How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair?
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary fu’ o’ care?”
But Fulton’s care, for the time, had sped away. He was surrounded by friends whose compliments upon his success must have been both welcome and pleasant. Helen Livingston’s granddaughter writes: “There were many distinguished and fine-looking men on board the Clermont, but my grandmother always described Robert Fulton as surpassing them all. ‘That son of a Pennsylvania farmer,’ she was wont to say, ‘was really a prince among men. He was as modest as he was great and as handsome as he was modest. His eyes were glorious with love and genius.’”
A great personal happiness filled Fulton’s thought, beyond that of his success in the invention, for on the second day of the voyage, as the boat was about to cast anchor at the Clermont dock of the Chancellor, the latter, as a crowning touch of romance to the triumph of the voyage, announced the betrothal of his fair young cousin, Miss Harriet Livingston, to the inventor. In easy, graceful words he added that the name of Robert Fulton would descend to posterity as a benefactor to the world, for it was not impossible that, before the end of the century, vessels propelled by steam alone might make the voyage to Europe! The guests were too polite to laugh at this suggestion in the presence of the Chancellor and the inventor but, after several of the company had indulged in hidden smiles, John R. Livingston whispered to his cousin, “Bob has had many a bee in his bonnet before now, but this steam folly will prove the worst yet!”
It has been reported that the consent of the Livingston family had been withheld from Fulton’s engagement until he could prove his invention a success. He had asked the Chancellor if he might aspire to the hand of his fair cousin and had received the reply: “Her father may object … but if Harriet does not object,—and she seems to have a world of good sense,—go ahead, and my best wishes and blessings go with you.”
In the light of later events, it is hard to see why any objection could have been raised. Fulton, then forty-two years old, had made his way against great odds, and was a prominent man on both sides of the Atlantic. Harriet Livingston, a guest of honor on the historic trip up the Hudson, was the daughter of the Hon. Walter Livingston, Commissioner of the United States Treasury. The bride-elect had inherited beauty and talent. She played upon the harp and also sketched in pencil with delicacy and skill, an accomplishment which naturally appealed to Fulton’s artistic taste.
Her father, Walter Livingston, son of the last Lord of the Manor of Livingston, had inherited as his share of the vast grant of land of 1715, which comprised over 160,000 acres, a tract of 28,000 acres, which he named “Tiviotdale.” Upon this great estate he had built an imposing mansion to which in later years Fulton and his wife paid many visits.
The party left the boat at Clermont, while Fulton and the Chancellor, after spending the night at the latter’s hospitable home, continued the journey to Albany, arriving there at five o’clock in the afternoon. When the voyage to New York was made, Fulton set about improving his boat that she might be more comfortable for the many passengers he hoped to carry up and down the river. He wrote to Barlow, as follows:
“My steamboat voyage to Albany and back has turned out rather more favorably than I had calculated. The distance from New York to Albany is one hundred and fifty miles. I ran it up in thirty-two hours and down in thirty. I had a light breeze against me the whole way, both going and coming, and the voyage has been performed wholly by the power of the steam engine. I overtook many sloops and schooners beating to the windward and parted with them as if they had been at anchor. The power of propelling boats by steam is now fully proved. 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 an 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. This is the way in which ignorant men compliment what they call philosophers and projectors. Having employed much time, money and zeal in accomplishing this work, it gives me, as it will you, great pleasure to see it fully answer my expectations. It will give a cheap and quick conveyance to the merchandise on the Mississippi, Missouri and other great rivers, which are now laying open their treasures to the enterprise of our countrymen; and although the prospect of personal emolument has been some inducement to me, yet I feel infinitely more pleasure in reflecting on the immense advantage my country will derive from the invention.”