Our People of the Century Henry Hettinger: Inventor's Gas Engines Drove Production Here

Bridgeton mechanic Henry Hettinger invented and built the Hettinger gasoline oyster dredge winding machine, and the Hettinger gasoline marine engine that were used extensively in the early 1900s along the East Coast. Just 23 in 1898 when he started the Hettinger Engines Company, the inventor manufactured the first gasoline engine built in Bridgeton. By then, he had already worked at two glass companies, apprenticed in a machine shop and gone on to work at two machine shops, including Oberlin Smith's Ferracute Machine Works. Hettinger invented and then manufactured several machines used in canning, and build a four-cylinder engine and airplane in 1909. Active in the community, Hettinger was noted for the time and effort be put into the Liberty Loan and the Red Cross campaigns during World War I.