ROBERT FULTON’S BOYHOOD
So many anecdotes have been told about Robert Fulton’s boyhood that
they will fill a whole chapter. It is an inspiration to boys and girls,
who dream of fame through splendid future action, to realize that a
hero usually begins life by a normal childhood, striving to do well the
trivial tasks. Daily duties well done form character, and only character
creates worth.
Robert Fulton studied at home, under his parents’ teaching, until he was
eight years old. By this time the family had returned to Lancaster, and
Robert was considered old enough to attend the school kept by one Caleb
Johnson, a Quaker.
He had learned to read and write and was eager for school. We can fancy
the scene of his entrance to the class-room, his dark eyes bright with
excitement, his curls brushed to parted order, as he encountered for the
first time the austere schoolmaster, an impressive personage in that
day. He was guarded on either side by his fond elder sisters, Peggy
and Belle, but their care could not protect him later from the tutoring
birch, when Caleb Johnson discovered, as he thought, that Robert was “a
dull boy.” The younger sister, Mary,—or Polly, as she was called,—and the
baby brother, Abraham, were at home eager to hear Robert’s description of
school life.
But after all, Robert seems not to have cared very greatly for his books.
His delight lay in visiting the machine-shops of the town, where he spent
all his spare time in trying to make things he needed or wanted. One
day he explained his late arrival at school by saying that he had been
at Nicholas Miller’s shop making a lead-pencil—“the best I ever had,”
he declared. He had pounded out the lead and fitted it so neatly into
a wooden case that Caleb Johnson admitted it was indeed an excellent
pencil. Within a few days,—so eager are children to follow a leader,—all
the boys had made for themselves, with more or less success, pencils like
Robert’s.
Sometimes his plans for making things so filled his thoughts that he
dreamed over his books and was unprepared for recitation; then Caleb
Johnson, after the stern fashion of those days, called him to the desk
and bade him hold forth his hand for a whipping by the ferule. Once, when
the teacher thought him particularly idle, he struck Robert sharply over
the knuckles, saying, “There, that will make you do something!” The boy,
roused by a sense of injustice, replied with politeness yet with reproof:
“Sir, I came here to have something beaten into my brains, and not into
my knuckles.” With head held high and arms folded, he walked back to his
place, seeming even to Caleb Johnson, at the time, “a strange boy.” When
Robert’s mother called at the school to talk over her son’s progress—for
she was worried at his giving so little attention to his books—the master
replied,
“Robert says his head is so full of original ideas that there is no room
in his brain to store away the contents of dusty books.”
He was beginning to consider life’s problems and he dared to try to solve
them by ways of his own. He was never really idle, for two absorbing
interests claimed attention,—the study of machinery and the study of art.
For it was not very long before that lead-pencil, pounded with such care
at Nicholas Miller’s store, began to reveal Robert’s talent for drawing.
He sketched parts of machinery in the various shops of the village and
made himself so useful to the mechanics that they welcomed his visits.
Then, as Robert realized the beauties in nature, his black pencil seemed
to disappoint him. He could find no paints or crayons at the shops, and
it was not until a playfellow brought a box of paints to school that
Robert realized the possibility of such an aid to making pictures. He
pleaded with his friend for a share that he might try his hand at mixing
colors, so it was agreed that each boy should paint a picture on a mussel
shell. The result proved Robert so excellent an artist that his generous
schoolmate, whose talents lay in another direction, presented Robert with
the entire outfit. His delight knew no bounds, and thereafter he never
was at a loss for occupation.
Like many another famous man, it should be noted that Fulton did not
enjoy the advantages of a liberal education in his youth. Beginning
work at an early age, by the need of earning his living, he necessarily
left his desk and books before he had mastered the higher branches of
knowledge demanded by his later work. Still, he was determined to acquire
knowledge. Busy by day, he studied by night, and in time added higher
mathematics, languages, chemistry and perspective drawing to his mental
stores. In fact, Fulton was a student throughout his entire life.
To-day his spelling seems to us distinctly original and often amusing;
but let us remember that he lived in “the good old days” when that
particular art was largely a matter of inspiration, instead of being
governed, as it is to-day, by stern and unbreakable rules.
The War of the Revolution was in progress during the days of Fulton’s
boyhood, and the town of Lancaster was the scene of many important acts.
There had been many English settlers in Lancaster, so it is not
surprising that the town abounded in “Royalists,”—sympathizers with the
British Crown.
The time and place were rife with excitement. Village boys shared the
news, one with another, and followed every skirmish with active interest.
