Steamboat Days
by: Fred Erving Dayton
Illustrated by: John Wolcott Adams

CHAPTER 1

Two Thousand Years of Steam

Steam was early recognized as an agent of mechanical power, and among the relics of ancient Egyptian civilization records are found of the steam-engine. Hero, in his manuscript, "Spiritalia seu Pneumatica," describes a number of contrivances which either had then long been known, B.C. 280, or had been currently invented, and in the 37th proposition Hero sketches and describes a hot-air engine, designed to open and close the heavy doors of the temple.

Through the years infrequent references by historians show that knowledge of steam-power was not wholly lost, but it is remarkable that so little advance was made. A church existed in Rheims, A.D. 1125, equipped with an organ blown by air escaping from a vessel in which it was compressed "by heated water."

References in sixteenth century history show existence of some knowledge of the properties of steam, and anticipate advantages which would follow its application. The royal Spanish archives at Simancas record an attempt, 1543, by Biasco de Garay, a Spanish naval officer under Charles V., to move a ship by paddle-wheels, driven, as was inferred, by a steam-engine. De Garay was the first, perhaps, to anticipate steam as being useful power for navigation purposes. No description of De Garay's steam-engine is available, there being only the statement that a "vessel of boiling water" formed a part of the apparatus.

The seventeenth century records activities in steam in Italy, France and England. A patent granted to David Ramseye by Charles I, January 21, 1630, covered a number of distinct inventions, including one "to make shippes and barges goe against strong wind and tide."

The first instance in which the expansive force of steam is said actually to have been applied to do important and useful work is contained in a collection of descriptions of inventions by Edward Somerset, second Marquis of Worcester, published in 1663, and curiously titled, "A Century of the Names and Scantlings of Inventions by me already Practised." One of these inventions is an apparatus for raising water by steam, and was actually used for this purpose at Vauxhall, near London.

Thus, the second Marquis of Worcester Stands in the record as the first steam-engine builder, and his death marks the division separating the early romantic and the application periods in steam-engine development.

From this time forward come a host of experimenters in the practical application of steam-power, the foremost being Captain Thomas Savery, who invented a steam-engine, or at least is to be credited for the formally successful introduction of the "semi-omnip-otent,'' "water commanding" engine of Worcester. Savery, in 1698, patented the design of the first engine employed in keeping the deep coal pits of Cornwall free from water.

Denys Papin, native of Blois, France, distinguished in medicine and science, devoted himself to the steam-engine and in an effort to produce a more perfect vacuum, adopted the expedient of employing steam to displace air, and to produce, by its condensation, the perfect vacuum which he sought. He produced the first steam-engine with a piston, and the first piston engine in which condensation was produced to secure a vacuum. Papin stated that this new machine would be found useful in ship propulsion, employing paddle-wheels driven by several engines to secure continuous motion. Papin is credited with the invention of the safety-valve in 1690.

The beginning of the eighteenth century found every element of the modern type of steam-engine to have been separately invented and practically applied. The character of atmospheric pressure, and the pressure of gases was understood. The nature of a vacuum was known and the method of obtaining a vacuum by displacement of the air by steam, and by the condensation of the vapor, was appreciated. Moreland, Papin and Savery had successfully attempted the application of condensation in the removal of atmospheric pressure.

The way had been smoothed for the coming of an engineer to effect a combination of the elements of the modern steam-engine; and Thomas Newcomen, an iron-monger and blacksmith of Dartmouth, England, produced a machine which was unmistakably a true engine, i.e., a train of mechanism consisting of several elementary pieces united in a train, capable of transmitting force applied at one end and of communicating it to the resistance to be overcome at the other end. Newcomen's "Atmospheric Steam Engine" is the first of a new type.

John Smeaton, the most distinguished engineer of his time, engaged in a careful study of parts proportions, which had previously been arrived at in haphazard way, and from experiments Smeaton determined scientific proportions. In 1769 he built several engines of the Newcomen type; and he was the father of the long-stroke engine and introduced increased piston speed. Smeaton's engines were used in coal mines, water works, and in 1773 he prepared plans for a pumping engine to empty the great dry dock built by Peter the Great at Cronstadt, begun in 1719. The dry dock accommodated ten ships and had been imperfectly drained by two windmills, 100 feet high, requiring a year's time to empty the dock.

