“I thank you kindly for your friendly letter of the first of June; it is so many years since I had any communication with you, or accurate account of my relations, together with many copies of my letters being lost in my travels, and considering my property in your country of value only in as much as it was of use to my relatives, I had forgot the grants I formerly made of the three lots. I find however that one of them has been transferred to Mr. Morris, one to Mrs. Cook, and one was left by my mother to Peggy Scott.
“I now desire that those grants may be considered permanent and resigning all claims to them, from this time I shall not reckon them in my calculations.”
In his will, drawn in 1814, Fulton left a legacy of money also to each of his sisters and his brother.
Before we approach the story of the Clermont, it is fair and just to give credit to several men who worked very hard to try to build a “first” steamboat. There were so many attempts to produce the needed invention that it is hard to say which man should have the honor of being placed first.
Perhaps the earliest was Dr. John Allen, of England, who in 1730 wrote a scientific paper, entitled “Navigation in a Calm,” suggesting that a “fire engine with its furniture” could be put on board a ship and drive it twelve or fourteen miles an hour.
Probably most of those who read his pamphlet smiled at his absurd idea, but six years later, in 1736, Jonathan Hulls took out a patent for a tug-boat to be moved by wheels at the stern by the power of an atmospheric engine.
In America, where there are many deep rivers, it is not surprising to find that there were many experimenters: James Rumsey, of Virginia, built a boat for trial on the Potomac River and in 1787 had it working so well that he journeyed to England to try to advance his invention. There he persuaded a rich American to forward funds to build another boat for a trial on the Thames, but Rumsey died before his vessel was an established success. His system was not very practical and failed to work well.
Captain Samuel Morey, in 1793, built a tiny craft, “scarce big enough to carry himself,” it was said, and tried it upon the Connecticut River, but the first attempt failed to establish a claim to consideration and his plan was given up.
In 1792 another Connecticut man, Elijah Ormsbee, a clever carpenter, moved to Providence, Rhode Island, and built a boat in which his friend, David Wilkinson of Pawtucket, fitted “flutter wheels” and a “goose-foot propeller.” They made the boat run several times from Pawtucket to Providence, but that was the last heard of it. The piston was turned by atmospheric pressure, not by the direct use of steam.