Steam-Tow-Passage-Boats

Image from Hudson River Steamboats The Flyers of the Hudson. Drawings by Samuel Ward Stanton.

Editor's note: The following article was originally published in the "Commercial Advertiser" on June 25, 1825. Thanks to volunteer researcher George A. Thompson for finding and cataloging this article. The language, spelling and grammar of each article reflects the time period when it was written.

Steam Tow Passage Boats
The expediency and humanity of separating passengers from the danger of steam-boat explosions may now again be urged upon the attention of this community. To become habituated to danger, is not to remove it from the path so many must travel. Time wears upon the steamboats in use, and constantly increases their liability to accident. None now-a-days take passage without a consciousness of hazard. Formerly, the deck was a scene of remarkable cheerfulness – it has become a place of anxiety. The occurrence of the least noise alarms – the awful hissing of the steam from the safety valve, no longer gives assurance of safety, but rather bears testimony to the existence of a tremendous force, which even that precaution cannot always guard against. So many have now been the explosions fatal to not a few, and dangerous to great numbers, that friends part at a steam-boat never without a feeling of the possibility of a catastrophe, from past example, too horrible for description.

Nor has the occurrence of accident been peculiar to our own country and navigation. We know that they have happened at manufactories as well as on board vessels, in various places in England, at Pittsburg and Philadelphia, on the Ohio, the Mississippi the Santee and the Hudson.

The explosion of boilers depends on several causes; and some of them are scarcely known to that class of men to whom the management of the engine is committed. It is a poor consolation to the bereaved, and the scalded, that the testimony of the captain and crew, on oath proves that they have not been careless – that the water, and the steam, was in due order and degree – that a "vacuum in a flue" (if this were possible) might have been the cause, or else some defect of workmanship. The persons employed about a steam-boat may not be aware that the force of steam accumulates in a geometrical ratio to the arithmetical increase of the fire – that the sheets of metal of which the boiler is made, are undergoing an external oxidation from the action of heat, and this with rapidity, if the boiler gets foul within. The same effect takes place on the flues; and a little negligence of the supply, allows the water to leave them uncovered, when they soon become red hot – and if they do not give way at once, their heated surface may, on the sudden accession of the water, generate the steam too fast for the safety-valve to vent: or if the valves of the supply-pump get choaked (sic), or out of order, and the constant entrance of water fails, in a short time the flues, and even the bottom of the boiler, becomes red hot – and some portion of the water and steam within, is probably decomposed into its constituents, oxygen and hydrogen gas, which, igniting, from the heated iron, produces those tremendous effects, which, igniting, from the heated iron, produces those tremendous effects, which have been witnessed in a few instances out of the many less violent, but not less fatal to life, in England – in the ferryboat at Powles Hook, and at Pittsburg: and these were engines of low pressure. Experience has shewn, that no kind of steam-engine is exempt from danger. But the danger is increased on our waters by flued-boilers. The flues pass through the water: the pressure is on their convexity: their strength is not within any rule of computation. On the contrary, those boilers which are single cylinders, have the pressure on the concave side, and are within certain established rules of strength. But this kind of boiler must necessarily be so set, as unavoidably to heat the boat too much to be tolerable to passengers.

There is not therefore a steam-boat on the waters of New-York which has not a flued-boiler. That inconvenience is nothing to the crew of the boat, as she may be well ventilated; and, if necessary, the lodgings be on deck. The single boiler is safer for them, too, as one only of the number used, can give way at once. The power that may be thus put on board a steam-tow-boat may be so great, as to produce a speed heretofore unknown, and may be expected to accomplish the passage between New-York and Albany, between sun-rise and sun-set.

The deck for the light passage boat in tow will be free from all incumbrance and inconvenience – heat, smoke, effluvia, noise and danger; uniting convenience and elegance with safety and speed. Those whose interest is averse to that of the public, may say this is no improvement in steam navigation. I am willing to have this point decided by the public. Test the opinion by opportunity of choice, and we shall see no ladies on board of any other than the towed passage boat – no parent – no man of reflection – that will not be willing to pay a little more for a pleasant, secure, and not inelegant mode of conveyance.

