[Sidenote: =How boats were driven=]
=128. The Invention of the Steamboat.= Once there were no steam engines
to drive boats. On sea and river they were driven by wind, and on
canals they were pulled along by horses.
[Sidenote: =Inventors before Fulton=]
James Rumsey on the Potomac, John Fitch on the Delaware, and William
Longstreet on the Savannah had each invented and tried some kind of
steamboat, before Robert Fulton.
Fulton was born of Irish parents, in New Britain, Pennsylvania, in
1765. At the age of three he lost his father. Young Fulton had a great
taste for drawing, painting, and inventing.
He went to Philadelphia, then the largest city in the Union, when he
was twenty, and engaged in painting and drawing. His first savings were
given to his widowed mother to make her comfortable.
[Sidenote: =Studied under Benjamin West=]
Fulton finally decided to be an artist, and went to England to make his
home with Benjamin West, a great painter who once lived at Philadelphia.
[Illustration: ROBERT FULTON
_After the painting by Benjamin West_]
[Sidenote: =Influenced to become an engineer=]
There he became acquainted with the Duke of Bridgewater, who influenced
him to become a civil engineer. Fulton now met James Watt, who had
greatly improved the steam engine. At one time the young man aided Watt
in building an engine.
[Sidenote: =Meets Livingston in France=]
Fulton next went to France, where he became interested in plans for
inventing diving boats, torpedoes, and steamboats. Here he met Robert
R. Livingston, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, then United
States Minister to France. Livingston took a deep interest in his
experiments in driving boats by steam, and furnished him the means to
make them.
[Sidenote: =Fulton's trial boats=]
Fulton made a "model" boat, which he left in France. Shortly afterward,
he built a boat twenty-six feet long and eight feet wide. In this
vessel he put a steam engine. The trial trips proved beyond a doubt
that steamboats could be made.
[Sidenote: =Twenty years' rights=]
Livingston believed in Fulton and his steamboat. When he returned
to New York, Livingston obtained from the legislature the right to
navigate the waters of the state by steam for twenty years. The one
condition was that the boat should go against the current of the Hudson
at the rate of four miles an hour.
[Sidenote: =Gets engine in England=]
[Sidenote: =The "Clermont"=]
Fulton got his engine from the inventors, Watt and Boulton, in
England--the only place where suitable engines could be found. The
engine came in 1806. A boat called the _Clermont_ was built to carry
it. She was one hundred thirty feet long and eighteen feet wide. She
had a mast with a sail. At both ends she was decked over, and in the
middle the engine was placed. Two large side-wheels dipped two feet
into the water.
[Illustration: SCENE ON A CANAL]
=129. The "Clermont" Moves.= At one o'clock in the afternoon of
August 7, 1807, a great crowd gathered to see the first voyage of the
_Clermont_. Many people did not expect to see the vessel go. They
believed Fulton and Livingston had spent their money for nothing.
Fulton gave his signal from the deck of the _Clermont_. The people
looked on in astonishment as the boat moved steadily up the pathway of
the Hudson.
[Sidenote: =A great victory for Fulton and Livingston=]
The _Clermont_ kept on going till out of sight, and the crowds of
wondering people went home hardly believing the evidence of their eyes.
Up the river, against the current of the mighty Hudson, she made her
way till Albany was reached. She had gone one hundred fifty miles in
thirty-two hours, and won a great victory for Fulton and Livingston.
[Sidenote: =Name of boat changed to "North River"=]
When winter came the _Clermont_ was taken out of the water and rebuilt.
They covered her from stem to stern with a deck. Under the deck they
built two cabins, with a double row of berths. Everything was done to
make her attractive in the eyes of the people. They changed her name to
the _North River_. In the spring she made her trips regularly up and
down the Hudson.
[Illustration: THE "CLERMONT"]
[Sidenote: =Steamboats appear on different rivers=]
=130. Steamboats on All the Rivers.= In 1809 a steamboat was built on
Lake Champlain, another on the Raritan, and a third on the Delaware.
From this time forward, steamboats, carrying passengers and freight
from place to place, began to appear on all the great rivers in the
settled portions of the United States.
[Sidenote: =People along the Ohio frightened=]
In 1811 a steamboat was built on the Ohio River at Pittsburgh. It
started on its trip down the beautiful Ohio. People gathered on the
banks of the river to see it go by. The steamboat, at first, made a
frightful noise. Hence when it came to places where news traveled
slowly, the people were sometimes frightened, and the negroes, terror
stricken, ran crying into the woods.
