William Strickland

William Strickland (November 1788 – April 6, 1854) was a noted architect and civil engineer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Nashville, Tennessee. A student of Benjamin Latrobe and mentor to Thomas Ustick Walter, Strickland helped establish the Greek Revival movement in the United States. A pioneering engineer, he wrote a seminal book on railroad construction, helped build several early American railroads, and designed the first ocean breakwater in the Western Hemisphere. He was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1820. Life and career Early life Strickland was born in the Navesink, New Jersey to John and Elizabeth Strickland. While William was still a child, the family moved to Philadelphia (c. 1790), where his father -- a master carpenter -- became, in 1811, a charter member of the Practical House Carpenters' Society Architect In his youth, Strickland was a landscape painter, illustrator for periodicals, theatrical scene painter, engraver, and pioneer aquatintist. His Greek Revival designs drew much inspiration from the plates of The Antiquities of Athens.