On my mother’s side my grandmother told me a story about my great-great-great grandfather. His last

name was Brian Dwyer, or at that time O’Dwyer, since he had immigrated from Ireland in 1802. Once he

had landed in New York he started to form a company. He got the rights and moved to St. Louis in 1805,

were he set up a construction and engineering factory. This factory produced concept ideas of

machinery that were created and then sold to other companies for mass production. His company was

known for their talented workers and ability to come up with new ideas. During the next 60 years, he

had married and had kids, and died in 1857 at the age of over 70. The contraction firm had been passed

on to his eldest son, Shannon O’Dwyer. Shannon was one of the most talented designers in the factory,

which had grown to a complex of about 12 factories. On day while going the design notes he found a

sketch, which his father had acquired from a fried he met in on a steam boat he took while he was in

New York. I guess that that man was Robert Fulton, the original creator of the submarine, but I’m not

sure. For the next 7 years Shannon kept the design in a factory he bought just for this one pet project.

He successfully redesigned the submarine and worked tirelessly on it sometimes for days. Shannon

hired 3 engineers that would live in the factory full time, for triple the wage. The original thought to the

“aquatic sub-level mobile explorer” as he called it, was designed for the purpose of transport in mind.

But in 1861, at the outbreak of the civil war, Shannon started to realize the military potential of his

invention. Wanting to do something for his country, he approached the government with the

proposition of ownership of the vehicle if they financed the operation. Unknown to Shannon the

government had actually given up search for a submarine design because they couldn’t find any. The

final product of a widely expanded  budget, was a mini transport sub used to carry troops around in the

swamps of Georgia and Mississippi.