Several eminent and ingenious men, previous to this, had proposed to propel vessels by steam power, among whom were Dr. Papin, of France, Savery, the Marquis of Worcester, and Dr. John Allen, of London, in 1726. In 1786, Oliver Evans, of Philadelphia, and about the same time Dr. Franklin, proposed to accomplish this result by forcing a quant.i.ty of water, by means of steam power, through an opening made for that purpose in the stern of the hull of the boat.

In 1737, Jonathan Hulls issued a pamphlet proposing to construct a boat to be moved by steam power, for the purpose of towing vessels out of harbors against tide and winds. In his plan the paddle-wheel was used, and was secured to a frame placed far out over the stern of the boat. It was given this position by the inventor because water fowls propelled themselves by pushing their feet behind them.

In 1787, Mr. James Rumsey, of Shepherdstown, Virginia, constructed and navigated the first steamboat in actual use. His boat was eighty feet in length, and was propelled by means of a vertical pump in the middle of the vessel, by which the water was drawn in at the bow and expelled at the stern through a horizontal trough in her hull. The engine weighed about one third of a ton, and the boat had a capacity of about three tons burthen. When thus laden, a speed of about four miles an hour could be attained. The boiler held only five gallons of water, and needed but a pint at a time. Rumsey went to England to exhibit his plan on the Thames, and died there in 1793.

About the same time the Marquis de Joffrey launched a steamer one hundred feet long on the Loire, at Lyons, using paddles revolving on an endless chain, but only to find his experiment a failure.

In December, 1786, John Fitch published the following account of a steamer with which he had made several experiments on the Delaware, at Philadelphia, and which came nearer to success than any thing that had at that time been invented:

"The cylinder is to be horizontal, and the steam to work with equal force at each end. The mode by which we obtain what I term a vacuum is, it is believed, entirely new, as is also the method of letting the water into it, and throwing it off against the atmosphere without any friction. It is expected that the cylinder, which is of twelve inches diameter, will move a clear force of eleven or twelve cwt. after the frictions are deducted: this force is to be directed against a wheel of eighteen inches diameter. The piston moves about three feet, and each vibration of it gives the axis about forty revolutions. Each revolution of the axis moves twelve oars or paddles five and a half feet: they work perpendicularly, and are represented by the strokes of a paddle of a canoe. As six of the paddles are raised from the water, six more are entered, and the two sets of paddles make their strokes of about eleven feet in each revolution. The crank of the axis acts upon the paddles about one-third of their length from their lower ends, on which part of the oar the whole force of the axis is applied. The engine is placed in the bottom of the boat, about one-third from the stern, and both the action and reaction turn the wheel the same way."

Fitch was unfortunate in his affairs, and became so disheartened that he ceased to attempt to improve his invention, and finally committed suicide by drowning himself in the Alleghany River at Pittsburgh.

In 1787, Mr. Patrick Miller, of Dalwinston, Scotland, designed a double vessel, propelled by a wheel placed in the stern between the two keels.

This boat is said to have been very successful, but it was very small, the cylinder being only four inches in diameter. In 1789, Mr. Miller produced a larger vessel on the same plan, which made seven miles per hour in the still water of the Forth and Clyde Ca.n.a.l, but it proved too weak for its machinery, which had to be taken out.

It was in the face of these failures that Fulton applied himself to the task of designing a successful steamboat. During his residence in Paris he had made the acquaintance of Mr. Robert R. Livingston, then the American minister in France, who had previously been connected with some unsuccessful steamboat experiments at home. Mr. Livingston was delighted to find a man of Fulton's mechanical genius so well satisfied of the practicability of steam navigation, and joined heartily with him in his efforts to prove his theories by experiments. Several small working models made by Fulton convinced Mr. Livingston that the former had discovered and had overcome the cause of the failure of the experiments of other inventors, and it was finally agreed between them to build a large boat for trial on the Seine. This experimental steamer was furnished with paddle wheels, and was completed and launched early in the spring of 1803. On the very morning appointed for the trial, Fulton was aroused from his sleep by a messenger from the boat, who rushed into his chamber, pale and breathless, exclaiming, "Oh, sir, the boat has broken in pieces and gone to the bottom!" Hastily dressing and hurrying to the spot, he found that the weight of the machinery had broken the boat in half and carried the whole structure to the bottom of the river.

