INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS
After the purchase of Louisiana and the explorations of Lewis and Clark,
the number of settlers who went from the eastern part of the country to
find new homes in the West kept on increasing as it had been doing since
Boone, Robertson, and Sevier had pushed their way across the mountains
into Kentucky and Tennessee, twenty-five or thirty years earlier.
These pioneers, if they went westward by land, had to load their goods on
pack-horses and follow the Indian trail. Later the trail was widened into
a roadway, and wagons could be used. But travel by land was slow and, hard
under any conditions.
Going by water, while cheaper, was inconvenient, for the travellers must
use the flatboat, which was clumsy and slow and, worst of all, of little
use except when going down stream.
The great need both for travel and for trade, then, was a boat which would
not be dependent upon wind or current, but could be propelled by steam.
Many men had tried to work out such an invention. Among them was John
Rumsey, of Maryland, who built a steamboat in 1774, and John Fitch, of
Connecticut, who completed his first model of a steamboat in 1785.
In the next four years Fitch built three steamboats, the last of which
made regular trips on the Delaware River, between Philadelphia and
Burlington, during the summer of 1786. It was used as a passenger boat,
and it made a speed of eight miles an hour; but Fitch was not able to
secure enough aid from men of capital and influence to make his boats
permanently successful.
The first man to construct a steamboat which continued to give successful
service was Robert Fulton. Robert Fulton was born of poor parents in
Little Britain, Pennsylvania, in 1765, the year of the famous Stamp Act.
When the boy was only three years old his father died, and so Robert was
brought up by his mother. She taught him at home until he was eight, and
then sent him to school. Here he showed an unusual liking for drawing.
[Illustration: Robert Fulton.]
Outside of school hours his special delight was to visit the shops of
mechanics, who humored the boy and let him work out his clever ideas with
his own hands.
A story is told of how Robert came into school late one morning and gave
as his excuse that he had been at a shop beating a piece of lead into a
pencil. At the same time he took the pencil from his pocket, and showing
it to his teacher, said: "It is the best one I have ever used." Upon
carefully looking at the pencil, the schoolmaster was so well pleased that
he praised Robert's efforts, and in a short time nearly all the pupils
were using that kind of pencil.
[Illustration: Fulton's First Experiment with Paddle-Wheels.]
Another example of Robert's inventive gift belongs to his boyhood days. He
and one of his playmates from time to time went fishing in a flatboat,
which they propelled with long poles. It was hard work and slow, and
presently Robert thought out an easier way. He made two crude
paddle-wheels, attached one to each side of the boat, and connected them
with a sort of double crank. By turning this, the boys made the wheels
revolve, and these carried the boat through the water easily. We may be
sure that Robert's boat became very popular, and that turning the crank
was a privilege in which each boy eagerly took his turn.
While still young, Robert began to paint pictures also. By the time he was
seventeen he had become skilful in the use of his brush and went to
Philadelphia to devote his time to painting portraits and miniatures.
Being a tireless worker, he earned enough here to support himself and send
something to his mother.
At the age of twenty-one his interest in art led him to go to London,
where he studied for several years under Benjamin West. This famous master
took young Fulton into his household and was very friendly to him.
After leaving West's studio Fulton still remained in England, and although
continuing to paint he gave much thought also to the development of canal
systems. His love for invention was getting the better of his love for art
and was leading him on to the work which made him famous. He was about
thirty when he finally gave up painting altogether and turned his whole
attention to inventing.
He went from England to Paris, where he lived in the family of Joel
Barlow, an American poet and public man. Here he made successful
experiments with a diving boat which he had designed to carry cases of
gunpowder under water. This was one of the stages in the development of
our modern torpedo-boat.
Although this invention alone would give Fulton a place in history, it was
not one which would affect so many people as the later one, the steamboat,
with which his name is more often associated.
