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Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made by James D. McCabe, Jr.

J >> James D. McCabe, Jr. >> Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made




Upon reaching Paris, he took up his residence with Mr. Joel Barlow, and
thus was laid the foundation of a friendship between these two gentlemen
which lasted during their lives. He remained in Paris seven years,
residing during that time with Mr. Barlow, and devoting himself to the
study of modern languages, and engineering and its kindred sciences.

His work was continuous and severe in Paris. He invented and painted the
first panorama ever exhibited in that city, which he sold for the
purpose of raising money for his experiments in steam navigation; he
also designed a series of splendid colored illustrations for _The
Columbiad_, the famous poem of his friend Mr. Barlow. Besides these, he
invented a number of improvements in canals, aqueducts, inclined planes,
boats, and guns, which yielded him considerable credit, but very little
profit.

In 1801, he invented a submarine boat which he called the "Nautilus,"
which is thus described by M. de St. Aubin, a member of the Tribunate:

"The diving-boat, in the construction of which he is now employed, will
be capacious enough to contain eight men and provision for twenty days,
and will be of sufficient strength and power to enable him to plunge one
hundred feet under water, if necessary. He has contrived a reservoir of
air, which will enable eight men to remain under water eight hours. When
the boat is above water, it has two sails, and looks just like a common
boat; when it is to dive, the mast and sails are struck.

"In making his experiments, Mr. Fulton not only remained a whole hour
under water, with three of his companions, but had the boat parallel to
the horizon at any given distance. He proved that the compass points as
correctly under water as on the surface, and that while under water the
boat made way at the rate of half a league an hour, by means contrived
for that purpose.

"It is not twenty years since all Europe was astonished at the first
ascension of men in balloons: perhaps in a few years they will not be
less surprised to see a flotilla of diving-boats, which, on a given
signal, shall, to avoid the pursuit of an enemy, plunge under water, and
rise again several leagues from the place where they descended!

"But if we have not succeeded in steering the balloon, and even were it
impossible to attain that object, the case is different with the
diving-boat, which can be conducted under water in the same manner as
upon the surface. It has the advantage of sailing like the common boat,
and also of diving when it is pursued. With these qualities, it is fit
for carrying secret orders, to succor a blockaded fort, and to examine
the force and position of an enemy in their harbors."

In connection with this boat, Fulton invented a torpedo, or infernal
machine, for the purpose of destroying vessels of war by approaching
them under water and breaking up their hulls by the explosion. He
offered his invention several times to the French Government, and once
to the Ambassador of Holland at Paris, without being able to induce them
to consider it. Somewhat later, he visited London, at the request of the
British Ministry, and explained his invention to them. Although he
succeeded in blowing up a vessel of two hundred tons with one hundred
and seventy pounds of powder, and in extorting from Mr. Pitt the
acknowledgment that, if introduced into practice, the torpedo would
annihilate all navies, his invention was rejected, through the influence
of Lord Melville, who feared that its adoption might injure England more
than it would benefit her. At the first, when it was thought that
England would purchase Fulton's invention, it was intimated to him that
he would be required to pledge himself not to dispose of it to any other
power. He replied promptly:

"Whatever may be your award, I never will consent to let these
inventions lie dormant should my country at any time have need of them.
Were you to grant me an annuity of twenty thousand pounds, I would
sacrifice all to the safety and independence of my country."

In 1806, Mr. Fulton returned to New York, and in the same year he
married Miss Harriet Livingston, a niece of Chancellor Livingston, by
whom he had four children. He offered his torpedo to the General
Government, but the trial to which it was subjected by the Navy
Department was unsuccessful for him, and the Government declined to
purchase the invention.

But it was not as the inventor of engines of destruction that Robert
Fulton was to achieve fame. A still nobler triumph was reserved for
him--one which was to bring joy instead of sorrow to the world. From the
time that Fulton had designed the paddle-wheels for his fishing-boat, he
had never ceased to give his attention to the subject of propelling
vessels by machinery, and after his acquaintance with Watt, he was more
than ever convinced that the steam-engine could, under proper
circumstances, be made to furnish the motive power.

