Fulton's First Steamboat by James Baldwin — Read

It is common to speak of Robert Fulton as the inventor of the steamboat. Other persons before him, however, had experimented with machinery for propelling vessels by steam. They had met with but little success or encouragement, and it was left for Fulton to demonstrate the practical value of steam as a means of propulsion and to show the superiority of steamboats to vessels depending solely upon the wind for motive power. Robert Fulton was born in Pennsylvania in 1765. He began his experiments with steam in 1793, and his first successful steamboat, the "Clermont," was launched on the Hudson in 1807. The trip from New York to Albany occupied thirty-two hours, the rate of speed being about five miles an hour. Mr. Fulton himself has left us the following account of the trial of his boat: --

When I was building my first steamboat, the project was viewed by the public at New York either with indifference or contempt, as a visionary scheme. My friends indeed were civil, but they were shy. They listened with patience to my explanations, but with a settled cast of incredulity on their countenances. I felt the full force of the lamentation of the poet --