Smeaton's part in the development of the steam-engine was important. One historian has said: "The real and practical introduction of the steam-engine is as fairly attributable to Smeaton as to any one of the inventors whose names are more generally known in connection with it."

James Watt is revered as the father of the steam-engine. Watt's fame came from improving the proportions and altering the detail design of the previous Newcomen and Calley engines. Watt was equipped with fine intelligence and had remarkable skill. His start came as a repairer of apparatus in the University of Glasgow, where he interested members of the faculty in his mechanical studies, later receiving support which permitted him to devote much of his time to steam engineering.

Watt's first progress was in insulating steam carrier pipes against loss of heat, and in protecting boiler shells from rapid heat conductivity. This economy of heat was the base discovery which did so much to establish Watt's preeminent position as a steam engineer. In the state in which Watt found the steam-engine the quantity of fuel necessary to make it work prevented its extensive utility.

Dr. Roebuck became Watt's patron in 1767, assuming his liabilities of $5,000, and he agreed to provide capital for the prosecution of further experiments, while Watt turned over two-thirds of his patent rights. When more funds were required than Dr. Roebuck's resources, Dr. Black came to aid Wart's situation; but failure marked the third engine produced under this arrangement.

"Of all things in life, there is nothing more foolish than inventing,'' Watt wrote in a letter to Dr. Black, and he felt strongly the risks which he ran of involving his friends in serious losses.

Watt's misfortunes piled higher when death came to his wife, and Dr. Roebuck lost his fortune and had to withdraw his support. Watt met Matthew Boulton, a wealthy manufacturer of Soho, a suburb of Birmingham, and negotiations began in 1769 which resulted in the transfer of the capitalized interest in Watt's engine, and making Boulton's name almost equally well known with that of Watt. Boulton succeeded to one-half of Dr. Roebuck's interest.

Boulton brought a fine mechanical appreciation to the development of Watt's engine, and business sagacity. He was ever on the lookout for improvements by others, with a view to their introduction. Watt paid Boulton a fine compliment when he urged Dr. Roebuck to accept Boulton's proposal, saying, "If Boulton takes his chances of success and pays you any adequate share of the money laid out, it lessens your risk, and, in a greater proportion than I think, it will lessen your profits." Watt, a deep thinker, also advised his friend to "consider my uncertain health, my irresolute and inactive disposition, my inability to bargain and struggle for my own with mankind, all of which disqualify me for any great undertaking."

Benjamin Franklin had contacts with Boulton before he met Watt. Franklin was a student of steam engineering and designed a model engine which Boulton had built, while Dr. Darwin had come into the scheme. It may have been the promise of success which inspired the prophetic rimes so often quoted from the works of this eccentric physician and poet. Franklin's major contribution seems to have been the design of a grate to prevent the production of smoke. It was Franklin's idea to make the smoke of fresh coals pass through those already ignited. Watt succeeded with Boulton as partner. Nothing important resulted from the combined investigations of Boulton, Franklin and Darwin.

Illustrative of Watt's personal situation and inability to get under way is the lapse of seven years from the time Watt completed arrangements with Boulton until he became active at the Soho works, and took up his residence there in 1774. He began the improvement of engines started three years before in Scotland and which had lain out in the open, exposed to the weather. In the same year a successful trial was held of the engine, first built at Kinnell.

Watt's difficulty now was in finding workmen who could carry his plans forward, for the number of skilled mechanics was few, and accuracy of fit, so necessary in steam-engine designing, was difficult, if not impossible, to obtain. Watt's enthusiasm was very real for a cylinder which had been bored only three-eighths of an inch out of round.

While other workers in the same field produced a number of features which later became valuable, almost every successful and important invention which marked the history of steam-power for many years originated with James Watt. With the help of Boulton's influential friends, Watt succeeded in getting further patent protection, for twenty-four years, and the firm began the commercial manufacture of engines.

Boulton took charge of the general business and Watt superintended the design, construction and erection of their engines. It was only after the successful operation of several engines that Boulton and Watt became legal partners. With improved fortunes, relieving him from cares, Watt married again and the ten years following were the most prolific in inventions of any period in Watt's life. The simple eccentric bell crank for creating rotary motion from reciprocal movement was covered in a patent granted to another, and its use denied to Watt, who was forced to the extremity of designing the "sun and planet" wheels. Watt was also required to pay royalties for use of the fly-wheel.

