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According to Colden, the last boat which was constructed under Mr. Fulton's directions, and according to drawings and plans furnished by him, is that which, in 1816, navigated the sound from New York to New Haven. She was of nearly four hundred tons burden, built of uncommon strength, and fitted up with all conveniences and great elegance. She was the first steamboat with a round bottom like a sea-going ship. This form was adopted, because, for a great part of the route, she would be as much exposed as on the ocean. It was therefore, necessary, to make her a good sea boat. She passed daily, and at all times of the tide, the then dangerous strait of Hell Gate where, for a mile, she frequently encountered a current running at the rate of five or six miles an hour. For some distance she had within a few yards, on each side, rocks and whirlpools which rivaled Scylla and Charybdis, even as they are poetically described. This passage, previously to its being navigated by this steamer, was supposed to be impassable except at the change of the tide; and many shipwrecks had been occasioned by a mistake in time. "The boat passing through these whirlpools with rapidity, while the angry waters foamed against her bows, and appeared to raise themselves in obstinate resistance to her passage, is a proud triumph of human ingenuity. The owners, as the highest tribute they had in their power to offer to his genius, and as an evidence of the gratitude they owed him, called her the "Fulton."
A steam ferry-boat was built to ply between New York and Jersey City in 1812, and the next year two others, to connect with Brooklyn. These were "twin boats" the two hulls being connected by a "bridge" or deck common to both. The Jersey ferry was crossed in fifteen minutes, the distance being a mile and a half. Fulton's boat carried, at one load, eight carriages, and about thirty horses, and still had room for three hundred or four hundred foot passengers.
Fulton's description of one of these boats is as follows:
"She is built of two boats, each ten feet beam, eighty feet long, and five feet deep in the hold; which boats are distant from each often ten feet, confined by strong transverse beam knees and diagonal traces, forming a deck thirty feet wide and eighty feet long. The propelling water-wheel is placed between the boats to prevent it from injury from ice and shocks on entering or approaching the dock. The whole of the machinery being placed between the two boats, leaves ten feet on the deck of each boat for carriages, horses and cattle, etc.; the other, having neat benches and covered with an awning, is for passengers, and there is also a passage and stairway to a neat cabin, which is fifty feet long and five feet clear from the floor to the beams, furnished with benches, and provided with a stove in winter. Although the two boats and space between them gives thirty feet beam, yet they present sharp bows to the water, and have only the resistance in the water of one boat of twenty beam. Both ends being alike, and each having a rudder, she never puts about."Meantime, the War of 1812 was in progress, and Fulton designed a steam vessel-of-war, which was then considered a wonderfully formidable craft. Fulton proposed to build a vessel capable of carrying a heavy battery, and of steaming four miles an hour. The ship was fitted with furnaces for red-hot shot, and some of her guns were to be discharged below the water-line. The estimated cost was $320,000. The construction of the vessel was authorized by Congress in March, 1814; the keel was laid June 20, 1814, and the vessel was launched October 29 of the same year.
The "Fulton the First," as she was called, was then considered an enormous vessel. The hull was double, 156 feet long, 56 feet wide, and 20 feet deep, measuring 2,475 tons. In May the ship was ready for her engine, and in July was so far completed as to steam, on a trial trip, to the ocean at Sandy Hook and back, 53 miles, in eight hours and twenty minutes. In September, with armament and stores on board, the ship made for sea and for battle; the same route was traversed, the vessel making 5.5 miles an hour. Her engine, having a steam cylinder 48 inches in diameter and of 5 feet stroke of piston, was furnished with steam by a copper boiler 22 feet long, 12 feet wide, and 8 feet high, and turned a wheel, between the two halls, 16 feet in diameter, with "buckets" 14 feet long, and a dip of 4 feet. The sides were 4 feet 10 inches thick, and her sporadic was surrounded by musket proof bulwarks. The armament consisted of 30 32-pounders, intended to discharge red-hot shot. There was one mast for each hull, fitted with lateen sails. Large pumps were carried, intended to throw streams of water on the decks of the enemy, with a view to disabling him by wetting his ordnance and ammunition. A submarine gun was to have been carried at each bow, to discharge shot weighing one hundred pounds, at a depth of ten feet below water.
This, for the time, tremendous engine-of-war was constructed in response to a demand from the citizens of New York for a means of harbor defense. They appointed what was called a Coast and Harbor Defense Committee; and this committee examined Fulton's plans, and called the attention of the General Government to them. The Government appointed a Board of Experts from among its most famous naval officers, including Commodore Decatur, Captains Paul Jones, Evans, and Biddle, Commodore Perry; and Captains Warrington and Lewis. They reported unanimously in favor of the proposed construction, and set forth her advantages over all previously known forms of war vessel. The citizens' committee offered to guarantee the expense of building the ship; and the construction was undertaken under the supervision of a committee appointed for the purpose, consisting of several then distinguished men, both military and naval. Congress authorized the building of coastal defence vessels by the President, in March, 1814, and Fulton at once started the work of construction, Messrs. Adam and Noah Brown building the hull, and the engines being placed on board and in working order within a year.
The death of Fulton took place in the year 1815, while in the height of his fame and of his usefulness. He had been called to Trenton, New Jersey, in January of that year, to give testimony before the State legislature in reference to the proposed repeal of laws which had interfered with the operation of the ferry-boats and other steam-vessels plying between the city of New York and the New Jersey shore. It happened that the weather was cold, he was exposed to its severity both at Trenton and, especially, crossing the Hudson River on his return, and took a cold from which he never recovered. He became apparently convalescent after a few days; but insisted on visiting the new steam frigate too soon, to inspect work in progress there, and on his return home experienced a relapse, - his illness finally resulting in his death, February 24, 1815. He left a wife (nee Harriet Livingston) and four children, three of whom were daughters.
Above Work Selected Extracts From:
"Robert Fulton - His Life and Its
Results"
Robert H. Thurston
Dodd, Mead, and Company Publishers
New York
1891
Main
Page on Robert Fulton
American inventor and engineer,
who brought steamboating to commercial success.
