Please see the [Transcriber’s Notes] at the end of this text.

STEAM-SHIPS

UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME

SAILING SHIPS:

THE STORY OF THEIR DEVELOPMENT FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY

BY
E. KEBLE CHATTERTON

With a Coloured Frontispiece by
CHARLES DIXON
and over 130 Illustrations from Original Sources,
Photographs, Models, &c.

Extra Royal 8vo, 384 pages, in Designed Cover,
Cloth Gilt, 16s. net

The “William Fawcett,” the First P. & O. Steam-ship, 209 Tons, Built 1829.

On the Left is a Bomb Ketch, a Type withdrawn from the Navy about this Date.

On the Right is H. M. S. “St. Vincent,” 101 Guns.

From a Painting by Charles Dixon

By kind permission of the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co.

STEAM-SHIPS

THE STORY OF THEIR DEVELOPMENT
TO THE PRESENT DAY

BY
R. A. FLETCHER

WITH A HUNDRED AND
FIFTY ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON
SIDGWICK & JACKSON, LTD.
3 ADAM STREET, ADELPHI, W.C.
1910

All rights reserved

PREFACE

The story of the Steam-ship, and of its development up to the present time, covers little more than a hundred years. In the companion volume,[1] the evolution of the sailing ship necessitated a comprehensive survey of some eight centuries; but that we need vessels, not only faster than the sailing ship, but also more independent of the weather conditions, is shown by the fact that in the world’s shipping tonnage of to-day (omitting small vessels) the proportion of steam to sail is as nine to one. The “seven seas” must be crossed with speed and safety, in the interest of all nations that have a mile of sea coast; but the Anglo-Saxon race, as it has contributed—from either side of the Atlantic—most largely to the mechanical and structural development of the steam-ship, now depends most vitally upon the organisation of its naval and transportation systems. Napoleon said that the strength of an army lay in its feet; no less true is it that the strength of our Empire lies in her ships.

[1] “Sailing Ships and their Story,” by E. Keble Chatterton, 1909.

A hundred years ago it was impossible to forecast with any accuracy how long a journey might take to accomplish, and the traveller by land or sea was liable to “moving accidents by flood and field”; but side by side with the growth of the steam-ship, and the accompanying increase of certainty in the times of departure and arrival, came the introduction of the railway system inland. Between the two, however, there is the fundamental difference that the sea is a highway open to all, while the land must be bought or hired of its owners; and the result of this was that inland transportation, implying a huge initial outlay on railroad construction, became the business of wealthy companies, whereas any man was free to build a steamboat and ply it where he would. The shipowner, moreover, has a further advantage in his freedom to choose his route, because he is at liberty to “follow trade”; but if, as has happened before now, the traffic of a town decreases, owing to a change in, or the disappearance of, its manufactures, the railway that serves it becomes proportionately useless.

In another essential, the development of steam-transport on land and sea provides a more striking contrast. The main features of George Stephenson’s “Rocket” showed in 1830, in however crude a form as regards detail and design, the leading principles of the modern locomotive engine and boiler; but the history of the marine engine, as of the steam-ship which it propels, has been one of radical change.

The earliest attempts were made, naturally enough, in the face of great opposition. Every one will remember Stephenson’s famous retort, when it was suggested to him that it would be awkward for his engine if a cow got across the rails, that “it would be very awkward—for the cow”;—and at sea it was the rule for a long while to regard steam merely as auxiliary to sails, to be used in calms. While ships were still built of wood, and while the early engines consumed a great deal of fuel in proportion to the distance covered, it was impossible to carry enough coal for long voyages, and a large sail-area had still to be provided. Progress was thus retarded until, in 1843, the great engineer Brunel proved by the Great Britain that the day of the wooden ship had passed; and the next ten years were marked by the substitution of iron for wood in shipbuilding.

Thenceforward the story of the steam-ship progressed decade by decade. Between 1855 and 1865 paddle-wheels gave place to screw propellers, and the need for engines of a higher speed, which the adoption of the screw brought about, distinguished the following decade as that in which the “compound engine” was evolved. Put shortly, “compounding” means the using of the waste steam from one cylinder to do further work in a second cylinder. The extension of this system to “triple expansion,” whereby the exhaust steam is utilised in a third cylinder, the introduction of twin screws, and the substitution of steel for iron in hull-construction, were the chief innovations between 1875 and 1885. The last fifteen years of the century saw the tonnage of the world’s shipping doubled, and the main features of mechanical progress during that period were another step to “quadruple expansion” and the application of “forced draught,” which gives a greater steam-pressure without a corresponding increase in the size of the boilers. The first decade of the present century has been already devoted to the development of the “turbine” engine.

