Robert placed a paddle wheel on his rowboat after the Henry plan, but propelled it by hand. It is quite possible that he dreamed of the greater speed if steam power could be applied.
When Robert was seventeen his mother apprenticed him to a Philadelphia silversmith. This was a mistake. He showed his character by quitting and establishing himself as a miniature painter—work that he loved. His plain studio was at the corner of Second and Walnut Streets. Here he supported himself for four years. He sketched and painted portraits and landscapes, and made drawings of machinery. So well did he work that at twenty-one he returned to Lancaster with enough money to buy a small farm for his mother.
Following the advice of some friends in 1786, he went to England, where he devoted several years to his profession, under the tuition of Benjamin West, who received him into his own home. Here he became acquainted with the Duke of Bridgewater, the founder of the great canal system of Great Britain, who induced Fulton to abandon art, and take up the study of mechanical science.
Fulton soon invented a double-inclined plane for raising or lowering boats from one level to another. In 1794 he devised a mill for sawing marble. In 1796 he evolved the idea of cast iron aqueducts, and a structure of this kind was built over the River Dee. He designed several bridges; he invented machinery for spinning flax; another for making ropes; one for digging ditches, and a dispatch boat.
In 1796 he published a “Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation,” copies of which were sent to President Washington, and other public officials, accompanied by letters telling of the advantages to be derived by canal navigation in America.
From 1797 to 1804 he resided in Paris with Joel Barlow, the American representative at the French court. During this period Fulton invented a submarine or plunging boat, called a “torpedo” designed to be used in naval warfare. Bonaparte appointed a commission to examine it. Fulton could easily descend to any depth, or rise to the surface. On one occasion he remained below the surface for four hours.
The French Government declined to patronize the project, and Fulton accepted the invitation from the English ministry, but would not agree to sell them a secret which the United States might need.
In 1806, after an absence of nineteen years, Fulton returned to the United States, and devoted his thought to the perfection of a steamboat, a project which he had in his mind for many years.
When in France Fulton met Robert R. Livingston, a rich man from New York, who was much interested in steamboats. Livingston had already built one, which proved a failure. The two men now joined forces. This made a fine association for Fulton’s knowledge of machinery was far greater than Livingston’s, but the latter had the wealth and influence which could bring an invention to the public.
Livingston obtained the sole right for them to navigate the waters of New York State for twenty years, if they could produce a steam vessel capable of a speed of four miles an hour against the current of the Hudson River.