Several eminent and ingenious men, previous to this, had proposed to
propel vessels by steam power, among whom were Dr. Papin, of France,
Savery, the Marquis of Worcester, and Dr. John Allen, of London, in
1726. In 1786, Oliver Evans, of Philadelphia, and about the same time
Dr. Franklin, proposed to accomplish this result by forcing a quantity
of water, by means of steam power, through an opening made for that
purpose in the stern of the hull of the boat.

In 1737, Jonathan Hulls issued a pamphlet proposing to construct a boat
to be moved by steam power, for the purpose of towing vessels out of
harbors against tide and winds. In his plan the paddle-wheel was used,
and was secured to a frame placed far out over the stern of the boat. It
was given this position by the inventor because water fowls propelled
themselves by pushing their feet behind them.

In 1787, Mr. James Rumsey, of Shepherdstown, Virginia, constructed and
navigated the first steamboat in actual use. His boat was eighty feet in
length, and was propelled by means of a vertical pump in the middle of
the vessel, by which the water was drawn in at the bow and expelled at
the stern through a horizontal trough in her hull. The engine weighed
about one third of a ton, and the boat had a capacity of about three
tons burthen. When thus laden, a speed of about four miles an hour could
be attained. The boiler held only five gallons of water, and needed but
a pint at a time. Rumsey went to England to exhibit his plan on the
Thames, and died there in 1793.

About the same time the Marquis de Joffrey launched a steamer one
hundred feet long on the Loire, at Lyons, using paddles revolving on an
endless chain, but only to find his experiment a failure.

In December, 1786, John Fitch published the following account of a
steamer with which he had made several experiments on the Delaware, at
Philadelphia, and which came nearer to success than any thing that had
at that time been invented:

"The cylinder is to be horizontal, and the steam to work with equal
force at each end. The mode by which we obtain what I term a vacuum is,
it is believed, entirely new, as is also the method of letting the water
into it, and throwing it off against the atmosphere without any
friction. It is expected that the cylinder, which is of twelve inches
diameter, will move a clear force of eleven or twelve cwt. after the
frictions are deducted: this force is to be directed against a wheel of
eighteen inches diameter. The piston moves about three feet, and each
vibration of it gives the axis about forty revolutions. Each revolution
of the axis moves twelve oars or paddles five and a half feet: they work
perpendicularly, and are represented by the strokes of a paddle of a
canoe. As six of the paddles are raised from the water, six more are
entered, and the two sets of paddles make their strokes of about eleven
feet in each revolution. The crank of the axis acts upon the paddles
about one-third of their length from their lower ends, on which part of
the oar the whole force of the axis is applied. The engine is placed in
the bottom of the boat, about one-third from the stern, and both the
action and reaction turn the wheel the same way."

Fitch was unfortunate in his affairs, and became so disheartened that
he ceased to attempt to improve his invention, and finally committed
suicide by drowning himself in the Alleghany River at Pittsburgh.

In 1787, Mr. Patrick Miller, of Dalwinston, Scotland, designed a double
vessel, propelled by a wheel placed in the stern between the two keels.
This boat is said to have been very successful, but it was very small,
the cylinder being only four inches in diameter. In 1789, Mr. Miller
produced a larger vessel on the same plan, which made seven miles per
hour in the still water of the Forth and Clyde Canal, but it proved too
weak for its machinery, which had to be taken out.

It was in the face of these failures that Fulton applied himself to the
task of designing a successful steamboat. During his residence in Paris
he had made the acquaintance of Mr. Robert R. Livingston, then the
American minister in France, who had previously been connected with some
unsuccessful steamboat experiments at home. Mr. Livingston was delighted
to find a man of Fulton's mechanical genius so well satisfied of the
practicability of steam navigation, and joined heartily with him in his
efforts to prove his theories by experiments. Several small working
models made by Fulton convinced Mr. Livingston that the former had
discovered and had overcome the cause of the failure of the experiments
of other inventors, and it was finally agreed between them to build a
large boat for trial on the Seine. This experimental steamer was
furnished with paddle wheels, and was completed and launched early in
the spring of 1803. On the very morning appointed for the trial, Fulton
was aroused from his sleep by a messenger from the boat, who rushed into
his chamber, pale and breathless, exclaiming, "Oh, sir, the boat has
broken in pieces and gone to the bottom!" Hastily dressing and hurrying
to the spot, he found that the weight of the machinery had broken the
boat in half and carried the whole structure to the bottom of the river.
He at once set to work to raise the machinery, devoting twenty-four
hours, without resting or eating, to the undertaking, and succeeded in
doing so, but inflicted upon his constitution a strain from which he
never entirely recovered. The machinery was very slightly damaged, but
it was necessary to rebuild the boat entirely. This was accomplished by
July of the same year, and the boat was tried in August with triumphant
success, in the presence of the French National Institute and a vast
crowd of the citizens of Paris.