Even before he had begun to experiment with the torpedo-boat Fulton had
been deeply interested in steam navigation, and while in Paris he
constructed a steamboat. In this undertaking he was greatly aided by
Robert R. Livingston, American minister at the French court, who had
himself done some experimenting in that line. Livingston, therefore, was
glad to furnish the money which Fulton needed in order to build the boat.
It was finished by the spring of 1803. But just as they were getting ready
for a trial trip, early one morning the boat broke in two parts and sank
to the bottom of the River Seine. The frame had been too weak to support
the weight of the heavy machinery.
Having discovered just what was wrong in this first attempt, Fulton built
another steamboat soon after his return to America, in 1806. This boat was
one hundred and thirty feet long, eighteen feet wide, with mast and sail,
and had on each side a wheel fifteen feet across.
On the morning of the day in August, 1807, set for the trial of the
Clermont--as Fulton called his boat--an expectant throng of curious
onlookers gathered on the banks of the North, or Hudson, River, at New
York. Everybody was looking for failure. For though Fitch's boats had made
trips in the Delaware only some twenty years earlier, the fact did not
seem to be generally known. People had all along spoken of Fulton as a
half-crazy dreamer and had called his boat "Fulton's Folly." "Of course,
the thing will not move," said one scoffer. "That any man with common
sense well knows," another replied. And yet they all stood watching for
Fulton's signal to start the boat.
[Illustration: The "Clermont" in Duplicate at the Hudson-Fulton
Celebration, 1909.]
The signal is given. A slight tremor of motion and the boat is still.
"There! What did I say?" cried one. "I told you so!" exclaimed another. "I
knew the boat would not go," said yet another. But they spoke too soon,
for after a little delay the wheels of the Clermont began to revolve,
slowly and hesitatingly at first, but soon with more speed, and the boat
steamed proudly off up the Hudson.
As she moved forward, all along the river people who had come from far and
near stood watching the strange sight. When boatmen and sailors on the
Hudson heard the harsh clanking of machinery and saw the huge sparks and
dense black smoke rising out of her funnel, they thought that the Clermont
was a sea-monster. In fact, they were so frightened that some of them went
ashore, some jumped into the river to get away, and some fell on their
knees in fear, believing that their last day had come. It is said that one
old Dutchman exclaimed to his wife: "I have seen the devil coming up the
river on a raft!"
The men who were working the boat had no such foolish fears. They set
themselves to their task and made the trip from New York to Albany, a
distance of one hundred and fifty miles, in thirty-two hours. Success had
at last come to the quiet, modest, persevering Fulton. After this trial
trip the Clermont was used as a regular passenger boat between New York
and Albany.
The steamboat was Fulton's great gift to the world and his last work of
public interest. He died in 1815.
But the Clermont was only the beginning of steam-driven craft on the
rivers and lakes of our country. Four years afterward (1811), the first
steamboat west of the Alleghany Mountains began its route from Pittsburg
down the Ohio, and a few years later similar craft were in use on the
Great Lakes.
THE NATIONAL ROAD AND THE ERIE CANAL
But while steamboats made the rivers and lakes easy routes for travel and
traffic, something was needed to make journeys by land less difficult. To
meet this need, new highways had to be supplied, and this great work of
building public roads was taken up by the United States Government. Many
roads were built, but the most important was the one known as the National
Road.
[Illustration: _From the painting by C.Y. Turner in the DeWitt Clinton
High School, New York._
The Opening of the Erie Canal in 1825.]
It ran from Cumberland, on the Potomac, through Maryland and Pennsylvania
to Wheeling, West Virginia, on the Ohio River. From there it was extended
to Indiana and Illinois, ending at Vandalia, which at that time was the
capital of Illinois. It was seven hundred miles long, and cost seven
million dollars.
This smooth and solid roadway was eighty feet wide; it was paved with
stone and covered with gravel. Transportation became not only much easier
but also much cheaper. The road filled a long-felt need and a flood of
travel and traffic immediately swept over it.