The most important of Wart's later inventions covered the expansion of steam and six methods of applying the principle and of equalizing the expansive power. He invented, too, the double-acting steam-engine, in which the steam acts on each side of the piston alternately, the opposite side being in communication with the condenser. Watt invented the double or coupled engine, two steam-engines capable of working together, or independently; while another device was a rack on the piston-rod, working into a sector on the end of the beam, securing a perfect rectilinear motion to the rod. Like so many inventors who came after, Watt designed a rotary engine, or "steam wheel" anticipating the turbine type.

To control the speed of engines Watt invented the centrifugal ball governor, which is in use to-day practically in the same form that Watt originally designed it. With engines more or less established, Watt turned his attention to other fields. He built the first steam-hammer, and he invented, too, the water-glass in common use in all steam-boilers since.

The introduction of steam-power for the propulsion of ships had been anticipated, and several notable attempts had been made, before the beginning of the nineteenth century. The steamboat waited upon the development of the steam-engine and boiler. Substitution of paddle-wheels for oars had been attempted as early as 1588, as shown in old wood-cut illustrations, while the Marquis of Worcester in 1651 referred to steam application as a driving force for the paddles of a boat.

Papin built a boat, with steam-power, for which he asked patent protection in 1707, the first steamboat to be built. So superstitious were the people of that day, that they destroyed the boat and Papin barely escaped with his life; but to him must be accorded the honor of having constructed the first steamboat.

Jonathan Hulls took out English patents for the use of a steam-engine for ship propulsion in 1736, and for towing vessels. A year later he issued a pamphlet descriptive of his device, with illustrations of his ideas.

The French Academy of Sciences in 1753 awarded a prize to Daniel Bernouilli for the best essay on the manner of impelling vessels without wind. Abbe Gauthier published a more practical suggestion in "Memoires de la Societe Royale des Sciences et Lettres de Nancy" including the use of a Newcomen engine to drive paddle-wheels placed at the sides of the vessel.

A Swiss clergyman, J. A. Genevois, in 1760 published in London a paper outlining his plan for compressing springs by steam or other power, and applying their effort while recovering their form, to ship propulsion.

At this time the steamboat began to be studied in America, and the first attempts made to solve the problem--then appreciated to be the most important to present itself to the mechanic and engineer.

The honor of initiating steamboat interest in America seems to belong to William Henry of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, inventor of the screw auger. Henry was born in Chester County in 1729 of Irish parents, in 1760 he went to England on business, and while there was attracted to the steam-engine invented by Watt. He saw in it possibilities for ship propulsion. Upon his return to America he began work upon a steam-engine of his own design, which he completed in 1763. He installed this engine in a boat, fitted with paddle-wheels, making his first trial on the Conestoga River, near Lancaster. The boat sank immediately and was lost; but Henry was not discouraged by this failure. He followed with a second model, adding improvements. The records of the Pennsylvania Philosophical Society show a design by Henry in 1782 of one of his steamboats.

Henry met with antagonism to his steamboat, as being impractical against wind and tide, but he wrote: "The time WILL come when steamboats will be used to navigate the waters of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers."

While Henry's success in the field was small, he must be credited with much of the development which was so soon to follow, for he inspired both John Fitch and Robert Fulton, who were his proteacute;gé. Henry was a magnificent patron, for Benjamin West, colonial portrait painter, was also his proteacute;gé. Fulton's interest in steamboats was aroused when he visited his aunt, living on the banks of the Conestoga River, near the home of Henry. The conclusion is logical that Henry, becoming interested in the steamboat during his visit to England in 1760, would communicate his enthusiasm to Fitch and Fulton, attracted to his home as an early art center.

When, after Watt's invention, the steam-engine had been developed where it could really drive the propelling mechanism of a boat, real impetus was given to its adaptation. Marquis de Jouffroy, in France, was one of the first to perceive that Wart's compact engine was applicable to the propulsion of vessels, while Perier Freres imported a Watt engine from the English works at Soho which Jouffroy studied in an effort to install it in a boat. In 1770 d'Auxiron resigned an army post to prosecute his steamboat plans, and a monopoly for fifteen years was granted for river navigation if his plans should prove practical; but the little vessel foundered at its wharf the first night.

Perier built a boat which had a trial on the Seine in 1774, but the craft was under-powered and could hardly stem the sluggish tide. Jouffroy made another attempt at Lyons in 1783, but the Government denied him a monopoly and he reentered the army.

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