He at once set to work to raise the machinery, devoting twenty-four hours, without resting or eating, to the undertaking, and succeeded in doing so, but inflicted upon his const.i.tution a strain from which he never entirely recovered. The machinery was very slightly damaged, but it was necessary to rebuild the boat entirely. This was accomplished by July of the same year, and the boat was tried in August with triumphant success, in the presence of the French National Inst.i.tute and a vast crowd of the citizens of Paris.

This steamer was very defective, but still so great an improvement upon all that had preceded it, that Messrs. Fulton and Livingston determined to build one on a larger scale in the waters of New York, the right of navigating which by steam vessels had been secured by the latter as far back as 1798. The law which granted this right had been continued from time to time through Mr. Livingston's influence, and was finally amended so as to include Fulton within its provisions. Having resolved to return home, Fulton set out as soon as possible, stopping in England on his return, to order an engine for his boat from Watt and Boulton. He gave an exact description of the engine, which was built in strict accordance with his plan, but declined to state the use to which he intended putting it.

Very soon after his arrival in New York, he commenced building his first American boat, and finding that her cost would greatly exceed his estimate, he offered for sale a third interest in the monopoly of the navigation of the waters of New York, held by Livingston and himself, in order to raise money to build the boat, and thus lighten the burdens of himself and his partner, but he could find no one willing to risk money in such a scheme. Indeed, steam navigation was universally regarded in America as a mere chimera, and Fulton and Livingston were ridiculed for their faith in it. The bill granting the monopoly held by Livingston was regarded as so utterly absurd by the Legislature of New York, that that wise body could with difficulty be induced to consider it seriously.

Even among scientific men the project was considered impracticable. A society in Rotterdam had, several years before Fulton's return home, applied to the American Philosophical Society to be informed whether any and what improvements had been made in the construction of steam-engines in America. A reply to this inquiry was prepared, at the request of the Society, by Mr. Benjamin H. Latrobe, a distinguished engineer. The following extracts from this paper will show the reader how Fulton's scheme was regarded by one who was confessedly one of the most brilliant engineers of his day, and who has since accomplished so much for the improvement of steam travel:

During the general la.s.situde of mechanical exertion which succeeded the American Revolution, We utility of steam-engines appears to have been forgotten; but the subject afterward started into very general notice in a form in which it could not possibly be attended with success. A sort of mania began to prevail, which, indeed, has not yet entirely subsided, for impelling boats by steam-engines.

Dr. Franklin proposed to force forward the boat by the immediate application of the steam upon the water. Many attempts to simplify the working of the engine, and more to employ a means of dispensing with the beam in converting the _libratory_ into a rotatory motion, were made. For a short time, a pa.s.sage-boat, rowed by a steam-engine, was established between Borden-town and Philadelphia, but it was soon laid aside. The best and most powerful steam-engine which has been employed for this purpose--excepting, perhaps, one constructed by Dr. Kinsey, with the performance of which I am not sufficiently acquainted--belonged to a gentleman of New York. It was made to act, by way of experiment, upon oars, upon paddles, and upon flutter-wheels. Nothing in the success of any of these experiments appeared to be sufficient compensation for the expense and the extreme inconvenience of the steam-engine in the vessel.

There are, indeed, general objections to the use of the steam-engine for impelling boats, from which no particular mode of application can be free. These are:

First. The weight of the engine and of the fuel.

Second. The large s.p.a.ce it occupies.

Third. The tendency of its action to rack the vessel, and render it leaky.

Fourth. The expense of maintenance.

Fifth. The irregularity of its motion, and the motion of the water in the boiler and cistern, and of the fuel-vessel in rough water.

Sixth. The difficulty arising from the liability of the paddles and oars to break, if light, and from the weight, if made strong.

