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TRUE STORIES OF GREAT AMERICANS
ROBERT FULTON
[Illustration]
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS
ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
[Illustration: ROBERT FULTON.
From a miniature owned by Mrs. R. Fulton Blight.]
ROBERT FULTON
BY
ALICE CRARY SUTCLIFFE
GREAT-GRANDDAUGHTER OF ROBERT FULTON
AUTHOR OF “ROBERT FULTON AND THE _CLERMONT_”
AND “THE HOMESTEAD OF A COLONIAL DAME”
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1925
_All rights reserved_
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
COPYRIGHT, 1915,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1915. Reprinted
August, 1925.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
PREFACE
On board the fine passenger boat, _Robert Fulton_, one of the several
queen steamers of the Hudson River Day Line, on a May morning when
the beauty of the incomparable river spread in calm perfection before
contented eyes, a great-granddaughter of Robert Fulton began to write,
for young readers, this story of the steamboat inventor’s life.
No “Hero of America” may lay more just claim to the title than Robert
Fulton, the fearless, persistent lad of Pennsylvania. His boyhood of
stern self-denial, his struggle for culture and advanced education, and
his constant industry place him in “the rank and file” of all students
who may read this book with the desire to learn his secret of success.
Fulton’s story reveals it. He solved problems locked from the knowledge
of man by a faithful use of the key of _hard work_. Born on a lonely
farm in the country, deprived in early childhood of his father’s loving
care, he earned his own living and carved his path to fame and fortune.
Therefore his progress is typical of possible similar achievements for
all young Americans who wish to render good service to their country and
to their fellow-men.
In writing the story of a man whose work for the world has won fame,
the seeker for historic fact must patiently piece together the threads
gathered from many sources to weave the fabric of connected truth.
For these facts concerning Robert Fulton’s life I have searched during a
period extending over several years. In presenting this volume I desire
to acknowledge my indebtedness to the several biographers who, during the
century since his death, have traced his eventful career: Cadwallader
D. Colden (1817); J. Franklin Reigart (1856); Thomas W. Knox (1886);
Robert H. Thurston (1891); Peyton F. Miller (1908); and, most valuable
because most recent and therefore most comprehensive, H. W. Dickinson
in “Robert Fulton, Engineer & Artist” (1913). Also am I indebted to the
Historical Societies of Chicago, New York, and Pennsylvania; the Library
of Congress; the Estate of Cornelia Livingston Crary; the Hon. Peter
T. Barlow; Messrs. Louis S. Clark, Newbold Edgar, Charles Henry Hart,
John Henry Livingston, Robert Fulton Ludlow, Mrs. Frank Semple, and
Mrs. George Montgomery, individual owners of the inventor’s original
manuscripts and letters shown at the Robert Fulton Relic Exhibit, during
the Hudson-Fulton Celebration of 1909, gathered jointly by the New York
Historical Society and the Colonial Dames of America, of which latter
organization the writer served as chairman of the Hudson-Fulton Committee.
From this vast mass of data is the present modest volume built,—a tale
retold for the boys and girls of America, whose lives, through the
inspiration of famous men and women, may in future years provide records
of equal worth for historians.
ALICE CRARY SUTCLIFFE.
NEW YORK CITY, November 7th, 1914.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
AN OLD-TIME FOURTH OF JULY 1
CHAPTER II
ROBERT FULTON’S BOYHOOD 10
CHAPTER III
PAINTING PORTRAITS AND MINIATURES 20
CHAPTER IV
THE GIFT OF A FARM 29
CHAPTER V
STUDYING ART IN ENGLAND 37
CHAPTER VI
FROM ART TO INVENTION 48
CHAPTER VII
ACHIEVEMENTS IN PARIS 62
CHAPTER VIII
BUILDING THE FIRST SUBMARINE 73
CHAPTER IX
BUILDING THE FIRST STEAMBOAT 84
CHAPTER X
IN HOLLAND AND ENGLAND 100
CHAPTER XI
EXPERIMENTS WITH A SUBMARINE 107
CHAPTER XII
SOME EARLY STEAMBOATS 121
CHAPTER XIII
BUILDING THE _CLERMONT_ 130
CHAPTER XIV
FIRST VOYAGE OF THE _CLERMONT_ 138
CHAPTER XV
STEAMBOATS AND SUBMARINES 155
CHAPTER XVI
FERRY-BOATS AND RIVER-BOATS 172
CHAPTER XVII
FULTON’S HOME AND FULTON’S HONORS 183
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ROBERT FULTON _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
ROBERT FULTON’S BIRTHPLACE 8
THE BUILDING FORMERLY OCCUPIED BY CALEB JOHNSON’S SCHOOL 34
THE WASHWOMAN; FULTON’S EARLIEST KNOWN DRAWING 54
THE FULTON MEDAL 134
THE WIFE AND TWO OF THE CHILDREN OF ROBERT FULTON 184
A child of Lancaster, upon this land
Here was he born by Conowingo’s shade;
Along these banks our youthful Fulton strayed
Dreaming of Art. Then Science touched his hand,
Leading him onward, when, beneath her wand,
Wonders appeared that never more shall fade:
He triumphed o’er the Winds and swiftly made
The giant, Steam, subservient to command.