This steamer was very defective, but still so great an improvement upon
all that had preceded it, that Messrs. Fulton and Livingston determined
to build one on a larger scale in the waters of New York, the right of
navigating which by steam vessels had been secured by the latter as far
back as 1798. The law which granted this right had been continued from
time to time through Mr. Livingston's influence, and was finally amended
so as to include Fulton within its provisions. Having resolved to return
home, Fulton set out as soon as possible, stopping in England on his
return, to order an engine for his boat from Watt and Boulton. He gave
an exact description of the engine, which was built in strict accordance
with his plan, but declined to state the use to which he intended
putting it.

Very soon after his arrival in New York, he commenced building his first
American boat, and finding that her cost would greatly exceed his
estimate, he offered for sale a third interest in the monopoly of the
navigation of the waters of New York, held by Livingston and himself, in
order to raise money to build the boat, and thus lighten the burdens of
himself and his partner, but he could find no one willing to risk money
in such a scheme. Indeed, steam navigation was universally regarded in
America as a mere chimera, and Fulton and Livingston were ridiculed for
their faith in it. The bill granting the monopoly held by Livingston was
regarded as so utterly absurd by the Legislature of New York, that that
wise body could with difficulty be induced to consider it seriously.
Even among scientific men the project was considered impracticable. A
society in Rotterdam had, several years before Fulton's return home,
applied to the American Philosophical Society to be informed whether any
and what improvements had been made in the construction of steam-engines
in America. A reply to this inquiry was prepared, at the request of the
Society, by Mr. Benjamin H. Latrobe, a distinguished engineer. The
following extracts from this paper will show the reader how Fulton's
scheme was regarded by one who was confessedly one of the most brilliant
engineers of his day, and who has since accomplished so much for the
improvement of steam travel:


During the general lassitude of mechanical exertion which succeeded
the American Revolution, We utility of steam-engines appears to
have been forgotten; but the subject afterward started into very
general notice in a form in which it could not possibly be attended
with success. A sort of mania began to prevail, which, indeed, has
not yet entirely subsided, for impelling boats by steam-engines.
Dr. Franklin proposed to force forward the boat by the immediate
application of the steam upon the water. Many attempts to simplify
the working of the engine, and more to employ a means of dispensing
with the beam in converting the _libratory_ into a rotatory motion,
were made. For a short time, a passage-boat, rowed by a
steam-engine, was established between Borden-town and Philadelphia,
but it was soon laid aside. The best and most powerful steam-engine
which has been employed for this purpose--excepting, perhaps, one
constructed by Dr. Kinsey, with the performance of which I am not
sufficiently acquainted--belonged to a gentleman of New York. It
was made to act, by way of experiment, upon oars, upon paddles, and
upon flutter-wheels. Nothing in the success of any of these
experiments appeared to be sufficient compensation for the expense
and the extreme inconvenience of the steam-engine in the vessel.

There are, indeed, general objections to the use of the
steam-engine for impelling boats, from which no particular mode of
application can be free. These are:

First. The weight of the engine and of the fuel.

Second. The large space it occupies.

Third. The tendency of its action to rack the vessel, and render it
leaky.

Fourth. The expense of maintenance.

Fifth. The irregularity of its motion, and the motion of the water
in the boiler and cistern, and of the fuel-vessel in rough water.

Sixth. The difficulty arising from the liability of the paddles and
oars to break, if light, and from the weight, if made strong.

Nor have I ever heard of an instance, verified by other testimony
than that of the inventor, of a speedy and agreeable voyage having
been performed in a steamboat of any construction.