[Illustration: WATCHING THE "CLERMONT" ON ITS FIRST VOYAGE UP THE
HUDSON]
[Sidenote: =A steamboat helped Jackson=]
In 1814 a steamboat carried supplies to General Jackson at New Orleans,
and helped him to win the great battle fought there.
Seven steamboats were running on the Ohio and the Mississippi at the
close of the War of 1812. Before another year went by, a steamboat had
made its way from New Orleans against the currents of the Mississippi
and the Ohio rivers to Louisville, laden with goods from Europe.
The steamboat had now won a place on the American rivers. It aided in
the rapid settlement of the country. It made travel quick and easy, and
it carried the goods of settlers up and down the rivers.
[Sidenote: =Robert Fulton dies, 1815=]
Robert Fulton died in 1815, deeply mourned by all his countrymen, and
was buried in Trinity churchyard, New York City.
[Sidenote: =Steamboats carry goods up the Mississippi=]
[Sidenote: =Erie Canal across New York=]
=131. The Erie Canal.= Before Fulton invented the steamboat, supplies
had been carried to the western settlers over the mountains from the
East. Now, however, steamboats puffed up the Mississippi from New
Orleans loaded down with goods that had been brought all the way from
Europe. The settlers could get all the supplies they wanted and at a
much lower cost. For this reason the merchants of New York and the
East were in danger of losing all their trade with the settlers. They
saw that they must have some connection with the West by water, and so
they planned the Erie Canal. It took seven years to dig. When it was
finished it was three hundred sixty-three miles long, forty feet wide,
and four feet deep. The depth was later increased to seven feet. It
stretched straight across the state of New York from Lake Erie to the
Hudson River.
In the autumn of 1825, when the canal was finished, there was a great
celebration. A "fleet" of canal boats carried Governor Clinton of New
York and a number of other distinguished men across the state.
[Sidenote: =New York recovered her trade=]
The merchants of the East were no longer afraid of the Mississippi
route, for they had a route of their own. The canal became the great
highway of commerce from the East to the West and from the West to the
East. New York recovered her trade, and flourishing cities grew up
along the canal.
But there were cities in the East that could not use the canal. Farther
south they could not dig a canal across the mountains. All their goods
had to be carried over the Cumberland Gap on the backs of horses. But a
new means of travel and transportation had been invented, which was to
far surpass the steamboat and which was to help every city no matter
where located.
[Sidenote: =The first railroad=]
=132. Railroad Building.= The first railroad in America was a very rude
affair. There were no "palace cars" or steel rails, nor did the trains
run at a speed of sixty miles an hour. Instead, cars that looked like
huge wagons ran on wooden rails and were dragged along by horses.
[Sidenote: =Stephenson's "Puffing Billy"=]
But George Stephenson had thought out a plan for a machine that would
pull the cars along by steam. He called his engine "Puffing Billy." He
kept at work always improving it. In 1825, after eleven years of hard
work, he made an engine that could pull both passengers and freight.
[Sidenote: =The first long railroad=]
In 1828 the first long railroad in America was started. A great
ceremony took place. It was a very solemn occasion. Charles Carroll,
the only living signer of the Declaration of Independence, drove the
first spade into the ground where the first rail was to be laid. As he
did so he said, "I consider this among the most important acts of my
life, second only to that of signing the Declaration of Independence."
This railroad was the famous Baltimore & Ohio.
Inventors continued to improve the locomotive. In 1831 an American
company built one which ran at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. At
that time that was considered a very rapid rate.
[Sidenote: =By rail from Boston to Buffalo=]
Since then railroad building and transportation have improved
wonderfully. By 1842 one could travel by rail from Boston to Buffalo.
But it was not until ten years later that Chicago was connected by rail
with the East.
[Sidenote: =To the Pacific coast=]
Gradually the railroads spread a network over the country. In 1857 St.
Louis and Chicago were connected. A railroad to the Pacific coast was
much needed, and Congress voted an appropriation of $50,000,000 for the
work. By 1869 the great work was completed. Other lines to the coast
were started, and to-day many railroads cross the mountains, connecting
the Pacific with the North, South, and Atlantic regions.