Nor have I ever heard of an instance, verified by other testimony than that of the inventor, of a speedy and agreeable voyage having been performed in a steamboat of any construction.

I am well aware that there are still many very respectable and ingenious men who consider the application of the steam-engine to the purpose of navigation as highly important, and as very practicable, especially on the rapid waters of the Mississippi, and who would feel themselves almost offended at the expression of an opposite opinion. And, perhaps, some of the objections against it may be avoided. That founded on the expense and weight of the fuel may not, for some years, exist on the Mississippi, where there is a redundance of wood on the banks; but the cutting and loading will be almost as great an evil.

Scientific men and amateurs all agreed in p.r.o.nouncing Fulton's scheme impracticable; but he went on with his work, his boat attracting no less attention and exciting no less ridicule than the ark had received from the scoffers in the days of Noah. The steam-engine ordered from Boulton and Watt was received in the latter part of 1806; and in the following spring the boat was launched from the ship-yard of Charles Brown, on the East River. Fulton named her the "Clermont," after the country-seat of his friend and partner, Chancellor Livingston. She was one hundred and sixty tons burthen, one hundred and thirty feet long, eighteen feet wide, and seven feet deep. Her engine was made with a single cylinder, two feet in diameter, and of four feet stroke; and her boiler was twenty feet long, seven feet deep, and eight feet broad. The diameter of the paddle-wheels was fifteen feet, the boards four feet long, and dipping two feet in the water. The boat was completed about the last of August, and she was moved by her machinery from the East River into the Hudson, and over to the Jersey sh.o.r.e. This trial, brief as it was, satisfied Fulton of its success, and he announced that in a few days the steamer would sail from New York for Albany. A few friends, including several scientific men and mechanics, were invited to take pa.s.sage in the boat, to witness her performance; and they accepted the invitation with a general conviction that they were to do but little more than witness another failure.

Monday, September 10, 1807, came at length, and a vast crowd a.s.sembled along the sh.o.r.e of the North River to witness the starting. As the hour for sailing drew near, the crowd increased, and jokes were pa.s.sed on all sides at the expense of the inventor, who paid little attention to them, however, but busied himself in making a final and close inspection of the machinery. Says Fulton, "The morning I left New York, there were not, perhaps, thirty persons in the city who believed that the boat would ever move one mile per hour, or be of the least utility; and while we were putting off from the wharf, which was crowded with spectators, I heard a number of sarcastic remarks."

One o'clock, the hour for sailing, came, and expectation was at its highest. The friends of the inventor were in a state of feverish anxiety lest the enterprise should come to grief, and the scoffers on the wharf were all ready to give vent to their shouts of derision. Precisely as the hour struck, the moorings were thrown off, and the "Clermont" moved slowly out into the stream. Volumes of smoke and sparks from her furnaces, which were fed with pine wood, rushed forth from her chimney, and her wheels, which were uncovered, scattered the spray far behind her. The spectacle she presented as she moved out gradually from her dock was certainly novel to the people of those days, and the crowd on the wharf broke into shouts of ridicule. Soon, however, the jeers grew silent, for it was seen that the steamer was by degrees increasing her speed. In a little while she was fairly under weigh, and making a steady progress up the stream at the rate of five miles per hour. The incredulity of the spectators had been succeeded by astonishment, and now this feeling gave way to undisguised delight, and cheer after cheer went up from the vast throng. Many people followed the boat for some distance up the river sh.o.r.e. In a little while, however, the boat was observed to stop, and the enthusiasm of the people on the sh.o.r.e at once subsided. The scoffers were again in their glory, and unhesitatingly p.r.o.nounced the boat a failure. Their chagrin may be imagined when, after a short delay, the steamer once more proceeded on her way, and this time even more rapidly than before. Fulton had discovered that the paddles were too long, and took too deep a hold on the water, and had stopped the boat for the purpose of shortening them.

