Short answers, pulled from the story.
Oliver Evans invented the first fully automated industrial production process, the first high-pressure steam engine in the United States, and designed the first vapor-compression refrigeration cycle. He also built the Oruktor Amphibolos in 1805, considered the first automobile in the United States and the first motorized amphibious vehicle in the world.
Oliver Evans completed his first working high-pressure steam engine in 1803, displaying it at his Philadelphia store where it sawed marble slabs. He developed the design independently of Richard Trevithick, who had built a high-pressure engine in Britain a year earlier.
The Oruktor Amphibolos, meaning Amphibious Digger, was a steam-powered dredge built for the Philadelphia Board of Health. On the 13th of July 1805, Evans drove the seventeen-ton craft through Philadelphia streets on wheeled legs before launching it into the Schuylkill River, making it the first automobile in the United States and the first motorized amphibious vehicle in the world.
Evans designed a flour mill that used bucket elevators, a mechanical rake called the hopper boy, Archimedean screws, and conveyor belts to move grain through every stage of milling without human labor. Completed at the Red Clay Creek mill by the late 1780s, it was the first fully automated industrial production line and is credited as a foundation of modern mass production.
Evans's reputation was damaged by his combative pursuit of patent royalties, his abrasive dealings with peers, and his tendency to exaggerate his accomplishments. Despite being granted the third US patent and inventing processes that underpinned the Industrial Revolution, he became alienated from the milling and engineering communities and never achieved lasting public recognition in his lifetime.
The Young Mill-wright and Miller's Guide was a comprehensive book on milling technology published by Evans in 1795, with subscribers including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Edmund Randolph. It ran to fifteen printed editions between 1795 and 1860 and remained the standard American milling manual until after the Civil War.