ROBERT FULTON. WHEN John Fitch began to build his first steamboat at Philadelphia, there was living in that city an artist, twenty years of age, named Robert Fulton. We can still read, in the Philadelphia Directory for 1785, the following line: "Robert Fulton, Miniature Painter, corner of Second and Walnut Streets." He was more than a miniature painter, though it was from that favorite branch of the art that he chiefly gained his livelihood. He painted portraits, landscapes, and allegorical pieces in the taste of that time. Such was his success in his profession, that, at the age of twenty-one, when he had been but four years employed in it, he was able to present his widowed mother with a farm of eighty-four acres, and to afford the expense of a voyage to Europe, with a view to improvement in his art, as well as the re-establishment of his health, which his excessive application had impaired. The farm, it is true, cost but four hundred dollars, since it was in the far west of Pennsylvania; but this does not detract from the merit of the action. worthy beginning of an honorable career. Robert Fulton, born near Lancaster in Pennsylvania, in 1765, the son of an Irish tailor, who came to this country in It was a was early life, prospered in business, and retired to a large and ductive farm in Lancaster county, the garden of Pennsyl ia. The father of Benjamin West, who lived a few miles and the father of Robert Fulton, were old friends, and the y consequently heard much of the fame and success of the inter who had left home, a poor unfriended youth, to become favorite artist of George III. At school, Robert Fulton was a dull and troublesome boy. Books were disgusting to him. He had the impudence to tell his teacher, one day, that his head was so full of original notions, that there was no vacant room in it for the contents of dusty books. But, out of school, he exhibited intelligence and talent. He drew well almost from his infancy; and, as he grew older, he showed a remarkable aptitude for mechanics. The shops of Lancaster were his favorite places of resort. Being late at school one day, which was by no means an uncommon occurrence, his master asked him the cause. He said he had been at a shop near by pounding lead; and he showed the result of his labors, in a very neatly shaped lead pencil, which, he said was the best pencil he had ever had. At thirteen, he assisted in celebrating the Fourth of July, by discharging sky-rockets made by himself on a plan of his own. During the revolution, Congress had a gunshop at Lancaster, which was haunted by the boy, who assisted the workmen by drawing plans of gun-stocks, and by suggesting methods of repairing broken muskets. There, too, he was frequently busy in attempting to construct an air-gun. It was in the summer of 1779, when he was fourteen years of age, that he conceived an idea which, twenty-five years later, had important consequences. There was a heavy old flatboat, on a river in the neighborhood, which was much used by the boys in their fishing-excursions. It was propelled by means of poles. Being extremely fatigued, on one occasion, by poling this cumbrous craft against the stream, it occurred to the boy that, perhaps, paddle-wheels turned by a crank could be applied to the boat. Soon after, the experiment was tried with so much success that he and his companions never afterwards used the boat except with paddles. This boyish invention (which, though not new, was original with him) is supposed to have prepossessed his mind in favor of paddle-wheels for steamboats. At seventeen, his father having died, this precocious youth established himself in Philadelphia as a miniature painter, and returned on his twenty-first birthday to his early home, with the means in his pocket of rendering his mother independent for life. That pious deed performed, he sailed for England, to Beek instruction in his art at the hands of his father's friend, Benjamin West. When he left America, poor John Fitch had not yet completed his first steamboat; but his plans had been published, his company formed, and the boat begun. We may be absolutely certain that a young man like Fulton, with one of the best mechanical heads in the world, full of curiosity with regard to the mechanic arts from his childhood, must have well known what John Fitch was doing. The great painter received the son of his father's friend with open arms, accepted him as a pupil, and lodged him at his house in London for several years. Fulton, however, never became a great artist. He was an excellent draughtsman, a good colorist, and a diligent workman; but he had not the artist's imagination or temperament. His mind was mechanical; he loved to contrive, to invent, to construct; and we find him, accordingly, withdrawing from art, and busying himself, more and more, with mechanics; until, at length, he adopted the profession of civil engineer. His last effort as an artist was the painting of a panorama, exhibited at Paris in 1797, which he afterwards sold in order to raise money to pursue his experiments with steam. Robert Fulton was never capable of claiming to be the inventor of the steamboat. It is, nevertheless, to his knowledge of mechanics, and to his resolution and perseverance, that the world is indebted for