I am well aware that there are still many very respectable and
ingenious men who consider the application of the steam-engine to
the purpose of navigation as highly important, and as very
practicable, especially on the rapid waters of the Mississippi, and
who would feel themselves almost offended at the expression of an
opposite opinion. And, perhaps, some of the objections against it
may be avoided. That founded on the expense and weight of the fuel
may not, for some years, exist on the Mississippi, where there is a
redundance of wood on the banks; but the cutting and loading will
be almost as great an evil.


Scientific men and amateurs all agreed in pronouncing Fulton's scheme
impracticable; but he went on with his work, his boat attracting no less
attention and exciting no less ridicule than the ark had received from
the scoffers in the days of Noah. The steam-engine ordered from Boulton
and Watt was received in the latter part of 1806; and in the following
spring the boat was launched from the ship-yard of Charles Brown, on the
East River. Fulton named her the "Clermont," after the country-seat of
his friend and partner, Chancellor Livingston. She was one hundred and
sixty tons burthen, one hundred and thirty feet long, eighteen feet
wide, and seven feet deep. Her engine was made with a single cylinder,
two feet in diameter, and of four feet stroke; and her boiler was twenty
feet long, seven feet deep, and eight feet broad. The diameter of the
paddle-wheels was fifteen feet, the boards four feet long, and dipping
two feet in the water. The boat was completed about the last of August,
and she was moved by her machinery from the East River into the Hudson,
and over to the Jersey shore. This trial, brief as it was, satisfied
Fulton of its success, and he announced that in a few days the steamer
would sail from New York for Albany. A few friends, including several
scientific men and mechanics, were invited to take passage in the boat,
to witness her performance; and they accepted the invitation with a
general conviction that they were to do but little more than witness
another failure.

Monday, September 10, 1807, came at length, and a vast crowd assembled
along the shore of the North River to witness the starting. As the hour
for sailing drew near, the crowd increased, and jokes were passed on all
sides at the expense of the inventor, who paid little attention to them,
however, but busied himself in making a final and close inspection of
the machinery. Says Fulton, "The morning I left New York, there were
not, perhaps, thirty persons in the city who believed that the boat
would ever move one mile per hour, or be of the least utility; and while
we were putting off from the wharf, which was crowded with spectators, I
heard a number of sarcastic remarks."

One o'clock, the hour for sailing, came, and expectation was at its
highest. The friends of the inventor were in a state of feverish anxiety
lest the enterprise should come to grief, and the scoffers on the wharf
were all ready to give vent to their shouts of derision. Precisely as
the hour struck, the moorings were thrown off, and the "Clermont" moved
slowly out into the stream. Volumes of smoke and sparks from her
furnaces, which were fed with pine wood, rushed forth from her chimney,
and her wheels, which were uncovered, scattered the spray far behind
her. The spectacle she presented as she moved out gradually from her
dock was certainly novel to the people of those days, and the crowd on
the wharf broke into shouts of ridicule. Soon, however, the jeers grew
silent, for it was seen that the steamer was by degrees increasing her
speed. In a little while she was fairly under weigh, and making a steady
progress up the stream at the rate of five miles per hour. The
incredulity of the spectators had been succeeded by astonishment, and
now this feeling gave way to undisguised delight, and cheer after cheer
went up from the vast throng. Many people followed the boat for some
distance up the river shore. In a little while, however, the boat was
observed to stop, and the enthusiasm of the people on the shore at once
subsided. The scoffers were again in their glory, and unhesitatingly
pronounced the boat a failure. Their chagrin may be imagined when, after
a short delay, the steamer once more proceeded on her way, and this time
even more rapidly than before. Fulton had discovered that the paddles
were too long, and took too deep a hold on the water, and had stopped
the boat for the purpose of shortening them.

Having remedied this defect, the "Clermont" continued her voyage during
the rest of the day and all night, without stopping, and at one o'clock
the next day ran alongside the landing at Clermont, the seat of
Chancellor Livingston. She lay there until nine the next morning, when
she continued her voyage toward Albany, reaching that city at five in
the afternoon, having made the entire distance between New York and
Albany (one hundred and fifty miles) in thirty-two hours of actual
running time, an average speed of nearly five miles per hour. On her
return trip, she reached New York in thirty hours running time--exactly
five miles per hour. Fulton states that during both trips he encountered
a head wind.

