Great Inventions and Discoveries

by Willis Duff Piercy

James Rumsey, a Scotchman living in Maryland, is said to have been the first American to discover a method for running a vessel with steam against wind and tide. He conceived the idea in August, 1783. During 1785 he made his boat, and in 1786 he navigated it on the Potomac River at Shepherdstown, Virginia, in the presence of hundreds of spectators. He wrote to General Washington of his invention, and Washington wrote concerning it to Governor Johnson of Maryland. In 1839 Congress voted a gold medal to James Rumsey, Jr., son and only surviving child of the inventor, in recognition of the elder Rumsey's achievement.

In 1787 John Fitch exhibited on the Delaware River a vessel to be propelled by steam, and in 1790, from June to September, he ran a steamboat on that river between Philadelphia and Trenton. But he could not induce the public to patronize his boat, and for lack of business it had to be withdrawn.

Some British authorities claim that the first practical steamboat in the world was the tug "Charlotte Dundas," built by William Symmington, and tried in 1802 on the Clyde and Forth Canal in Scotland. The trial was successful, but steam towing was abandoned for fear of injuring the banks of the canal. Symmington had built a small steamboat that traveled five miles an hour in 1788.

Robert Fulton

To Robert Fulton, an American, belongs the credit for placing the steamboat on a successful commercial basis. Fulton was born at Little Britain, Pennsylvania, in 1765. At the age of seventeen he adopted the profession of portrait and landscape painter. At twenty-two he went to England to study art. There he met James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine, and soon he began to give attention to mechanics. In 1793 he started to work on the idea of propelling boats by steam. He made an unsuccessful experiment with a steamboat on the Seine River in France. The vessel sank because its construction was faulty. Fulton returned to America and in New York harbor began to build another boat which he named the Katherine of Clermont, shortened to the Clermont. Her engine was procured from Boulton and Watt in England. The boat was one hundred feet long and twenty feet wide, weighed one hundred sixty tons, and was equipped with side paddle wheels and a sheet-iron boiler. As the inventor worked patiently at his task, the newspapers gave him but little notice and the public ridiculed him. The New York legislature had passed a bill granting to Fulton and to Chancellor Livingston the exclusive right to navigate with steam boats the waters of New York State. This bill was a standing subject of ridicule among the legislators at Albany.

In August, 1807, the Clermont was ready for her trial trip. A large crowd of spectators lined the banks of the Hudson as the boat slowly steamed out into the river. The crowd jeered and hooted and shouted at the vessel their nick-name of "Fulton's Folly." As the Clermont moved up the river, making slow headway against the current, the crowd changed their jeers to expressions of wonder and finally to cheers. The dry pine wood used for fuel sent out a cloud of thick, black smoke, flames, and sparks, which spread terror among the watermen of the harbor. The Clermont made the voyage from New York up the Hudson to Chancellor Livingston's country estate near Albany, a distance of a hundred ten miles, in twenty-four hours. The trip was without mishap and it thoroughly established the practicability of steam for purposes of navigation.

Concerning this voyage Fulton wrote to a friend in Paris: "My steamboat voyage to Albany and back has turned out rather more favorably than I had calculated. The voyage was performed wholly by power of the steam engine. I overtook many sloops and schooners beating to windward, and parted with them as if they had been at anchor. The power of propelling boats by steam is now fully proved. The morning I left New York there were not thirty persons in the city who believed that the boat would ever move a mile an hour, or be of the least utility. While we were putting off from the wharf, I heard a number of sarcastic remarks. This is the way in which ignorant men compliment what they call philosophers and projectors. I feel infinite pleasure in reflecting on the immense advantages my country will derive from the invention."

The Clermont was soon running as a regular packet between New York and Albany. The owners of sailing craft on the river hated her and tried to sink her. The New York legislature passed a bill declaring that any attempt to destroy or injure the Clermont should be a public offense punishable by fine and imprisonment. Then the enemies of the boat applied to the courts for an injunction restraining Fulton from navigating the Hudson with his steamboat. Daniel Webster appeared as Fulton's attorney. He won the case and secured for the Clermont the full rights of the river.

Fulton afterward built other steamboats, including a system of steam ferries for New York City. In 1814 he constructed the first United States war steamer. Before constructing the Clermont, Fulton was interested in canals and in the invention of machinery for spinning flax and twisting rope. He also made experiments with sub-marine explosives in England, France, and the United States; but these were considered failures. He died February 24, 1815.