Having remedied this defect, the "Clermont" continued her voyage during the rest of the day and all night, without stopping, and at one o'clock the next day ran alongside the landing at Clermont, the seat of Chancellor Livingston. She lay there until nine the next morning, when she continued her voyage toward Albany, reaching that city at five in the afternoon, having made the entire distance between New York and Albany (one hundred and fifty miles) in thirty-two hours of actual running time, an average speed of nearly five miles per hour. On her return trip, she reached New York in thirty hours running time--exactly five miles per hour. Fulton states that during both trips he encountered a head wind.

The river was at this time navigated entirely with sailing vessels, and large numbers of these were encountered by the "Clermont" during her up and down trips. The surprise and dismay excited among the crews of these vessels by the appearance of the steamer was extreme. These simple people, the majority of whom had heard nothing of Fulton's experiments, beheld what they supposed to be a huge monster, vomiting fire and smoke from its throat, lashing the water with its fins, and shaking the river with its roar, approaching rapidly in the very face of both wind and tide. Some threw themselves flat on the deck of their vessels, where they remained in an agony of terror until the monster had pa.s.sed, while others took to their boats and made for the sh.o.r.e in dismay, leaving their vessels to drift helplessly down the stream. Nor was this terror confined to the sailors. The people dwelling along the sh.o.r.e crowded the banks to gaze upon the steamer as she pa.s.sed by. A former resident of the neighborhood of Poughkeepsie thus describes the scene at that place, which will serve as a specimen of the conduct of the people along the entire river below Albany:

"It was in the early autumn of the year 1807 that a knot of villagers was gathered on a high bluff just opposite Poughkeepsie, on the west bank of the Hudson, attracted by the appearance of a strange, dark-looking craft, which was slowly making its way up the river. Some imagined it to be a sea-monster, while others did not hesitate to express their belief that it was a sign of the approaching judgment What seemed strange in the vessel was the subst.i.tution of lofty and straight black smoke-pipes, rising from the deck, instead of the gracefully tapered masts that commonly stood on the vessels navigating the stream, and, in place of the spars and rigging, the curious play of the working-beam and pistons, and the slow turning and splashing of the huge and naked paddle-wheels, met the astonished gaze. The dense clouds of smoke, as they rose wave upon wave, added still more to the wonderment of the rustics.

"This strange-looking craft was the 'Clermont,' on her trial trip to Albany; and of the little knot of villagers mentioned above, the writer, then a boy in his eighth year, with his parents, formed a part. I well remember the scene, one so well fitted to impress a lasting picture upon the mind of a child accustomed to watch the vessels that pa.s.sed up and down the river.

"The forms of four persons were distinctly visible on the deck as she pa.s.sed the bluff--one of whom, doubtless, was Robert Fulton, who had on board with him all the cherished hopes of years, the most precious cargo the wonderful boat could carry.

"On her return trip, the curiosity she excited was scarcely less intense. The whole country talked of nothing but the sea-monster, belching forth fire and smoke. The fishermen became terrified, and rowed homewards, and they saw nothing but destruction devastating their fishing-grounds; while the wreaths of black vapor, and rushing noise of the paddle-wheels, foaming with the stirred-up waters, produced great excitement among the boatmen, which continued without abatement, until the character of that curious boat, and the nature of the enterprise which she was pioneering, had been understood."

The alarm of the sailors and dwellers on the river sh.o.r.e disappeared as the character of the steamer became better known; but when it was found that the "Clermont" was to run regularly between New York and Albany, as a packet-boat, she became the object of the most intense hatred on the part of the boatmen on the river, who feared that she would entirely destroy their business. In many quarters Fulton and his invention were denounced as baneful to society, and frequent attempts were made by captains of sailing vessels to sink the "Clermont" by running into her.

She was several times damaged in this way, and the hostility of the boatmen became so great that it was necessary for the Legislature of New York to pa.s.s a law declaring combinations to destroy her, or willful attempts to injure her, public offenses punishable by fine and imprisonment.

It had been supposed that Fulton's object was to produce a steamer capable of navigating the Mississippi River, and much surprise was occasioned by the announcement that the "Clermont" was to be permanently employed upon the Hudson. She continued to ply regularly between New York and Albany until the close of navigation for that season, always carrying a full complement of pa.s.sengers, and more or less freight.