The river was at this time navigated entirely with sailing vessels, and
large numbers of these were encountered by the "Clermont" during her up
and down trips. The surprise and dismay excited among the crews of these
vessels by the appearance of the steamer was extreme. These simple
people, the majority of whom had heard nothing of Fulton's experiments,
beheld what they supposed to be a huge monster, vomiting fire and smoke
from its throat, lashing the water with its fins, and shaking the river
with its roar, approaching rapidly in the very face of both wind and
tide. Some threw themselves flat on the deck of their vessels, where
they remained in an agony of terror until the monster had passed, while
others took to their boats and made for the shore in dismay, leaving
their vessels to drift helplessly down the stream. Nor was this terror
confined to the sailors. The people dwelling along the shore crowded the
banks to gaze upon the steamer as she passed by. A former resident of
the neighborhood of Poughkeepsie thus describes the scene at that place,
which will serve as a specimen of the conduct of the people along the
entire river below Albany:

"It was in the early autumn of the year 1807 that a knot of villagers
was gathered on a high bluff just opposite Poughkeepsie, on the west
bank of the Hudson, attracted by the appearance of a strange,
dark-looking craft, which was slowly making its way up the river. Some
imagined it to be a sea-monster, while others did not hesitate to
express their belief that it was a sign of the approaching judgment
What seemed strange in the vessel was the substitution of lofty and
straight black smoke-pipes, rising from the deck, instead of the
gracefully tapered masts that commonly stood on the vessels navigating
the stream, and, in place of the spars and rigging, the curious play of
the working-beam and pistons, and the slow turning and splashing of the
huge and naked paddle-wheels, met the astonished gaze. The dense clouds
of smoke, as they rose wave upon wave, added still more to the
wonderment of the rustics.

"This strange-looking craft was the 'Clermont,' on her trial trip to
Albany; and of the little knot of villagers mentioned above, the writer,
then a boy in his eighth year, with his parents, formed a part. I well
remember the scene, one so well fitted to impress a lasting picture upon
the mind of a child accustomed to watch the vessels that passed up and
down the river.

"The forms of four persons were distinctly visible on the deck as she
passed the bluff--one of whom, doubtless, was Robert Fulton, who had on
board with him all the cherished hopes of years, the most precious cargo
the wonderful boat could carry.

"On her return trip, the curiosity she excited was scarcely less
intense. The whole country talked of nothing but the sea-monster,
belching forth fire and smoke. The fishermen became terrified, and rowed
homewards, and they saw nothing but destruction devastating their
fishing-grounds; while the wreaths of black vapor, and rushing noise of
the paddle-wheels, foaming with the stirred-up waters, produced great
excitement among the boatmen, which continued without abatement, until
the character of that curious boat, and the nature of the enterprise
which she was pioneering, had been understood."

The alarm of the sailors and dwellers on the river shore disappeared as
the character of the steamer became better known; but when it was found
that the "Clermont" was to run regularly between New York and Albany, as
a packet-boat, she became the object of the most intense hatred on the
part of the boatmen on the river, who feared that she would entirely
destroy their business. In many quarters Fulton and his invention were
denounced as baneful to society, and frequent attempts were made by
captains of sailing vessels to sink the "Clermont" by running into her.
She was several times damaged in this way, and the hostility of the
boatmen became so great that it was necessary for the Legislature of New
York to pass a law declaring combinations to destroy her, or willful
attempts to injure her, public offenses punishable by fine and
imprisonment.

It had been supposed that Fulton's object was to produce a steamer
capable of navigating the Mississippi River, and much surprise was
occasioned by the announcement that the "Clermont" was to be permanently
employed upon the Hudson. She continued to ply regularly between New
York and Albany until the close of navigation for that season, always
carrying a full complement of passengers, and more or less freight.
During the winter she was overhauled and enlarged, and her speed
improved. In the spring of 1808 she resumed her regular trips, and since
then steam navigation on the Hudson has not ceased for a single day,
except during the closing of the river by ice.

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