Soon after his return to New York he brought his idea to successful completion. His reputation was now assured, and his invention of "torpedoes" gave him additional fame. Congress not only purchased these instruments of warfare, but also set apart $320,000 for a steam frigate to be constructed under his supervision.
Through Livingston's influence the legislature passed an act granting to Fulton the exclusive privilege of navigating the waters of the State by means of steam power. The only conditions imposed were that he should, within a year, construct a boat of not less than "twenty tons burthen," which should navigate the Hudson at a speed not less than four miles an hour, and that one such boat should not fail of running regularly between New York and Albany for the space of one year.
"The Clermont," named after the ancestral home of the Livingstons, was built for "Livingston and Fulton," by Charles Brownne in New York. The machinery came from the works of Watt and Bolton, England. She left the wharf of Corlear's Hook and the newspapers published with pride that she made in speed from four to five miles an hour. She was 100 feet in length and boasted of "three elegant cabins, one for the ladies and two for the gentlemen, with kitchen, library, and every convenience." She averaged 100 passengers up or down the river. Every passenger paid $7, for which he had dinner, tea and bed, breakfast and dinner, with the liberty to carry 200 pounds of baggage.
The stars are on the running stream,
And fling, as its ripples gently flow,
A burnished length of wavy-beam
In an eel-like, spiral line below.
Joseph Rodman Drake.