[Illustration: _From the painting by C.Y. Turner in the DeWitt Clinton
High School, New York._
The Ceremony Called "The Marriage of the Waters."]
Another kind of highway which proved to be of untold value to both the
East and the West, was the canal, or artificial waterway connecting two
bodies of water.
The most important was the Erie Canal, connecting the Hudson River and
Lake Erie, begun in 1817. This new idea received the same scornful
attention from the unthinking as "Fulton's Folly." By many it was called
"Clinton's Ditch," after Governor DeWitt Clinton, to whose foresight we
are indebted for the building of this much-used waterway. The scoffers
shook their heads and said: "Clinton will bankrupt the State"; "The canal
is a great extravagance"; and so on.
But he did not stop because of criticism, and in 1825 the canal was
finished. The undertaking had been pushed through in eight years. It was a
great triumph for Clinton and a proud day for the State.
When the work was completed the news was signalled from Buffalo to New
York in a novel way. As you know, there was neither telephone nor
telegraph then. But at intervals of five miles all along the route cannon
were stationed. When the report from the first cannon was heard, the
second was fired, and thus the news went booming eastward till, in an hour
and a half, it reached New York.
Clinton himself journeyed to New York in the canal-boat Seneca Chief. This
was drawn by four gray horses, which went along the tow-path beside the
canal. As the boat passed quietly along, people thronged the banks to do
honor to the occasion.
When the Seneca Chief reached New York City, Governor Clinton, standing on
deck, lifted a gilded keg filled with water from Lake Erie and poured it
into the harbor. As he did so, he prayed that "the God of the heaven and
the earth" would smile upon the work just completed and make it useful to
the human race. Thus was dedicated this great waterway, whose usefulness
has more than fulfilled the hope of its chief promoter.
[Illustration: Erie Canal on the Right and Aqueduct over the Mohawk River,
New York.]
Trade between the East and the West began to grow rapidly. Vast quantities
of manufactured goods were moved easily from the East to the West, and
supplies of food were shipped in the opposite direction. Prices began to
fall because the cost of carrying goods was so much less. It cost ten
dollars before the canal was dug to carry a barrel of flour from Buffalo
to Albany; now it costs thirty cents.
The region through which the canal ran was at that time mostly wilderness,
and for some years packets carrying passengers as well as freight were
drawn through the canal by horses travelling the tow-path along the bank.
When travelling was so easy and safe, the number of people moving westward
to this region grew larger rapidly. Land was in demand and became more
valuable. Farm products sold at higher prices. Villages sprang up,
factories were built, and the older towns grew rapidly in size. The great
cities of New York State--and this is especially true of New York
City--owe much of their growth to the Erie Canal.
THE RAILROAD
The steamboat, the national highways, and the canals were all great aids
to men in travel and in carrying goods. The next great improvement was the
use of steam-power to transport people and goods overland. It was brought
about by the railroad and the locomotive.
[Illustration: "Tom Thumb," Peter Cooper's Locomotive Working Model. First
Used Near Baltimore in 1830.]
In this country, the first laying of rails to make a level surface for
wheels to roll upon was at Quincy, Massachusetts. This railroad was three
miles long, extending from the quarry to the seacoast. The cars were drawn
by horses.
Our first passenger railroad was begun in 1828. It was called the
Baltimore and Ohio and was the beginning of the railroad as we know it
to-day. But those early roads would seem very strange now. The rails were
of wood, covered with a thin strip of iron to protect the wood from wear.
Even as late as the Civil War rails of this kind were in use in some
places. The first cross-ties were of stone instead of wood, and the
locomotives and cars of early days were very crude.
[Illustration: From an Old Time-table (furnished by the "A B C Pathfinder
Railway Guide"). Railroad Poster of 1843.]
