Omega Mu Inventor

Our brothers careers have been productive, constructive, spirited, and prosaic. They displayed impressive skills, talents, and abilities They were, and we continue to be, a beautiful and lively expression of our enduring fraternal beliefs, and that underlying harmony is far-reaching in expectation for all brothers’, undergraduate and graduate. It is the core of what our fraternal founders asserted in 1848 and 1874 and 1899: to live active, commendable, and responsible lives, and to build up community. Clearly and compellingly, they added, and continue to add, positive value at the local, state, national, global, and fraternal level because they engaged life fully and responsibly. In short, they were authoritative pillars throughout life. They were-are exemplary in their citizenship, character, and their sense of dutiful responsibility, and, in many instances, they were leading voices in their career fields. They prove that success of any kind does not occur by luck or accident, and we remember them because they continue to provide that message for our time. We have long been, from one generation to the next, proud to be Omega Mu Fijis. We continue to cherish our fraternal friendships, our shared memories, and our evolving, forward-focused history at the University of Maine. These things, above and beyond everything else, are the underlying rooted connections that make us proud to be Omega Mu Fijis. Why, after all, should we believe otherwise? We have always exhibited a can-do fraternal spirit since 1874, and we continue to do so now. Perge.

Omega Mu Portrait
Oliver Crosby,
1876

Oliver Crosby's Q.T.V. Brothers

Francis H. Bacon and Edward M. Blanding

Horace M. Estabrooke and Nelson Martin

Charles E. Oak

Freshman Debating Society

Great Northern Railway

After several jobs, Oliver Crosby was hired by James J. Hill, one of the most powerful men during the Gilded Age in the United States, to be a draughtsman for the Great Northern Railway. 

James J. Hill
​"The Empire Builder"

American Manufacturing Company

After being fired by James J. Hill in 1882, Oliver Crosby and Frank Johnson established the Franklin Manufacturing Company in Saint Paul, Minnesota, but they renamed it the American Manufacturing Company, and once again the American Hoist and Derrick Company.

American Hoist and Derrick Company

American Hoist and Derrick Company,
St. Paul, Minnesota

1893 World's Fair in Chicago

World's Fair in Chicago

American Hoist and Derrick won the Gold Medal for three of their cranes 
at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago.

Stonebridge
Oliver Crosby's Estate

​Inventor

Oliver Crosby's was the president and chief engineer of the company, and being a wide-eyed, tough-minded innovative industrial thinker, he designed and created many industrial items, and he had over thirty patents or co-patents. With clarity and purpose, Oliver Crosby worked by experience and observations, and that led to increased knowledge and practical wisdom as to what could be designed and created. He never gave up on an intriguing idea; it was not in his nature. He understood the fixed principles of engineering, but he envisioned, expanded, and adapted them to meet new technological, industrial challenges. In short, he had a life-long  desire to learn new things, and he knew how to take on a new job and do it well. Or, one could say, Oliver Crosby had great vision to create something better, and that always meant breaking out of comfortable, formulaic ruts of seeing things to address new challenges, new opportunities, and new projects. He did not sway on these matters. He liked new challenges because it demanded new thinking, practically and aesthetically, grounded in the guiding principles of engineering. Every thing he accomplished was grounded in extensive study, reflection, and thought, and this intellectual rigor, a great thing in itself, in turn, led to improved designs for every one of his inventions. Many of his patented inventions, particularly his railway-mounted steam shovels and earth moving machines, would play a significant role in digging the Panama Canal. Therefore, in no small measure, in a time period that was dominated by the likes of Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, James J. Hill, and John D. Rockefeller, it is right to assert that  that Oliver Crosby's industrial ingenuity had an incalculable impact on economic growth around the world with his mechanical ingenuity. What he achieved was both practical and inspiring. It is not an overstatement to state he helped transform the world. From the Crosby Clamp, the world's largest crane, Admiral Perry, and the Panama Canal, Oliver Crosby's career was fascinating, interesting, and historically significant. Quite simply, he lived and extraordinarily rich life, and to think that Oliver Crosby arrived in Minneapolis - St. Paul with only $14.50 speaks multiple volumes about the substantive meaning of persistence and determination. He puckishly lived by the real truth of these two bold, instructive words, and he left a tangible, constructive legacy for posterity that we are exceedingly proud of as Omega Mu brothers, now, one-hundred years after his death in 1922. Perge. ​

The Crosby Clamp

 Admiral Robert E. Peary's Journey to the
​North Pole in 1909 and the
​Crosby Clip

"The success and safety of the entire expedition hinged upon the reliability of the
'Crosby' Clip, used to attach the tiller rope to the rudder, and also the steering wheel."
​Admiral Robert E. Peary

Largest Crane in the world,
​1895

American Hoist and Derrick
​The Panama Canal

"Modern machinery to construct the
​Panama Canal."

Oliver Crosby lecture on the Panama Canal

Crosby Hall

Cloke Plaza; back right, Crosby Hall.

The New University of Maine
​Engineering Building and
The Crosby Clamp

In the foreground left is Cloke Plaza, a plaza that honors our Phi Gamma Delta brother,
​Paul Cloke, former dean of the University of Maine College of Engineering. 

Cloke Plaza

"When the final beam of the Ferland Engineering Education and Design Center was installed during the topping-off ceremony in February 2021,
​the Crosby Clip played at part."

"The beam, which was signed by some current UMaine engineering students, has a time capsule welded to the back with a message and a Crosby Clip, a tool used in steel construction that was invented by Oliver Crosby, a Dexter native and
UMaine alumn of 1876."
​
And Our Omega Mu Brother,
​Oliver Crosby

“What if the space be long and wide,
That parts us from our brother’s side
A soul-joined chain unites our band,
And memory links us hand in hand.”
(Phi Gamma Delta fraternity song)

Fraternally,
Chip Chapman, ’82
Perge