The first men to spend their time in trying to apply steam power to the propulsion of a boat were contemporaries of Benjamin Franklin.Those who worked without Watt's engine could hardly succeed.One of the earliest of these was William Henry of Pennsylvania.Henry, in 1763, had the idea of applying power to paddle wheels, and constructed a boat, but his boat sank, and no result followed, unless it may be that John Fitch and Robert Fulton, both of whom were visitors at Henry's house, received some suggestions from him.James Rumsey of Maryland began experiments as early as 1774 and by 1786 had a boat that made four miles an hour against the current of the Potomac.
The most interesting of these early and unsuccessful inventors is John Fitch, who, was a Connecticut clockmaker living in Philadelphia.He was eccentric and irregular in his habits and quite ignorant of the steam engine.But he conceived the idea of a steamboat and set to work to make one.The record of Fitch's life is something of a tragedy.At the best he was an unhappy man and was always close to poverty.As a young man he had left his family because of unhappy domestic relations with his wife.One may find in the record of his undertakings which he left in the Philadelphia Library, to be opened thirty years after its receipt, these words: "I know of nothing so perplexing and vexatious to a man of feelings as a turbulent Wife and Steamboat building." But in spite of all his difficulties Fitch produced a steamboat, which plied regularly on the Delaware for several years and carried passengers."We reigned Lord High Admirals of the Delaware; and no other boat in the River could hold its way with us," he wrote."Thus has been effected by little Johnny Fitch and Harry Voight [one of his associates] one of the greatest and most useful arts that has ever been introduced into the world; and although the world and my country does not thank me for it, yet it gives me heartfelt satisfaction." The "Lord High Admirals of the Delaware," however, did not reign long.The steamboat needed improvement to make it pay; its backers lost patience and faith, and the inventor gave up the fight and retired into the fastnesses of the Kentucky wilderness, where he died.
The next inventor to struggle with the problem of the steamboat, with any approach to success, was John Stevens of Hoboken.His life was cast in a vastly different environment from that of John Fitch.He was a rich man, a man of family and of influence.His father's house--afterwards his own---at 7 Broadway, facing Bowling Green--was one of the mansions of early New York, and his own summer residence on Castle Point, Hoboken, just across the Hudson, was one of the landmarks of the great river.For many years John Stevens crossed that river; most often in an open boat propelled by sail or by men at the oars.Being naturally of a mechanical turn, he sought to make the crossing easier.To his library were coming the prints that told of James Watt and the steam engine in England, and John Fitch's boat had interested him.
Robert Fulton's Clermont, of which we shall speak presently, was undoubtedly the pioneer of practicable steamboats.But the Phoenix, built by John Stevens, followed close on the Clermont.
And its engines were built in America, while those of the Clermont had been imported from England.Moreover, in June, 1808, the Phoenix stood to sea, and made the first ocean voyage in the history of steam navigation.Because of a monopoly of the Hudson, which the New York Legislature had granted to Livingston and Fulton, Stevens was compelled to send his ship to the Delaware.
Hence the trip out into the waters of the Atlantic, a journey that was not undertaken without trepidation.But, despite the fact that a great storm arose, the Phoenix made the trip in safety; and continued for many years thereafter to ply the Delaware between Philadelphia and Trenton.
Robert Fulton, like many and many another great inventor, from Leonardo da Vinci down to the present time, was also an artist.
He was born November 14, 1765, at Little Britain, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, of that stock which is so often miscalled "Scotch-Irish." He was only a child when his father died, leaving behind him a son who seems to have been much more interested in his own ideas than in his schoolbooks.Even in his childhood Robert showed his mechanical ability.There was a firm of noted gunsmiths in Lancaster, in whose shops he made himself at home and became expert in the use of tools.At the age of fourteen he applied his ingenuity to a heavy fishing boat and equipped it with paddle-wheels, which were turned by a crank, thus greatly lightening the labor of moving it.
At the age of seventeen young Fulton moved to Philadelphia and set up as a portrait painter.Some of the miniatures which he painted at this time are said to be very good.He worked hard, made many good friends, including Benjamin Franklin, and succeeded financially.He determined to go to Europe to study--if possible under his fellow Pennsylvanian, Benjamin West, then rising into fame in London.The West and the Fulton families had been intimate, and Fulton hoped that West would take him as a pupil.First buying a farm for his mother with a part of his savings, he sailed for England in 1786, with forty guineas in his pocket.West received him not only as a pupil but as a guest in his house and introduced him to many of his friends.Again Fulton succeeded, and in 1791 two of his portraits were exhibited at the Royal Academy, and the Royal Society of British Artists hung four paintings by him.