How soft the sunlight lies upon the lea
Around his home, where boyhood days were sped!
These checkered shadows on the fading grass
Symbol his fortunes, as they fleeting pass:
“He did mankind a service,”—could there be
A tribute more ennobling to the dead!
LLOYD MIFFLIN.
ROBERT FULTON
CHAPTER I
AN OLD-TIME FOURTH OF JULY
American Independence was young in 1778,—only two years old. The
patriotism awakened by the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia was active as
this second anniversary of our nation’s birth approached, and sturdy
Pennsylvanians, glad of our country’s freedom from English rule, planned
a Fourth of July celebration.
In Lancaster, less than seventy miles from Philadelphia, the wise men
of the town council foresaw waste and tumult if the young patriots
carried out the programme they had arranged. Upon the first day of July
the Council discussed the matter and passed this resolution, which they
publicly posted:
“The Excessive Heat of the Weather, the Present Scarcity of
Candles, and Other Considerations, Induce the Council to
Recommend to the Inhabitants to Forbear Illuminating the City
on Saturday Evening Next, July 4th.
“By Order,
“TIMOTHY MATLACK, Secretary.”
We can imagine the disappointment of the Lancaster boys when they
read this notice. Angry groups around the sign-board evinced their
displeasure, and some of the bolder ones declared that they would light
their candles anyway!
But one conscientious thirteen-year-old boy tried to think of some
other method to show patriotism. As the town council forbade the use of
candles, he would not disobey their law; perhaps he could prepare a more
novel celebration in honor of the holiday.
He had some candles which he had saved for the event; now they were of no
use. He therefore took them to a brush-maker who kept powder and shot for
sale, and offered to trade them for gunpowder. The brush-maker, surprised
that the boy would part with his candles when they were so scarce, asked
his reason. The lad replied:
“Our rulers have asked the people not to illuminate their windows and
streets. All good citizens should obey law, so I have decided instead to
light the heavens with sky-rockets.”
The dealer, although amused, was glad to get the candles and promptly
gave gunpowder in exchange. Then the boy went to another store, where he
bought several large sheets of cardboard. The clerk was about to roll
the sheets for easy handling, but his customer protested:
“I wish to carry them as they are.”
The curiosity of this man also was aroused. He remembered that the lad
was said to be “always trying to invent something.” As he handed them
over he asked:
“What are you going to do with them?”
Eagerly the boy answered: “We are forbidden to light our windows with
candles. I’m going to shoot my candles through the air.”
“Tut! Tut!” exclaimed the man, laughingly. “That’s an impossibility.”
“No, sir,” the boy responded, with a flash of enthusiasm. “There is
nothing impossible.”
This is a true story, told by an old-time Lancaster historian. The
thirteen-year-old boy was Robert Fulton, who became the inventor of steam
navigation.
It is good to carry the story further in imagination. That group of
boys who gathered in the town during the twilight of Independence Day,
1778, saw a few spluttering rockets shoot skyward from the hand of a
lad determined to carry the good news of freedom to a higher horizon
than that of the home windows of Lancaster. A flash! A whirr! and the
light arose, zigzagged its message through the darkness, like fiery
handwriting in the sky, and then died away. But the fine courage and
courtesy of the boy who would not disobey a local law, although he felt a
national appeal to patriotic jubilee,—these tokens of character have not
faded. They prophesied the boy’s success in life. He foretold it in his
words, “Nothing is impossible.”
Robert Fulton’s father was one of three brothers, David, John, and
Robert. They were of Scotch origin, and came to America from Kilkenny,
Ireland, about 1730. Robert, the youngest, settled in Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, where in 1759 he married Miss Mary Smith, daughter of
Joseph Smith of Oxford Township, and bought for their first home a brick
dwelling on the northeast corner of Penn Square, in the center of the
town. In this house they lived until 1764. They took an active interest
in local affairs, for Robert Fulton belonged to every organization then
formed; to be sure, there were only three, for the town was small. He
was secretary of the Union Fire Company, a charter member of the Juliana
Library, and a founder of the Presbyterian Church.
It is pleasant to think of the young couple settling their new home on
Penn Square (where not many years before the Indians had a colony), near
a spring of clear water under a giant hickory tree. It was on this very
spot that the chieftains of “Hickory Tribe,” as they termed themselves,
met to confer with William Penn, the wise and kindly Quaker.
