too. Ultimately overwork, an addiction to laudanum, alcohol and poor financial management took their toll. But Colburn suffered from another flaw. Following his numerous visits to the 1867 Paris Exhibition on behalf of Engineering, where he contracted syphilis, he became increasingly delighted by London prostitutes whose pleasures he much enjoyed. In the divorce petition filed against him by his wife Elizabeth, Colburn is accused of infecting her with syphilis, physical abuse, and adultery with five different prostitutes. Colburn, sensing the impending shame offered by Fleet Street journalists and their diligence to seek out and publish the truth, became depressed and reckless, leading to his return to the U.S. – where he found himself disowned by his wife Adelaide Felicita Colburn and daughter Sarah Pearl – and eventual suicide at age 38. He was discovered near death by two boys taking their dog for a walk in Tudor's Pear Orchard, Belmont, Massachusetts, with a derringer in his hand. Legacy Colburn wrote prolifically and well; all his contemporaries attest to the way he added insight and opinion to straight reporting. His books and articles were the stuff of technology transfer in his day. He was certainly the first engineering journalist, as we might understand the term today. References Further reading External links 1832 births 1870 deaths 1870s suicides American railroad mechanical engineers American mechanical engineers American people in rail transportation Suicides by firearm in Massachusetts Engineers from Massachusetts Locomotive builders and designers 19th-century American journalists American male journalists 19th-century American engineers 19th-century American male writers