[1111] Act of March 27, 1798, Laws of New York, 1798, 382-83.
This act, however, was merely the transfer of similar privileges granted to John Fitch on March 19, 1787, to whom, rather than to Robert Fulton, belongs the honor of having invented the steamboat. It was printed in the Laws of New York edited by Thomas Greenleaf, published in 1792, i, 411; and also appears as Appendix A to "A Letter, addressed to Cadwallader D. Colden, Esquire," by William Alexander Duer, the first biographer of Fulton. (Albany, 1817.) Duer's pamphlet is uncommonly valuable because it contains all the petitions to, and the acts of, the New York Legislature concerning the steamboat monopoly.
[1112] Reigart: Life of Robert Fulton, 163. Nobody but Livingston was willing to invest in what all bankers and business men considered a crazy enterprise. (Ib. 100-01.)
[1113] Knox, 93. It should be remembered, however, that the granting of monopolies was a very common practice everywhere during this period. (See Prentice: Federal Power over Carriers and Corporations, 60-65.)
[1114] Compare with his brother's persistence in the Batture controversy, supra, 100-15.
[1115] Dickinson, 64-123; Knox, 35-44.
[1116] Knox, 93; see also Dickinson, 136.
[1117] Act of April 5, 1803, Laws of New York, 1802-04, 323-24.
[1118] Act of April 6, 1807, Laws of New York, 1807-09, 213-14.
[1119] The North River was afterward named the Clermont, which was the name of Livingston's county seat. (Dickinson, 230.)