STEAMBOATS.
The idea of payment for transportation is very old. Thousands of years
ago we read of vessels sailing upon the Mediterranean Sea prepared
to transport persons or freight for sums of money. Where this idea
originated is not known, but it may have occurred to a savage for the
first time in some such way as the following:
A hunter lived on the banks of a river in Asia. One day he shot a duck
which fell to the ground on the opposite shore. The hunter needed the
bird, for he was hungry, but how was he to obtain it? The river was
very deep at this point, and he could not swim. He knew that there
was a shallow place five miles up the stream, where he might ford the
river, and another ford five miles below. But to cross by either of
these would require a journey of ten miles to the bird and ten miles
back, just to get across a narrow river. He remembered that a big log
lay upon a sand-bar in the river not far from where he was. He took
a pole, pried off the log and rolled it into the water. Then seating
himself on it he poled himself across, obtained the duck, and soon
reached his home again. Here was the first water travel.
A few days later he heard a cry from over the river. Looking up, he
saw a man who desired to cross. The stranger called to him to get his
log and take him over, as he had carried himself. The hunter saw that
the stranger had a deer on his shoulder. He was hungry, and therefore
called out: "Give me the hind leg and half the loin of your deer for my
labor, and I will bring you safely over." The stranger promptly agreed,
and the hunter poled across the river. In some such way doubtless was
the first payment made for transportation, and the idea soon became
common that it was just and proper to charge a fare for carrying
freight and passengers.
What powers have we found used in transportation up to a hundred years
ago? First there was human power, either walking or plying oars or
paddles. This energy is limited; walking is necessarily a slow process,
and rowing is seldom a rapid mode of travel. Then came horse power,
used first to carry travelers or goods and later to draw carriages and
wagons, conveying passengers and freight. Horse power is superior to
human power both in speed and in endurance, but it also has its limits
and often fails at important times.
Then use was made of the wind, which, blowing against stretches of
canvas, propelled vessels. Here was no human power to become wearied;
no horse power to fail at the wrong time. Vessels need not stop at
night in order to sleep, nor even at noon in order to take dinner. But
the wind is fickle; it does not always blow; it frequently blows from
the wrong direction; it often blows too much. Human power, horse power,
wind power, each was insufficient or unsatisfactory, and the time was
ripe for some power stronger and less fickle to produce more rapid
transportation.
When the necessity of a new power became great, the needed energy and
a way to use it were soon found. Near the close of the eighteenth
century a number of men, unacquainted with each other's ideas, began
to experiment with steam as a means for propelling vessels. Why had
they not begun earlier? For two reasons. The demand for quicker
water travel had but just commenced, and the fact that steam could
practically be used as a motive power was only beginning to be
understood.
It so happened that James Watt's steam engine was perfected just as
the treaty of peace with Great Britain acknowledged the independence
of the United States. Now American inventors were able to make use of
the steam engine to aid travel and transportation. At once they began
work. Samuel Morey built a steamboat on the upper Connecticut River;
James Rumsey experimented on the Potomac; John Fitch on the Delaware,
and William Longstreet on the Savannah; Oliver Evans was at work in
Philadelphia, and John Stevens on the Hudson.
[Illustration: FITCH'S STEAMBOAT.]
One of these boats used the steam engine to move oars; another pumped
water in at the bow and forced it out again at the stern; a third had a
wheel in the stern; and a fourth had a paddle wheel on each side. Some
of the vessels used upright, and some horizontal engines. Most of these
inventors succeeded in running their boats against the tide or the
current of rivers, and proved that steam could be thus used. Each may
be said to have invented a steamboat. But these men were all without
means; they did not succeed in awakening the interest of wealthy men;
and the public cared little about such inventions. Therefore each
of these steamboats was given up in turn and soon forgotten; the
eighteenth century passed away, and no practical result had appeared.
It is natural to have more interest in the account of an invention
which proved of practical value than in the stories of even successful
attempts which were given up almost as soon as made.
Robert Fulton was born in Pennsylvania just as Watt began his study of
the steam engine. Almost as soon as Watt had completed his improvements
on the engine, Fulton came of age, and went to England to study
painting with Benjamin West, the famous American artist. In the midst
of his art studies he became interested in mechanical pursuits. He
attracted the attention of some English scientists, and, by their
encouragement, he abandoned painting and devoted himself to inventing.
But who knows how much assistance his skill in drawing may have been to
him in his preparations of plans and models?
Joel Barlow, a noted American poet, was then living in France, and upon
his invitation Fulton spent several years in his home in Paris. Here
he devoted his time to boats, as he had already done in London. His
schemes were of various kinds. He planned diving boats, steamboats, and
canal boats, and was particularly interested in a boat which he called
a marine torpedo. This boat he planned to be used to injure vessels
in naval warfare. For a time he neglected the steamboat, and bent
every energy to persuade the French Government to adopt the torpedo.
Afterward he urged his marine boats upon the English and American
governments, but in vain. He did not realize the enormously greater
future value of the steamboat.