I have to thank the Institute of Marine Engineers at Stratford, E., for much valuable assistance and for placing its Transactions at my disposal; if I have not acknowledged every item derived therefrom I trust that this general acknowledgment will suffice. To Mr. J. Kennedy, author of “The History of Steam Navigation”; Mr. A. J. Maginnis, author of “The Atlantic Ferry”; and Captain James Williamson, author of “The Clyde Passenger Steamer,” I am greatly indebted for their kind permission to draw freely upon their books: and to the publishers of the two latter, Messrs. Whittaker and Co. and Messrs. MacLehose and Sons respectively, for the loan of illustrations. Special thanks are also due to Mr. E. A. Stevens of Hoboken, New Jersey, U.S.A., not only for information concerning the experiments made by Colonel Stevens with the screw propeller, but also for the loan of some unique photographs of early American boats. Mr. A. J. Dudgeon, M.I.N.A., M.I.C.E., son of the well-known Thames shipbuilder, has revised a large amount of my work, and was good enough to place at my disposal his valuable scrap-books, from the pictures in which my friend Mr. Ernest Coffin has drawn several charming line-illustrations and the initial letters to the chapters. For various assistance I have to thank other friends and correspondents: Mr. James A. Smith, M.I.N.A; Mr. Harry J. Palmer, formerly of Shipping Illustrated, New York, and now assistant to Captain Clark, Lloyd’s agent at New York; Mr. J. W. Little, of Messrs. Little and Johnson; and Mr. James Gallagher of Paris for his researches at the Academy of Sciences and elsewhere.

For permission to reproduce many illustrations of models, &c., in the Science Museum at South Kensington, I am indebted to the Board of Education; while for particular information I am glad to acknowledge the especial courtesy of Messrs. Barclay, Curle and Co., Ltd., of Whiteinch, Messrs. R. and W. Green, Ltd., Messrs. Swan, Hunter, and Wigham Richardson, Ltd.; and, for revising the portion relating to Floating Docks and supplying illustrations thereof, to Messrs. Clark and Standfield. To many other famous shipbuilding firms who have supplied material or illustrations thanks must also be tendered: Messrs. Harland and Wolff of Belfast; Messrs. A. and J. Inglis of Glasgow; Messrs. Thornycroft and Co., Ltd.; the Carron Company; Messrs. Yarrow; Messrs. Eltringham and Co., Ltd.; Messrs. Smith’s Docks Co., Ltd.; Messrs. Palmer’s Shipbuilding and Iron Co., Ltd.; Messrs. Armstrong, Whitworth and Co., Ltd.; the Parson’s Marine Steam Turbine Co., Ltd.; the Thames Iron Works and Shipbuilding Co., Ltd.; the Vulcan Shipbuilding Co. of Stettin; Messrs. W. Denny and Brothers, Ltd., of Dumbarton; Messrs. Osbourne Graham and Co., Ltd.; Messrs. William Gray and Co., Ltd.; Sir Raylton Dixon and Co. of Middlesbrough; Messrs. W. Doxford and Sons of Sunderland; and the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, U.S.A.

To many shipowning firms I and my publishers are alike indebted for information and the loan of illustrative material; the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., Ltd.; The Cunard Company; the White Star Line; the American Line; the Pacific Steam Navigation Company; the Orient Line; Messrs. Shaw, Savill and Co., Ltd.; Lund’s Blue Anchor Line; the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company; Messrs. Elder, Dempster and Co., Ltd.; the General Steam Navigation Company; the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company, Ltd.; the principal Railway Companies owning steam-ships; the Anchor Line; the Allan Line; Messrs. Brocklebank and Co.; the Bibby Line; Messrs. George Thompson and Son’s Aberdeen Line; the North German Lloyd, and the Hamburg-American Line.

Certain illustrations appear by arrangement with the editors of the Magazine of Commerce, the Shipping World, the Syren and Shipping, the Master, Mate, and Pilot (of New York), the Engineer, and the Shipbuilder. The photograph of the Minas Geraes is reproduced by special permission of his Excellency the Chief of the Brazilian Naval Commission.

R. A. Fletcher

June 1910

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER I
PRIMITIVE EXPERIMENTS IN PROPULSION—SOME EARLY EXPERIMENTS WITH STEAM

Opinions are divided as to whether the paddle-wheel is a development from the action of a man paddling a canoe, or the result of applying to a vessel an ordinary wheel, with blades to make it bite the water; or it may be stated thus: Did the paddle-blades grow out of the wheel, or the wheel out of a number of paddle-blades? There is no satisfactory evidence one way or the other; suffice it that the idea of revolving paddles was developed.

