On Sunday, August 9, 1807, Fulton made a short trial trip of the Clermont, and wrote an account of it to Livingston. “Yesterday about 12 o’clock I put the steamboat in motion first with a paddle 8 inches broad, 3 feet long, with which I ran about one mile up the East River against a tide of about one mile an hour, it being nearly high water. I then anchored and put on another paddle 8 inches wide, 3 feet long, started again and then, according to my best observations, I went 3 miles an hour, that is two against a tide of one: another board of 8 inches was wanting, which had not been prepared, I therefore turned the boat and ran down with the tide—and turned her round neatly into the berth from which I parted. She answers the helm equal to anything that ever was built, and I turned her twice in three times her own length. Much has been proved by this experiment. First that she will, when in complete order, run up to my full calculations. Second, that my axles, I believe, will be sufficiently strong to run the engine to her full power. Third, that she steers well, and can be turned with ease.”
“The Clermont,” the First Steam Packet
It was on August 17, 1807, that the Clermont made her first historic trip up the Hudson. At one o’clock she cast off from her dock near the State’s Prison, in what was called Greenwich Village, on the North River. The inventor described the voyage characteristically to a friend. He wrote, “The moment arrived in which the word was to be given for the boat to move. My friends were in groups on the deck. There was anxiety mixed with fear among them. They were silent, sad and weary. I read in their looks nothing but disaster, and almost repented of my efforts. The signal was given and the boat moved on a short distance and then stopped and became immovable. To the silence of the preceding moment, now succeeded murmurs of discontent, and agitations, and whispers and shrugs. I could hear distinctly repeated—‘I told you it was so; it is a foolish scheme: I wish we were well out of it.’
“I elevated myself upon a platform and addressed the assembly. I stated that I knew not what was the matter, but if they would be quiet and indulge me for half an hour, I would either go on or abandon the voyage for that time. This short respite was conceded without objection. I went below and examined the machinery, and discovered that the cause was a slight maladjustment of some of the work. In a short time it was obviated. The boat was again put in motion. She continued to move on. All were still incredulous. None seemed willing to trust the evidence of their own senses. We left the fair city of New York; we passed through the romantic and ever-varying scenery of the Highlands; we descried the clustering houses of Albany; we reached its shores,—and then, even then, when all seemed achieved, I was the victim of disappointment.
“Imagination superseded the influence of fact. It was then doubted if it could be done again, or if done, it was doubted if it could be made of any great value.”
But the Clermont, in spite of all prophecies to the contrary, had traveled under her own steam from New York to Albany, and the trip was the crowning event in Fulton’s career as inventor. At the time she made that first voyage the Clermont was a very simple craft, decked for a short distance at bow and stern, the engine open to view, and back of the engine a house like that on a canal-boat to shelter the boiler and provide an apartment for the officers. The rudder was of the pattern used on sailing-vessels, and was moved by a tiller. The boiler was of the same pattern used in Watt’s steam-engines, and was set in masonry. The condenser stood in a large cold-water cistern, and the weight of the masonry and the cistern greatly detracted from the boat’s buoyancy. She was so very unwieldy that the captains of other river boats, realizing the danger of the steamboat’s competition, were able to run into her, and make it appear that the fault was hers; and as a result she several times reached port with only a single wheel.
There were almost as many quaint descriptions of the boat as there were people who saw it. One described it as an “ungainly craft looking precisely like a backwoods sawmill mounted on a scow and set on fire.” Others said the Clermont appeared at night like a “monster moving on the waters defying the winds and tide, and breathing flames and smoke.” Some of the ignorant along the Hudson fell on their knees and prayed to be delivered from the monster. The boat must have been a very strange sight; pine wood was used for fuel, and when the engineer stirred the fire a torrent of sparks went shooting into the sky.
The boat was clumsy beyond question. The exposed machinery creaked and groaned, the unguarded paddle-wheels revolved ponderously and splashed a great deal of water, the tiller was badly placed for steering. Fulton quickly remedied some of the defects, and the Clermont that began to make regular runs from New York to Albany a little later was quite a different boat from that which made her maiden voyage on August 17th.