In time, however, Fulton finished his plans, and a steamboat was
built for him upon the river Seine. The next step was to enlist the
coöperation of some one with power and means by proving that the
invention was valuable. Fulton accordingly sought to bring the boat
to the attention of the French Emperor. He succeeded in awakening
Napoleon's interest. It was just at the time that the emperor was
planning to take his great army across the Channel to attack England.
He saw that steamboats, if of practical value, would be serviceable to
him in these plans. Accordingly he directed a scientific committee to
attend a public trial of the boat.
A day was set for the examination. Fulton had worked steadily for
weeks, seeking to make every part as perfect as possible. The night
before the appointed day, Fulton retired for rest, but sleep would
not come to his eyes. His thoughts were so completely fixed upon his
invention and what the next day meant to him that he could not control
them. Not until morning began to dawn did he catch a nap, and then only
to be immediately awakened by a knock at his door.
A messenger had come to tell him that his boat was at the bottom of
the river. The iron machinery had proved too heavy for the little
sixteen-foot boat, and had broken through. Fulton's hopes were at an
end. Before he could build another boat and make another engine the
opportunity would be past. His disappointment was intense. However, he
did not despair, but was soon ready to try again.
Doubtless the failure was a blessing in disguise. The boat was probably
too small to make a successful trip. The next time he would have a
larger vessel. Instead of again trying to arouse French interest, he
decided to make the next experiment at home.
Robert R. Livingston, our minister to France, who together with James
Monroe purchased for the United States the great province of Louisiana,
had long been interested in the possibilities of steam navigation. He
entered into Fulton's plans and assisted him in every way. Soon after
the disaster on the Seine both men returned to America, and the next
six months were spent in building a boat and in putting into it a steam
engine which they had especially ordered in Birmingham, England. A
grant had been obtained from the New York legislature which gave them
the exclusive right to run steam vessels on any of the waters of the
State.
The new boat was a hundred and thirty feet in length, or eight times
as long as that lost in the Seine. It was called the _Clermont_, after
the country home of Livingston. It was a side-paddle steamboat, with
wheels fifteen feet in diameter and four feet wide. The trial trip was
announced for August 7th, 1807, and at one o'clock in the afternoon the
_Clermont_ stood at the wharf in New York ready for the journey.
Was the trial to succeed or fail? To succeed, the _Clermont_ must steam
up the Hudson River at a speed of, at least, four miles an hour. The
trip proposed was from New York to Albany, a distance of one hundred
and fifty miles, and return. This trip was regularly made by sailing
packets, and the average time was four days. Could the _Clermont_ reach
Albany in thirty-seven hours, or a day and a half? Unfortunately, a
north wind was blowing, which would greatly decrease the speed.
Fulton and Livingston were confident that it could be done. The
steamboat left the wharf and slowly sailed up the river. Soon the
faults natural to a new invention began to show themselves. The rudder
did not work as it ought; the wheels were unprotected by a covering;
the vessel sank too far in the water. But the trial, in spite of all
the odds against it, was successful. The one hundred and fifty miles
were made in thirty-two hours, with five hours to spare from the limit
set. If we subtract the time spent in stops, but twenty-eight and a
half hours were used, making an average of more than five miles an hour.
The first long steamboat trip had been accomplished. The indifference
of the public at once changed to enthusiasm. Fulton was immediately
urged to make regular trips, and, although the _Clermont_ needed many
improvements, he consented. The next winter, however, the boat was
removed from the river for repairs; but in the spring regular trips
were resumed, and the steamboat became a new and permanent means of
transportation.
There was abundant opportunity to improve the steamboat and develop its
use. At first Fulton's _Clermont_ alone steamed up and down the Hudson
River. Soon, however, other steamboats were built to run in opposition
to the sailing packets. Steamers began to ply on Lake Champlain and
on the Delaware River. Three years after the first voyage of the
_Clermont_, a steamboat was making three trips a week from New York to
New Brunswick, New Jersey; here the traveler took stage for Bordentown
on the Delaware River, whence another boat carried him to Philadelphia.
Two years later steam ferryboats ran between New York and the Jersey
shore.
The first river steamboat was launched at Pittsburg, and was sent
down the Ohio and the Mississippi to New Orleans in 1811. Three years
later the _Ætna_ steamed from Pittsburg to New Orleans, and back to
Louisville. The same year a steamboat was built on the Lakes to
run from Buffalo to Detroit, and a company was organized to start a
steamship line from New York to Charleston. Five years afterward the
steamship _Savannah_, using both steam and sails, crossed the Atlantic
Ocean. She made but slow time, and the great space required to hold the
fuel left little room for freight. Year by year, however, improvements
were made on the vessels and quicker time was the result. Finally,
anthracite coal came into general use, and thirty years after the trial
trip of the _Clermont_, the steamers _Sirius_ and the _Great Western_
began regular trips between Liverpool and New York. The day of steam
navigation had come, and from that time on the vexatious delays due to
fickle winds no longer need be a cause of trouble.