ROBERT FULTON AND THE CLERMONT

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1   Robert Fulton, The Early Years

CHAPTER 2   Robert Fulton in France

CHAPTER 3   The Trial Boat on the Seine

CHAPTER 4  The Clermont

SECTION 1  The First Steamboat Trip Between New York and Albany

SECTION 2  Personal Reminisences about Robert Fulton and the First Steamboat Trip

SECTION 3  The Beginnings of Commercial Steam Boat Service on the Hudson

SECTION 4  Rebuilding the Steamboat during the Winter of 1807-1808

SECTION 5  Passanger Lists, Account Books, Fulton's Future Plans

APPENDIX

First Edition 1909

Published by
The Century Co., New York

PREFACE

But in no volume can be found so full a quota of Robert Fulton’s own descriptive plans for his inventions as are here presented. During a research extending over three years I have been able to transcribe many of Fulton’s unique and original records, and to secure reproductions of interesting portraits of or by him.

For access to these manuscripts and pictures, or for copies of them, I am indebted to the estate of Fulton’s daughter, Cornelia Livingston Crary; to Mrs. Robert Fulton Blight; to Mr. R. Fulton Ludlow; to Judge Peter T. Barlow; to John Henry Livingston, Esq., of Clermont; to Earl Stanhope of England; to Mr. H. Harrison Suplee, Editor of “Cassier’s Magazine”; to Mr. S. W. Stanton, Editor of “The Nautical Gazette;” to J. Eliot Hodgkin, F.S.A., of London, England; to Mr. Frank E. Kirby, Naval Architect; to Mr. E. C. Eldridge of Paris, France; to Mr. C. H. Hart, Mrs. C. S. Bradford, Miss Elizabeth G. Sparks, Mrs. Joseph Drexel, and Mrs. McHenry, of Philadelphia; to Mr. H. A. Boardman of St. Paul, Minnesota; to Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet of New York; to Mr. Charles Burr Todd, biographer of Joel Barlow; to Mr. Joseph Swift of Little Britain, Pennsylvania; to the Misses Vinton of Pomfret, Connecticut; to Mr. R. Livingston Jenkins, Mr. J. Seymour Bullock, Mr. Edward Bringhurst, Rev. Win. B. Gilpin, Mr. W. U. Hensel, Mr. Henry B. Bayer, Mrs. E. Harrison Sanford; J. H. Leamont, Esq., of Montreal; Mr. Herman Livingston of Catskill; and to the authorities of the Lenox Library, the Library of Congress, the Boston Public Library, the Historical Societies of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Chicago; the National Academy of Design; the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; the British Museum; the Society of Mechanical Engineers, New York; Haverford College and Columbia University.

Robert Fulton anticipated the enlightenment of this century. He emphasized truths which prevail to-day and are termed modern: a hope for Universal Peace; a claim for Intellectual Freedom through a system of general, free education; a discernment that a Nation’s wealth is the sum of the talents and handiworks of its citizens; and a sacrifice of any personal claim to leisure that through labor a world might be served; —these were the ruling motives of his life.

He was an artist with unbounded delight in the glories of color and form; he was an engineer and inventor, with patience developing a knowledge of unknown powers awaiting human control; he was, through all, an American statesman who, although he lived for years amidst the cultivation and advanced intellectual attainment of France and England, was glad to return to his native land to demonstrate the truth of his final discovery in science and to launch his first steamboat upon the waters of the New World.

If it be true that Fulton lived one hundred years before his time, the centennial of his achievement fulfils the span necessary for human recognition; and America will welcome the recital of the purposes of his life in these original papers which portray, not solely his inventions, but his spirit of true liberty.

ALICE CRARY SUTCLIFFE