[22] The “Master, Mate, and Pilot,” Vol. II. No. 5.
So far as the Hudson was concerned the decision of the courts crushed Captain Bunker, and frightened off any other possible trespassers on the monopoly. But Bunker had determined to become a steamship owner, and being crowded out of the Hudson he started a line of steamers as near New York City as he could, the Long Island Sound Line. The first of his vessels he named after his late opponent Fulton. She was built in 1813 and plied for the whole of her first season in 1814 on the Hudson River, as, the United States being then at war with England, it was feared that she would be captured if she ventured up the Sound.
The “Paragon.” Built 1811.
At the time the Fulton boats had to meet Bunker’s opposition, the third Fulton steamboat, the Paragon, made its first appearance on the river. She was both faster and larger than her predecessors. She was fitted with two masts, one stepped very far forward, and the other very far aft. The foremast carried an immense square foresail with a little square topsail above it, and there was also a large triangular sail carried on the stay from the end of the bowsprit to the cap of the lower mast. The aftermast carried an ordinary trysail or mizzen. The vessel had a large rudder and was steered from amidships, according to a contemporary print.
The following year another Fulton steamer, the Firefly, came on the scene. She was a small vessel, only 81 feet in length, and though designed for the lower river service, was used elsewhere as occasion demanded. Fulton by this time was himself planning the placing of steamers on other rivers, and in 1814 the Richmond was launched from his designs for the James River in Virginia. The British-American War at this time rendered it unsafe to send her south, and as the North River, late Clermont, was about worn out by now, the Richmond took her place. Fulton seems to have been associated to some extent with Bunker, for the latter’s boat, Fulton, was designed by Fulton himself. She was a sloop-rigged vessel with a single mast stepped well forward, and made considerable use of sails. She was 134 feet in length and 26 feet beam, and had a large square engine-house that extended rather above the sides of her paddle-boxes. Hitherto all the American steamers had been of the wall-sided, flat-bottomed type inaugurated by the Clermont. The Fulton was the first steamer to be constructed with a round bottom like a sailing ship.
Fulton was also interested in steamboats on the Mississippi and other western waters. He and Nicholas Roosevelt were associated in 1809 in this project, and in 1811 the steamer New Orleans was built. It was the pioneer boat of the service, and descended the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers from Pittsburg to New Orleans in fourteen days. In 1817 the Chancellor Livingston appeared on the Hudson and in her general equipment marked a decided improvement in every respect upon anything that had gone before. She was the finest vessel without exception that Fulton and Livingston ever possessed. Her designer was Henry Eckford, one of the leading naval architects in America. She was, moreover, the biggest steamboat which had been built in the world, as she was of over 500 tons burden. The building of this boat was supervised at first by Fulton himself, but he died before it was completed. The Chancellor Livingston was three-masted, and fore-and-aft rigged throughout, and carried in addition a large square sail on the foremast. She had three funnels which were placed forward of the paddle-boxes and between the fore and main masts. Her engines were of the steeple type. She was square-sterned, and not only carried a deck-house, but the roof of the deck-house was extended to form a square deck or gallery, and above this again were a smaller deck-house and a large awning, so that passengers on either deck were amply protected from the weather. The gallery, at the stern, was the same shape as the stern itself. It was supported by stanchions, and carried as far forward as the paddle-boxes. Early pictures of this vessel represent her as having portholes along the sides of the hull abaft the paddles, from which it would appear that in the body of the ship itself there was also passenger accommodation. She was therefore the first vessel to have three decks devoted to passengers.
The first trip of this boat was made towards the end of March 1817, between New York and Newburgh, the 65 miles being covered in less than nine hours, in only three of which was the tide running with the ship. Coming back she did the distance in eight hours fifteen minutes, for the most part against wind and tide. Her cost complete was 110,000 dollars.
This boat was not allowed to lie idle, and a statement was published in December 1821 that the Chancellor Livingston made during the season of that year “170 trips from New York to Albany. Allowing the distance to be 150 miles the aggregate will exceed 25,000 miles, which would more than have carried her round the globe. We presume the Richmond has performed the same number of trips, and when it is considered that these boats are generally filled with passengers, some idea may be formed of the extent of travel on the North River.”
Already excursions were very popular. The Chancellor Livingston took excursionists once a week during July and August as far as Sandy Hook. The same year, 1821, the steamer Franklin took passengers to the fishing banks twice weekly, and the Olive Branch of the Philadelphia Line gave its patrons what its owners called “a sail around Staten Island and turtle feast,” and it was added that “a fine green turtle will be cooked, and a band of music provided,” all for one dollar seventy-five cents. Captain Bunker, who had the Enterprise built in 1818 at Hartford, Connecticut, brought her into the New York service in 1821, for an excursion starting at half-past four in the morning from the East River for Sands Point. This is one of the earliest records of a steamer built elsewhere coming to New York waters to enter upon the local trade.