How the power which caused the revolution of the paddles was applied at first is as unknown as the identity of the man who first thought of making navigation easier by mechanical means. It was probably human power, as the first inventor can hardly have discovered how to utilise animals for the purpose, and from what we know of primitive expedients we may conjecture what the first contrivance used to urge a boat onwards without sails or oars was like. The craft would be a small one. Perhaps the proprietor was too poor to hire rowers. Perhaps, a subtle financier, he realised that if he could bring his goods to a certain place before rival shippers he would secure the market. Hence, stimulated by poverty or cupidity or both, he reflected, experimented, and finally invented the revolving paddle. But his apparatus was probably nothing more than a smooth, straight branch or tree log, which projected over either side of the boat and carried at each end paddles fixed radially. He probably used two or four paddles, as it would be easier to attach them to the axle in pairs. The radii of the paddles consisted of two poles tied at right angles about the middle and there fastened to the axle ends, rough-hewn boards or strips of bark being attached at the extremities of the poles to form the paddle-blades. The axle was doubtless kept in place either by pins in the gunwales placed before and after it, or by bringing two of the ribs on either side above the gunwale line and disposing the axle between them. In many modern row-boats one or other of these plans is adopted for the accommodation of the oars or sculls. This much being accomplished, it only remained to apply the power. The inventor now passed a rope twice round the middle of the axle, and tied the ends together. By hauling on it he got all the power he was likely to require; to go astern he had merely to pull the rope the other way. If more power was required more men tugged at the rope.

When paddles were made larger to suit hulls of larger dimensions, it may fairly be assumed that a winch turned by several men was used, and that the power was transmitted to the axle of the paddle by means of an endless rope. But soon it occurred to the shipowners that animals might be used to produce the power instead of men. Horses or oxen were made to drive a turntable or capstan, to work in a cage after the fashion of white mice in their cylinders, or on a moving floor which imparted its motion to an axle connected by an endless rope with the axle of the paddle. Such boats, deriving their power from animals, were built by the Romans, were in use in the early centuries of the Christian era, and were not unknown in the nineteenth century in Britain and the United States.

Primitive Paddle-boats.

From Valturius’ “De Re Militari,” 1472.

One of the earliest authentic records of a vessel fitted with paddle-wheels is to be found in Robertus Valturius’ “De Re Militari,” published in 1472, wherein are pictures[2] of two boats, one of which has five pairs of paddle-wheels, and the other one pair. Modern engineers know by experience that if two wheels be placed one behind another—and in the early days of steam navigation several boats were equipped with two pairs of paddle-wheels—the hinder wheels, having to work in disturbed and moving water, are practically useless. But at the time of which Valturius writes the wheels were so small, the number of revolutions were so few, and the propelling power they exerted so slight, that no wheel was likely to have its efficiency much interfered with by any number of wheels in front of it. The wheels had four paddles each, and were revolved by cranks on their axles, the cranks of the ten-wheeled boat being connected by a rope to give uniform action.

[2] The designs have been attributed to Matteo de’ Pasti, who lived at the court of Malatesta (d. 1464).

In the Far East also, wheel-boats were in use long before steam-driven paddle-wheels were invented. The Chinese certainly used them. In a paper read at the Society of Arts in April 1858, Mr. John McGregor, a barrister, who devoted considerable time to the study of early mechanical appliances, stated that an old work on China contains a [sketch] of a vessel moved by four paddle-wheels, and used perhaps in the seventh century. In certain “Memoires” of the Jesuit Fathers at Peking, published at Paris in 1782, there appears this quaint description of a “barque à roues”: “This vessel is 42 feet in length and 13 feet in width. The wheels are fixed in an empty space about a foot high situate underneath the strip between the stout planks a b. From the axle or centre of the wheels any number of spokes radiate which act like teeth for the wheels. They enter the water to the depth of a foot. A number of men make the wheels turn round. The length of the prow from l to m is 8 feet. The length of the body of the vessel from n to o is 27 feet, and the length of the poop 7 feet. Heads of tigers are represented on movable boards covered with leather, about 5 feet in height and 2 feet wide. These boards shelter from the enemy the soldiers who are behind them. They are removed when the crew decide on boarding the enemy’s vessel.” The good Fathers in their “Memoires” add a recommendation to experts in Paris to study the principle with a view to its adoption in French vessels, and they point out that even if the extra speed attained were ever so slight it might be sufficient to bring a vessel out of a dangerous situation. It may well be doubted, however, whether the shipping experts in Paris at that date profited by this humanitarian suggestion. Be this as it may, the passage proves that the propulsion of vessels by revolving wheels was not a western idea only.

“Barque à Roues,” Primitive Chinese Paddle-boat.

Panciroli, writing in the sixteenth century, describes an extraordinary boat of which he had seen a picture. His book is not illustrated; but we find a [representation] of a liburna, or galley, which exactly corresponds to Panciroli’s description,[3] in Morisotus’ (Claude Barthélemy Morisot) “Orbis Maritimi ... generalis Historia,” published in 1643.