In 1833, people who were coming from the West to attend President
Jackson's second inauguration travelled part of the way by railroad. They
came over the National Road as far as Frederick, Maryland, and there left
it to enter a train of six cars, each accommodating sixteen persons. The
train was drawn by horses. In this manner they continued their journey to
Baltimore.
In the autumn of that year a railroad was opened between New York and
Philadelphia. At first horses were used to draw the train, but by the end
of the year locomotives, which ran at the rate of fifteen miles an hour,
were introduced. This was a tremendous stride in the progress of railroad
traffic.
[Illustration: Comparison of "DeWitt Clinton" Locomotive and Train, the
First Train Operated in New York, with a Modern Locomotive of the New York
Central R.R.]
To be sure, the locomotives were small, but two or more started off
together, each drawing its own little train of cars. Behind the locomotive
was a car which was a mere platform with a row of benches, seating perhaps
forty passengers, inside of an open railing. Then followed four or five
cars looking very much like stage-coaches, each having three compartments,
with doors on each side. The last car was a high, open-railed van, in
which the baggage of the whole train was heaped up and covered with
oilcloth. How strange a train of this sort would look beside one of our
modern express-trains, with its huge engine, and its sleeping, dining, and
parlor cars!
You will be surprised that any objection was raised to the railroad. Its
earliest use had been in England, and when there was talk of introducing
it in this country some people said: "If those who now travel by stage
take the railroad coaches, then stage-drivers will be thrown out of work!"
Little could they foresee what a huge army of men would find work on the
modern railroad.
In spite of all obstacles and objections, the railroads, once begun, grew
rapidly in favor. In 1833 there were scarcely three hundred and eighty
miles of railroad in the United States; now there are more than two
hundred and forty thousand miles.
MORSE AND THE TELEGRAPH
The next stride which Progress made seemed even more wonderful. Having
contrived an easier and a quicker way to move men and their belongings
from one place to another, what should she do but whisper in the ear of a
thinking man: "You can make thought travel many times faster." The man
whose inventive genius made it possible for men to flash their thoughts
thousands of miles in a few seconds of time was Samuel Finley Breese
Morse.
He was born in 1791, in Charlestown, Massachusetts. His father was a
learned minister, who "was always thinking, always writing, always
talking, always acting"; and his mother was a woman of noble character,
who inspired her son with lofty purpose.
When he was seven he went to Andover, Massachusetts, to school, and still
later entered Phillips Academy in the same town. At fourteen he entered
Yale College, where from the first he was a good, faithful student.
[Illustration: S.F.B. Morse.]
As his father was poor, Finley had to help himself along, and was able to
do it by painting, on ivory, likenesses of his classmates and professors,
for which he received from one dollar to five dollars each. In this way he
made considerable money.
At the end of his college course he made painting his chosen profession
and went to London, where he studied four years under Benjamin West.
Though for some years he divided his time and effort between painting and
invention, he at last decided to devote himself wholly to invention. This
change in his life-work was the outcome of an incident which took place on
a second voyage home from Europe, where he had been spending another
period in study.
On the ocean steamer the conversation at dinner one day was about some
experiments with electricity. One of the men present said that so far as
had been learned from experiment electricity passes through any length of
wire in a second of time.
"Then," said Morse, "thought can be transmitted hundreds of miles in a
moment by means of electricity; for, if electricity will go ten miles
without stopping, I can make it go around the globe."
[Illustration: The First Telegraph Instrument.]
When once he began to think about this great possibility, the thought held
him in its grip. In fact, it shut out all others. Through busy days and
sleepless nights he turned it over and over. And often, while engaged in
other duties, he would snatch his notebook from his pocket in order to
outline the new instrument he had in mind and jot down the signs he would
use in sending messages.
It was not long before he had worked out on paper the whole scheme of
transmitting thought over long distances by means of electricity.