It required no peculiar discernment to foresee the increase of the danger in steam-boats, especially when competition should reduce the fare so low as to induce the employment of the cheapest means of operation. The remedy is alone the separation of the load from the power. It was under a strong impression that this separation has utility, and would become an acknowledged improvement, that my experiments were made, (with an engine of twenty horse power) which led to the grant of my patent, founded on one of the principles of the Patent law, the application of a known power to a new and useful purpose. And I consider it a fair and convincing testimonial of its utility, to mention, on all proper occasions, that it had not escaped the discernment of Mr. Fulton. He is well known to have opposed my claim, with a claim of his own per the same improvement: yet the arbitrators, between us unanimously awarded the priority to me. He had not become by experiment, as I had, aware of the little loss of speed in towing, nor of the diminished resistance to a boat following in the wake of the power boat: the former applicable to freight boats along-side, the latter to the passage boat.

As to the points of expense and speed, there are circumstances favorable to the new system. The single, or old form of steam navigation, requires the whole weight of the machinery to be at or near the centre of a long hull, which, to be sufficiently strong, must be heavy timbered. She, therefore, draws and displaces more water, and meets with more resistance. But on the new system, we may have a comparatively light power boat, and a very light passage boat. The power may be greater than usual, the resistance less.
My patent bears date the 4th of December, 1816, of which I annex a copy; and of course there remains but a few years of the term. But it may be renewed. Every proper step was taken to obtain admission into the waters of New-York, closed and exclusively occupied by the State's grant to Messrs. Livingston and Fulton, lately decided to be unconstitutional. Congress may therefore renew my patent for such term of time as may appear to that honorable body, under all circumstances, to be just and consistent with the public good; not only because those of Evans and of Whittemore were renewed, but because the intention of the provisions of law were frustrated in my case; and because it is good policy in a government to induce capitalists, by the temporary privilege of a patent, to establish in use any costly improvement that may thereafter, by example and experience, become of great and lasting public benefit.

Nor are patentees without protection. They have been put by a law of Congress (Feb. 1819) expressly under the protection of the Circuit Court of the United States, and may file a bill, and by injunction of court obtained, prevent the infringement of a right from proceeding a second step. Nor is he precluded by the process from the recovery of treble damages given by the previous provisions of law.

The recent explosions on board the "Legislator" and the "Constitution", ought, perhaps to revive the recollection of others, and to convince the community that there can be no assurance of safety but by the separation of the accommodation from the power. This city – or those of the inhabitants who feel the force of those considerations, which speak loudly to the heart, the friends – the philanthropic and the wealthy should not, perhaps, wait till some crowded steam-boat, shall be destroyed with all on board.

If it were not my right and interest to invite to this branch of enterprize, I should do so from a sense of duty, knowing so well the causes of the explosion of boilers, I therefore take this method to invite the formation of a powerful but not numerous company, to carry on this branch of steam navigation upon the waters of New-York.

Should this proposition be acceptable, I shall hope it may be communicated before my professional employments shall make it less convenient than at this moment, to make the proper arrangements. JNO. L. SULLIVAN, Civil Engineer, State-street, No. 1, June 22, 1825.
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Words of the Patent referred to in the preceding publication:
"I claim, as my invention, the application of steam-engine power, placed in one vessel, to the towing or drawing after her another vessel, for the purpose of conveying thereon passengers of merchanidize, or either of them, being a new application of a known power. The manner in which this application may be made varies with the circumstances in some measure, but essentially consists in attaching the packet to the steam-boat, with ropes, chains or spars, so as to communicate the power of the engine, from the towing vessel to the other vessel, thus kept always at a convenient distance apart, & c." The advantages & c. are then described.

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