During the winter she was overhauled and enlarged, and her speed improved. In the spring of 1808 she resumed her regular trips, and since then steam navigation on the Hudson has not ceased for a single day, except during the closing of the river by ice.

In 1811 and 1812, Fulton built two steam ferry-boats for the North River, and soon after added a third for the East River. These boats were the beginning of the magnificent steam ferry system which is to-day one of the chief wonders of New York. They were what are called twin-boats, each of them consisting of two complete hulls, united by a deck or bridge. They were sharp at both ends, and moved equally well with either end foremost, so that they could cross and re-cross without being turned around. These boats were given engines of sufficient power to enable them to overcome the force of strong ebb tides; and in order to facilitate their landing, Fulton contrived a species of floating dock, and a means of decreasing the shock caused by the striking of the boat against the dock. These boats could accommodate eight four-wheel carriages, twenty-nine horses, and four hundred pa.s.sengers. Their average time across the North River, a mile and a half wide, was twenty minutes.

The introduction of the steamboat gave a powerful impetus to the internal commerce of the Union. It opened to navigation many important rivers (whose swift currents had closed them to sailing craft), and made rapid and easy communication between the most distant parts of the country practicable. The public soon began to appreciate this, and orders came in rapidly for steamboats for various parts of the country.

Fulton executed these as fast as possible, and among the number several for boats for the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.

Early in 1814, the city of New York was seriously menaced with an attack from the British fleet, and Fulton was called on by a committee of citizens to furnish a plan for a means of defending the harbor. He exhibited to the committee his plans for a vessel of war to be propelled by steam, capable of carrying a strong battery, with furnaces for red-hot shot, and which, he represented, would move at the rate of four miles an hour. These plans were also submitted to a number of naval officials, among whom were Commodore Decatur, Captain Jones, Captain Evans, Captain Biddle, Commodore Perry, Captain Warrington, and Captain Lewis, all of whom warmly united in urging the Government to undertake the construction of the proposed steamer. The citizens of New York offered, if the Government would employ and pay for her after she was built, to advance the sum ($320,000) necessary for her construction. The subject was vigorously pressed, and in March, 1814, Congress authorized the building of one or more floating batteries after the plan presented by Fulton. Her keel was laid on the 20th of June, 1814, and on the 31st of October, of the same year, she was launched, amid great rejoicings, from the ship-yard of Adam and Noah Brown. In May, 1815, her engines were put on board, and on the 4th of July of that year she made a trial trip to Sandy Hook and back, accomplishing the round trip--a distance of fifty-three miles--in eight hours and twenty minutes, under steam alone.

Before this, however, peace had been proclaimed, and Fulton had gone to rest from his labors.

The ship was a complete success, and was the first steam vessel of war ever built. She was called the "Fulton the First," and was for many years used as the receiving ship at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. She was an awkward and unwieldy ma.s.s, but was regarded as the most formidable vessel afloat; and as the pioneer of the splendid war steamers of to-day is still an object of great interest. The English regarded her with especial uneasiness, and put in circulation the most marvelous stories concerning her. One of these I take from a treatise on steam navigation published in Scotland at this period, the author of which a.s.sures his readers that he has taken the utmost pains to obtain full and accurate information respecting the American war steamer. His description is as follows:

"Length on deck three hundred feet, breadth two hundred feet, thickness of her sides, thirteen feet, of alternate oak plank and corkwood; carries forty-four guns, four of which are 100-pounders, quarter-deck and forcastle guns, 44-pounders; and further, to annoy an enemy attempting to board, can discharge one hundred gallons of boiling water in a minute, and by mechanism brandishes three hundred cutla.s.ses, with the utmost regularity, over her gunwales; works also an equal number of heavy iron pikes of great length, darting them from her sides with prodigious force, and withdrawing them every quarter of a minute!"