In 1775, Major John André, with other British officers on their way
to Quebec, was captured by General Montgomery and taken for safety to
Lancaster. So crowded were the barracks that André, on his word as a
gentleman, was allowed the following parole:
“I, John André, being a prisoner in the United Colonies of
America, do, upon the honor of a gentleman, promise that I will
not go into or near any seaport town, nor further than six
miles from Lancaster, without leave of the Continental Congress
of the Committee of Safety of Pennsylvania, and that I will
carry on no political correspondence whatever on the subject of
the dispute between Great Britain and the Colonies, so long as
I remain a prisoner.”
A man named Caleb Cope received John André into his home and André
tutored his son, John Cope, thirteen years old, and gave him lessons in
art; for André had a decided talent for the brush and loved to depict,
from recollection, the scenes of his English home. One of these pictures,
a landscape with a church and lodge among a bower of trees, André gave to
Mr. Cope who treasured it in later years. He described André as “a gifted
and deceived, but noble-hearted and generous, man.” It is thought that
John Cope was the boy who presented the painting outfit to Robert Fulton,
so it is probable that, indirectly, Robert may have profited from Major
André’s instruction.
Because of its political importance Lancaster was the local headquarters
for supplies necessary to American troops, and rifles, blankets and
clothing were manufactured there. American soldiers patrolled the
streets and had in charge the two thousand British prisoners at one time
garrisoned there.
The boys of Lancaster, in the late afternoons, gathered to view the novel
scenes of the encampment. After a time, growing braver, they challenged
“the rebels,” as they termed the Hessian boys, with the consequence that
boyish battles began to take place between the “Tories” and the “Rebels.”
A rope, stretched across the street, defined a limit which none dared to
pass.
Robert Fulton’s imagination was lively and carried him beyond bounds.
One day he made a graphic sketch of the scene, depicting the “Rebels”
advancing beyond the line to threaten a thrashing to the “Tories.” He
showed the picture to the boys and it had the unfortunate result of
inspiring them to the very action portrayed. The town authorities,
hearing of the skirmish, feared that the boys were carrying their fun too
far and put a hasty stop to these martial games.
Through these stirring days Robert Fulton was daily learning the
excellent lessons of self-reliance and self-support. He learned, as we
all should, in school and out of school. The Continental authorities
employed certain firms to manufacture and repair arms. Guards at the
doorways of factories forbade any interruption of the important work,
which was pushed with speed, and none but employees might enter. Workmen
labored in relays, night and day; even on Sunday the sound of the hammer
and engine could be heard.
Special permit was granted to young Robert Fulton to go within the
shops, for by this time he was so good a draughtsman that his pencil
could occasionally outline a suggestion of value, and his increasing
knowledge of mechanics made him an apt pupil in the study of the tools of
warfare. At this time he commenced to draw designs for fire-arms and as
early as 1779 made himself an air-gun.
A certain druggist sold Robert several packages of quicksilver, and
these formed part of some mysterious experiments which Robert declined
to describe to his curious friends. The workmen in the gun-shop tried
in vain to compel him to explain the use to which he put the silvery,
elusive metal. So puzzled were they by his secret that they called him in
fun “Quicksilver Bob,” and by this name he was known for some time among
the workmen of the shops and among his young comrades.
Robert accompanied the gunsmiths upon their testing tours of marksmanship
on the open common, or village park; he soon learned to prove
calculations of comparative carrying distances of varying sized bore
and balls, by shooting at a mark and finding the relative distances and
forces of carrying powers.
Among the factory clerks was an intelligent youth, Christopher Gumpf,
four years older than Robert, who in 1779 became his intimate friend.
The father was an enthusiastic fisherman and accompanied the boys upon
many a fine excursion in his flatboat on Conestoga Creek. When it was not
in use he padlocked his boat to a tree, but when off on holiday trips he
would ask the boys to pole the boat to certain shady fishing-grounds.
Robert became weary of the hard work of poling the heavy boat for long
distances. During a visit of a week at his aunt’s home in Little Britain,
he planned and made a small model of a boat to be propelled by side
paddles. It was too large to carry home, so Robert placed the model in
his aunt’s attic and asked her to keep it for him. Many years after, when
Robert’s first steamboat had become famous, that model was brought down
from the attic and proudly placed in the aunt’s parlor as the most valued
treasure of the house.
When he returned to Lancaster Fulton told Christopher Gumpf about his
plan, and together they made a set of paddles, propelled by a double
crank action, to move the fishing-boat. Two lengths of timber, with a
blade at each end, were fastened at right angles to the boat: a crank at
the stern turned the blades, while a third paddle, as a rudder, revolved
on a pivot to steer the course. The invention worked well and the
delighted boys abandoned the work of poling. The paddles were removable
from the boat, and, when not in use, were hidden in thick bushes near the
water.
So it was on the Conestoga Creek, with only two witnesses who little
dreamed what the contrivance would lead to, that Robert Fulton, the
fourteen-year-old boy, began to plan a solution to the problem of
navigation.