Robert Fulton, whose soul animated the enterprise, was appointed the engineer; and on the twentieth day of June, eighteen hundred and fourteen, the keel of this novel steamer was laid at the ship-yard of Adam and Noah Brown, her able and active constructors, in the city of New York, and on the twenty-ninth of the following October, or in little more than four months, she was safely launched, in the presence of multitudes of spectators who thronged the surrounding shores, and were seen upon the hills which limited the beautiful prospect around the bay of New York.
The river and bay were filled with steamers and vessels of war, in compliment to the occasion. In the midst of these was the enormous floating mass, whose bulk and unwieldy form seemed to render her as unfit for motion, as the land batteries which were saluting her.
In a communication from Captain David Porter, U. S. Navy, to the Hon. Secretary of the Navy, dated New York, October 29, 1814, he states,—“I have the pleasure to inform you that the “Fulton the First,” was this morning safely launched. No one has yet ventured to suggest any improvement that could be made in the vessel, and to use the words of the projector, ‘I would not alter her if it were in my power to do so.’
“She promises fair to meet our most sanguine expectations, and I do not despair in being able to navigate in her from one extreme of our coast to the other. Her buoyancy astonishes every one, she now draws only eight feet three inches water, and her draft will only be ten feet with all her guns, machinery, stores, and crew, on board. The ease with which she can now be towed with a single steamboat, renders it certain that her velocity will be sufficiently great to answer every purpose, and the manner it is intended to secure her machinery from the gunner’s shot, leaves no apprehension for its safety. I shall use every exertion to prepare her for immediate service; her guns will soon be mounted, and I am assured by Mr. Fulton, that her machinery will be in operation in about six weeks.”
On the twenty-first of November, the Steam Frigate was moved from the wharf of Messrs. Browns, in the East River, to the works of Robert Fulton, on the North River, to receive her machinery, which operation was performed by fastening the steamboat “Car of Neptune,” to her larboard, and the steamboat “Fulton,” to her starboard side; they towed her through the water from three and a-half to four miles per hour.
The dimensions of the “Fulton the First” were:—
Length, one hundred and fifty-six feet.
Breadth, fifty-six feet.
Depth, twenty feet.