And now began twelve toilsome years of struggle to plan and work out
machinery for his invention. All these years he had to earn money for the
support of his three motherless children. So he gave up to painting much
time that he would otherwise have spent upon his invention. His progress,
therefore, was slow and painful, but he pressed forward. He was not the
kind of man to give up.
In a room on the fifth floor of a building in New York City he toiled at
his experiments day and night, with little food, and that of the simplest
kind. Indeed so meagre was his fare, mainly crackers and tea, that he
bought provisions at night in order to keep his friends from finding out
how great his need was.
[Illustration: Modern Telegraph Office.]
During this time of hardship all that kept starvation from his door was
lessons in painting to a few pupils. On a certain occasion Morse said to
one of them, who owed him for a few months' teaching: "Well, Strothers, my
boy, how are we off for money?"
"Professor," said the young fellow, "I am sorry to say I have been
disappointed, but I expect the money next week."
"Next week!" cried his needy teacher; "I shall be dead by next week."
"Dead, sir?" was the shocked response of Strothers.
"Yes, dead by starvation!" was the emphatic answer.
"Would ten dollars be of any service?" asked the pupil, now seeing that
the situation was serious.
"Ten dollars would save my life," was the reply of the poor man, who had
been without food for twenty-four hours. You may be sure that Strothers
promptly handed him the money.
But in spite of heavy trials and many discouragements, he had by 1837
finished a machine which he exhibited in New York, although he did not
secure a patent until 1840.
[Illustration: The Operation of the Modern Railroad is Dependent upon the
Telegraph.]
Then followed a tedious effort to induce the government at Washington to
vote money for his great enterprise. Finally, after much delay, the House
of Representatives passed a bill "appropriating thirty thousand dollars
for a trial of the telegraph."
As you may know, a bill cannot become a law unless the Senate also passes
it. But the Senate did not seem friendly to this one. Many believed that
the whole idea of the telegraph was rank folly. They thought of Morse and
the telegraph very much as people had thought of Fulton and the steamboat,
and made fun of him as a crazy-brained fellow.
Up to the evening of the last day of the session the bill had not been
taken up by the Senate. Morse sat anxiously waiting in the Senate Chamber
until nearly midnight, when, believing there was no longer any hope, he
left the room and went home with a heavy heart.
Imagine his surprise the next morning, when a young woman, Miss Ellsworth,
congratulated him at breakfast upon the passage of his bill. At first he
could scarcely believe the good news, but when he found that she was
telling him the truth his joy was unbounded, and he promised her that she
should choose the first message.
By the next year (1844) a telegraph-line, extending from Baltimore to
Washington, was ready for use. On the day appointed for trial Morse met a
party of friends in the chambers of the Supreme Court at the Washington
end of the line and, sitting at the instrument which he had himself placed
for trial, the happy inventor sent the message selected by Miss Ellsworth:
"What hath God wrought!"
The telegraph was a great and brilliant achievement, and brought to its
inventor well-earned fame. Now that success had come, honors were showered
upon him by many countries. At the suggestion of the French Emperor,
representatives from many countries in Europe met in Paris to decide upon
some suitable testimonial to Morse as one who had done so much for the
world. These delegates voted him a sum amounting to eighty thousand
dollars as a token of appreciation for his great invention.
In 1872 this noble inventor, at the ripe age of eighty-one, breathed his
last. The grief of the people all over the land was strong proof of the
place he held in the hearts of his countrymen.
SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT
1. Tell all you can about John Fitch's steamboats.
2. Give examples which indicate young Fulton's inventive gifts. Imagine
yourself on the banks of the North River on the day set for the trial of
the Clermont, and tell what happened.
3. What and where was the National Road?
4. In what ways was the Erie Canal useful to the people?
5. Describe the first railroads and the first trains.
6. Tell what you can about Morse's twelve toilsome years of struggle while
he was working out his great invention. How is the telegraph useful to
men?
7. What do you admire about Morse?
8. Are you making frequent use of your map?