Fulton followed up the "Clermont," in 1807, with a larger boat, called the "Car of Neptune," which was placed on the Albany route as soon as completed. The Legislature of New York had enacted a law, immediately upon his first success, giving to Livingston and himself the exclusive right to navigate the waters of the State by steam, for five years for every additional boat they should build in the State, provided the whole term should not exceed thirty years. "In the following year the Legislature pa.s.sed another act, confirmatory of the prior grants, and giving new remedies to the grantees for any invasion of them, and subjecting to forfeiture any vessel propelled by steam which should enter the waters of the State without their license. In 1809 Fulton obtained his first patent from the United States; and in 1811 he took out a second patent for some improvement in his boats and machinery. His patents were limited to the simple means of adapting paddle wheels to the axle of the crank of Watt's engine.

"Meanwhile the power of the Legislature to grant the steamboat monopoly was denied, and a company was formed at Albany to establish another line of steam pa.s.sage boats on the Hudson, between that city and New York.

The State grantees filed a bill in equity, and prayed for an injunction, which was refused by Chancellor Lansing, on the ground that the act of the State Legislature was repugnant to the Const.i.tution of the United States, and against common right. This decree was unanimously reversed by the Court of Errors, and a compromise was effected with the Albany company by an a.s.signment to them of the right to employ steam on the waters of Lake Champlain.

"Legislative aid was again invoked, and an act was pa.s.sed directing peremptorily the allowance of an injunction on the prayer of the State grantees, and the seizure of any hostile boat at the commencement of the suit. Litigation was thus effectually arrested in New York, though by an arbitrary and unconst.i.tutional enactment, and the waters of the State remained in the exclusive possession of Fulton and his partner during the lifetime of the former. A similar controversy with Colonel Aaron Ogden, of New Jersey, was compromised by advantageous concessions, which converted the opponent of the monopoly into its firmest friend, and left him many years afterward the defeated party in the famous suit of Gibbons and Ogden, in the Supreme Court of the United States."

In January, 1815, Fulton was summoned to Trenton, New Jersey, as a witness in one of the numerous suits which grew out of the efforts to break down his monopoly. During his examination he was very much exposed, as the hall of the Legislature was uncommonly cold. In returning home, he crossed the Hudson in an open boat, and was detained on the river several hours. This severe exposure brought on an attack of sickness, which for a short time confined him to his bed. The steam frigate, then almost ready for her engines, occasioned him great anxiety at the time, and before he had fairly recovered his strength he went to the ship-yard to give some directions to the workmen employed on her, and thus exposed himself again to the inclemency of the weather. In a few days his indisposition prostrated him again, and, growing rapidly worse, he died on the 24th of February, 1815, at the age of fifty years. His death was universally regarded as a national calamity, and appropriate honors were paid to his memory by the General Government and by many of the State and munic.i.p.al governments of the Union. He was buried from his residence, No. 1 State Street, on the 25th of February, and his body was placed in the vault of the Livingston family, in Trinity church-yard.

He left a widow and four children. By the terms of his will he bequeathed to his wife an income of nine thousand dollars a year, and five hundred dollars to each of his children until they were twelve years old, after which they were each to receive one thousand dollars a year until they should attain the age of twenty-one years.

In person, Fulton was tall and handsome. His manner was polished, cordial, and winning. He made friends rapidly, and never failed in his efforts to enlist capital and influence in support of his schemes. He was manly, fearless, and independent in character, and joined to a perfect integrity a patience and indomitable resolution which enabled him to bear up under every disappointment, and which won him in the end a glorious success. His name and fame will always be dear to his countrymen, for while we can not claim that he was (nor did he ever a.s.sume to be) the inventor of steam navigation, or even the inventor of the means of such navigation, we do claim for him the honor of being the first man to cross the gulf which lies between experiment and achievement, the man whose skill and perseverance first conquered the difficulties which had baffled so many others, and made steam navigation both practicable and profitable. The Committee of the London Exhibition of 1851 gave utterance in their report to a declaration which places his fame beyond a.s.sault, as follows:

"Many persons, in various countries, claim the honor of having first invented small boats propelled by steam, but it is to the undaunted perseverance and exertions of the American Fulton that is due the everlasting honor of having produced this revolution, both in naval architecture and navigation."