil for Treasure” In style Mechanics, November 1930, pp 770-774

Lake, Jeffrey B. “The Simon Lake Submarine Internet Site 2003”. Archived from the original on 19 February 2020.

Whitman, Edward C. (Fall 2002). “The Submarine Heritage of Simon Lake”. Undersea Warfare (16): 22-26, 32. Archived from the original on 20 April 2016.

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This web page was last edited on 1 March 2026, at 18:01 (UTC).

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Simon Lake

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