the final triumph of that invention. Recent investigations enable us to show the chain of events which led him to embark in the enterprise. His attention was first called to the subject in Philadelphia, by the operations of John Fitch, in 1785 and 1786. Next, fifteen years after, Fulton visited a steamboat in Scotland, which, though unsuccessful, was really propelled by the power of steam for short distances, at the rate of six miles an hour. To please the stranger, who showed an extreme curiosity to witness its operation, this boat was set in motion, and Fulton made drawings of the machinery. A year or two after, he was in France again, where he made the acquaintance of the gentleman who had in his possession the papers left in France by John Fitch, which contained full details of his plans for applying steam to the propulsion of vessels. We have the testimony of this gentleman, that the papers and drawings of John Fitch remained in the possession of Robert Fulton for " several months." Aided thus by the knowledge and experience of previous inventors, enjoying the immense advantage of the improved steam-engine of James Watt, being himself an excellent mechanic and a very superior draughtsman, having the appearance and manners of a gentleman, and an extensive acquaintance with the leading men of his time, he began the execution of his task with advantages possessed by no previous experimenter in steamboats. But even these would not have availed if he had not had the good fortune to find a wealthy co-operator. Chancellor Livingston, of New York, was then the American minister at the court of Napoleon. Besides being a gentleman of large estate, he was a man of public spirit, with a strong natural interest in practical improvements. Chancellor Livingston, to his immortal honor, became first the friend, then the patron, and finally the partner of Robert Fulton. In 1803 the first steamboat of Livingston and Fulton was built in France upon the Seine. When she was almost ready for the experimental trip, a misfortune befell her which would have dampened the ardor of a man less determined than Fulton. Rising one morning after a sleepless night, a messenger from the boat, with horror and despair written upon his countenance, burst into his presence, exclaiming : "O sir! the boat has broken in pieces and gone to the bottom!" For a moment Fulton was utterly overwhelmed. Never in his whole life, he used to say, was he so near despairing as then. Hastening to the river, he found, indeed, that the weight of the machinery had broken the framework of the vessel, and she lay on the bottom of the river, in plain sight, a mass of timber and iron. Instantly, with his own hands, he began the work of raising her, and kept at it, without food or rest, for twenty-four hours, an exertion which permanently injured his health. His death in the prime of life, was, in all probability, remotely caused by the excitement, exposure, and toil of that terrible day and night. In a few weeks the boat, sixty-six feet long and eight wide, was rebuilt, and the submerged engine replaced in her. The National Institute of France and a great concourse of Parisians witnessed her trial trip in July, 1803. The result was encouraging, but not brilliant. The boat moved slowly along the tranquil Seine, amid the acclamations of the multitude; but the quick eye of Fulton at once discerned that the machinery was defective and inadequate, and that, in order to give the invention a fair trial, it was necessary to begin anew, to procure an engine far more powerful and a boat better adapted to the purpose. As Chancellor Livingston was about to return home, it was resolved that the next attempt should be made at New York; and an engine for the purpose was ordered from the manufactory at Birmingham of Watt and Bolton. In September, 1807, the famous Clermont, one hundred and sixty tons, was completed. Monday, September the tenth, was the day appointed for a grand trial trip to Albany, and by noon a vast crowd had assembled on the wharf to witness the performance of what was popularly called "Fulton's Folly." Fulton himself declares that, at noon on that day, not thirty persons in the city had the slightest faith in the success of the steamboat; and that, as the boat was putting off, he heard many "sarcastic remarks." At one o'clock, however, she moved from the dock,vomiting smoke and sparks from her pine-wood fires, and casting up clouds of spray from her uncovered paddle-wheels. As her speed increased, the jeers of the incredulous were silenced, and soon the departing voyagers caught the sound of cheers. In a few minutes, however, the boat was observed to stop, which gave a momentary triumph to the scoffers. Fulton perceived that the paddles, being too long, took too much hold of the water, and he stopped the boat for the purpose of shortening them. This was soon done, and the boat resumed her voyage with increased speed, and kept on her course all that day, all the succeding night, and all the next morning, until at one 'clock on Tuesday she stopped at the seat of Chancellor Livingston, one hundred and ten miles from New York. There she remained till the next morning at nine, when she continued her Voyage toward Albany, where she arrived at five in the after |