The New Student's Reference Work/Averell, William Woods

Averell, William Woods, American general and inventor, was born in Steuben County, New York state, November 5, 1832, and graduated from West Point in 1855. When the Civil War broke out, he was on duty in the west, fighting the Kiowa Indians. He then organized a corps of mounted riflemen, and in August, 1861, received the appointment of colonel, acting in most of the campaigns of the period with the Army of the Potomac and operating in cavalry raids. In 1865 he resigned, having the rank of major-general, and from 1866 to 1869 was United States consul-general in Canada, subsequently becoming interested in a large manufacturing company as president. While so occupied, he in 1869–70 discovered and perfected a process of obtaining cast steel direct from the ore; in 1879 he invented the American asphalt pavement; and subsequently he invented what is known as the Averell insulated conduit for electric wires and also a machine for laying electric conductors underground. He died in 1900.