Governor Thomas Pownall visited Lancaster in 1754 and wrote that it was
“a pretty and considerable town, increasing fast and growing rich.” So we
can be certain that when Robert Fulton’s parents established a home of
their own on Penn Square, they felt they had a bright future before them.
Two little daughters, Elizabeth and Isabella, were born to Mr. and Mrs.
Fulton while they lived in this house and were among the first children
to be christened in the new church. Mr. Fulton had a strong voice and was
chosen to “lead the psalm” in the old Court House, where services were
held until the church could be built. He sang the opening words of each
division of the psalm and the congregation joined in unison for the later
words.
In 1763 Mr. Fulton signed the charter for the town library, the third
to be established in the American colonies. Thomas and William Penn,
Esquires of the Province, drafted the papers and named the library
“Juliana” after Thomas Penn’s wife. He was a son of the famous old
William Penn, who had conferred with the Hickory Indians, and for whom
the state of Pennsylvania had been named.
The new church, the Juliana Library, and the Union Fire Company, together
with his business, kept Robert Fulton well occupied, but they yielded
friendly comradeship and varied interests. In 1765 Mr. Fulton sold
his Lancaster home and moved his family to a farm of more than three
hundred acres on Conowingo Creek, in Little Britain Township, which
he had purchased the preceding November. It lay sixty-five miles from
Philadelphia, but not many from Lancaster, so they were not far from
their friends, though they had to give up active work in the town.
The plastered stone farm-house to which the Fulton family moved is still
standing by the country cross-roads. A wide sloping roof shelters the
two-story building and overhangs a porch at the eastern end. There the
ground slopes to the valley where the Conowingo Creek, a picturesque
stream, flows on its quiet way to join the Susquehanna River. It is
a place of great beauty and may well have proved attractive to early
settlers. The low-ceiled parlors remain as they were during Mr. and Mrs.
Fulton’s occupancy, and the upper bedrooms show broad window sills of
great age. The fireplace of the old-time kitchen also is unchanged, the
sturdy crane swinging in the sooty shadows where Mrs. Fulton hung her
kettle to boil, in those distant days of pioneer life. Joseph Swift, of
Philadelphia, wrote in after years that his grandmother “well remembered
in her youth the preparations which a visit to Aunt Fulton required in
the way of baking, boiling and roasting, and in getting ready the camp
equipage which the journey through the wilderness required. It was only
less formidable than a journey across the Atlantic.”
It was in this quiet farm-house[1] that Robert Fulton, the inventor, was
born on the 14th day of November, 1765. He was the first son and there
was great rejoicing at his birth. During the cold winter days he slept by
the open fireside while his mother attended to her household tasks and
cared for the little daughters,—Peggy and Belle, as they were called,—who
toddled about the baby brother’s cradle. When the springtime threw its
mantle of green over the fresh country-side, Robert laughed and grew
strong in the clear country air.
Possibly farming did not pay, for during the succeeding year Mr. and Mrs.
Fulton mortgaged the property to Joseph Swift and two others, arranging
payments to be made during five years. When Robert Fulton finally moved
his family back to Lancaster, Joseph Swift came to live in the house, now
pleasantly shaded by a tall button-wood tree. This tree is said to have
grown from a riding-whip which Joseph Swift’s daughter, Esther, stuck
into the ground one day as she dismounted from her favorite pony.
Although the Fulton family lived but a short time upon these farm lands,
it gave a sufficient reason for a change of name in the township, for
when Little Britain was resurveyed in 1844 the section containing the
farm was entitled “Fulton Township,” in honor of the baby boy who first
saw the light under that sloping roof, on the bleak November day in 1765.
In selecting land near Conowingo Creek, the elder Robert Fulton
realized—as his son came to realize in later years—the importance of
watercourses and turnpike advantages. He continued upon the farm till
1771, when it was advertised for sale as “the place where Robert Fulton
lives.” But he died early in the autumn of 1774, and his widow, with
scanty means, took up the task of rearing their five children, for a
daughter, Mary, and a second son, Abraham Smith Fulton, had been born
since 1765.
[Illustration: ROBERT FULTON’S BIRTHPLACE, LITTLE BRITAIN,
PENNSYLVANIA.]
Robert Fulton, the older son, was then nine years old, a bright, active
boy, eager for all sorts of fun. An uncle, his father’s brother, took him
to his home for a time, but Robert was unhappy away from his mother and
returned to her. He early learned to carve his fortune from the hard rock
of adversity.
[1] In 1909, a bronze tablet, commemorative of Fulton’s birth, presented
by the Lancaster County Historical Society, was unveiled at the entrance
door, by the writer.