The Clermont Steamboat Compared to the Phoenix
The engines of John Stevens' steamboat the Phoenix were built in America, while those of the Clermont had been imported from England. In June of 1808, the Phoenix made the first ocean voyage in the history of steam navigation. Because of a monopoly on the Hudson River, which the New York Legislature had granted to businessman Robert Livingston and his partner Robert Fulton, John Stevens had to send his ship out on the Delaware River and into the rocky waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Despite the fact that a great storm arose, the Phoenix made the trip in safety; and continued for many years after to ply the Delaware between Philadelphia and Trenton.
Robert Fulton's Life as an Artist
Robert Fulton, like another great inventor Leonardo da Vinci, was also an artist. He was born on November 14, 1765, in Little Britain, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He was only a child when his father died. Even in childhood Robert Fulton showed mechanical ability. There was a firm of noted gunsmiths in Lancaster, Robert Fulton hung out in their workshops gaining experience in the use of tools. At the age of fourteen, Robert Fulton applied his ingenuity to a heavy fishing boat and equipped it with paddle-wheels, which were turned by a crank.At the age of seventeen, Robert Fulton moved to Philadelphia and set up shop as a portrait painter. Some of the miniatures which he painted at this time were said to have been very good. He worked hard, making money and making good friends, including Benjamin Franklin. Robert Fulton was determined to go to Europe to study art under his fellow Pennsylvanian, artist Benjamin West who had been rising into fame in London. After buying a farm for his mother with part of his savings, Robert Fulton moved to England in 1786, with forty guineas in his pocket. Benjamin West received him not only as a pupil but as a guest in his house and introduced him to many of his friends. Again Robert Fulton succeeded, and in 1791 two of his portraits were exhibited at the Royal Academy, and the Royal Society of British Artists hung four paintings by him.
Robert Fulton's Return to Inventing
Then came the event which changed the course of Robert Fulton's life. His art work had attracted the notice of Viscount Courtenay, later Earl of Devon, and he was invited to Devonshire to paint that nobleman's portrait. Here he met Francis, third Duke of Bridgewater, the father of the English canal system, and his engineer, James Brindley. Robert Fulton the mechanic began to dominate Robert Fulton the artist.After meeting Francis and studying his work. Robert Fulton invented a device for sawing marble in quarries, improved the wheel for spinning flax, invented a machine for making rope, and a method of raising canal boats by inclined planes instead of locks. In 1796, Fulton published a pamphlet entitled "A Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation", copies of which were sent to Napoleon and President Washington.
