“I am not idle as to torpedoes but secrecy is necessary. When peace returns, or in four or five years from this date, I shall have a line of steamboats from Quebec to Mexico and to St. Mary’s; the route is up the St. Lawrence, over Lake Champlain, down the Hudson to Brunswick, cross the Delaware to Philadelphia; by land carriage to Pittsburgh, down the Ohio and Mississippi to Red River, up it to above Natchitoches: the total land carriage about five hundred miles, the other route to St. Mary’s land carriage not more than two hundred miles. The most of these boats are now constructing.”
CHAPTER XVII
Fulton’s Home and Fulton’s Honors
We have followed Fulton through widely different works,—art, canal navigation, the invention of the submarine torpedo and the steamboat. In 1814 he had reached almost the end of his busy and useful life.
Robert Fulton lived to be only fifty years old,—not the allotted “three score and ten” named by the Psalmist; yet during his half-century he accomplished infinitely more than many another does in a life full of years. To labor incessantly was his habit and pleasure. As he had written to Joel Barlow, “I cannot exist without a project, or projects, and I have two or three of the first order of sublimity.” Herein lay the secret, if such an openly admitted fact can be so termed, of his valuable life. He looked upon work as sublime; he exalted it to dignity; and its product to him was world-wide fame because of his world-wide service to humanity.
After his marriage, on January 7th, 1808, to Miss Harriet Livingston, to whom you will remember his engagement was announced on the Clermont, they made their home in New York City, first at 100 Reade Street, then at 133 Chambers Street, where they moved in 1811, and the succeeding year, at Marketfield Place, opposite the Battery. The street now known as Battery Place was then called Marketfield Street; the Hudson River then flowed in as far as Washington Street and Battery Park extended only as far as Greenwich Street. Castle Garden occupied a tiny island connected with the mainland by a foot-bridge.
The foregoing addresses are given from the New York directories of those years, and some confusion regarding Fulton’s last residence has arisen from the fact that Cadwallader Colden, who knew him well, says that he lived at number 1 State Street. In either case, his home commanded a superb outlook upon the harbor and river, and became a gathering place for his many distinguished friends. The outlook upon the dancing, sunny waters of the harbor must have been an inspiration and joy to the inventor of boats,—of this we may be sure. Works of art, in accord with Fulton’s taste, abounded; and in the dining-room, the scene of much pleasant hospitality, was spread the dinner service of fine china, embossed with the coat of arms of the United States, presented to Fulton by Thomas Jefferson.
Harriet Livingston, wife of Robert Fulton.