[3] “Vidi etiam effigiem Navium quarundam, quas Liburnas dicunt; quæ ab utroque latere extrinsecus tres habebant rotas, aquam attingentes: quarum quælibet octo constabat radiis, manus palmo e rota prominentibus: intrinsecus vero sex boves machinam quandam circumagendo rotas illas incitabant: et radii aquam retrorsum pellentes, Liburnam tanto impetu ad cursum propellebant, ut nulla triremis ei posset resistere.”—Guido Panciroli: Rerum memorabilium, libri ii. Ambergæ, 1599.

The vessel, an Illyrian galley, had six wheels propelled by as many oxen. The curious picture suggests an unwieldy, top-heavy concern which could only be of use in still water, and would probably be safest in shallow water, so that if anything happened the oxen and men could walk ashore without trouble. The cattle apparently occupy most of the space, an immense bird’s head with a hooked nose juts out in front immediately above the water-line; this is of course the ram, above which is a platform upon which a dog stands as the vessel’s figure-head.

It is unnecessary to go in detail into all the schemes devised by inventors and visionaries for propelling vessels by mechanical means. Several of them from time to time suggested placing wheels on the outside of the boat, and “turning the wheeles by some provision so that the wheeles make the boat goe,” to quote William Bourne’s proposition of 1578, but the “some provision” constituted a problem which he and many others found too much for them. David Ramsay in 1618 took out a patent “to make boats for carriages running upon water as swift in calms and more safe in storms than boats full sailed in great winds,” and twelve years later another patent is recorded to his credit for making ships and barges go against the tide. The optimism of these and other mechanical pioneers was wonderful; indeed, had their inventive genius only equalled their imagination, some of the difficulties which until comparatively recently baffled naval engineers and marine architects would have been long since overcome.

“Liburna” or Galley, worked by Oxen.

From Morisotus.

The webbed feet of water-birds suggested to many a form in which mechanical propulsion could be applied. This was only natural, as early shipbuilders took as their models the birds which they saw floating before them. In 1759 a Swiss pastor named Genevois published at Geneva a proposal to use an oar fitted with a foot which should expand when used for propelling a boat and contract when being moved forward through the water for another stroke. Genevois visited London in 1760 to lay his proposal before the Government. His propellers were to be worked by springs which in turn were to be compressed by a kind of cannon with a piston. A pamphlet which he issued at the time of his application to the Government contains the interesting statement that he had been informed that a Scotchman had propounded a scheme thirty years earlier for propelling vessels forward by the recoil from the firing of cannon over the stern. The gunpowder of the period made up in smoke what it lacked in power; hence, although the vessels of his day were not large, the ingenious Scot “found, by the experiments made for that purpose, that thirty barrels of Gun-powder had scarce forwarded the ship the space of ten Miles”; and it is not surprising that this means of mechanical propulsion shared the fate of all of its predecessors.[4]

[4] “Some New Inquiries tending to the Improvement of Navigation,” by J. A. Genevois, 1760.

Many other extravagant schemes might be quoted. Edward Ford in 1646 was quite modest in his patent to “bring little ships, barges, and vessels in and out of any havens without or against any small wind or tide,” to which he cautiously added the qualification “if the seas be not rough.” With the exception, however, of a few sporting proposals of which the Scotch Gunpowder Plot is a type, no advance in solving the problem of producing the power for propulsion was made for centuries. The burden of physical exertion had been shifted from men to animals, but that was all; and yet in every age during the last two thousand years there seem to have been many people who were acquainted with the expansive power of steam, a fact which makes this slow development the more remarkable.

The first person to observe the properties of steam, or at any rate the first to record his observations, was Hero of Alexandria in 120 B.C., but though he advanced from theory to practice, his æolipile does not seem to have answered any useful purpose. This machine consisted of a hollow glass ball supplied with steam at its axis. The steam escaped by means of a series of hollow tubes, placed at right angles and projecting from the globe at a circle on its circumference equidistant from the two poles, the tubes being closed at the ends and provided with orifices at the sides near the ends. Nothing came of his invention, so far as is known, and the æolipile remained an interesting toy and nothing else—a toy, however, which has the honour of being the first mechanical contrivance in which the expansive power of steam was used. After this, for many centuries, no attempt was made to use this great natural agency for the purpose of producing what Bacon called “fruits” for mankind. Unscrupulous priests worked “miracles” by this means for the edification of their flocks, and doubtless revived thereby many whose faith had become lukewarm. It never seems to have occurred to them that a far more direct means of moving mountains was already under their control.

At last in 1629 the use of steam as a means of producing power was suggested by Giovanni Branca of Loretto, who, apparently adopting a simplified form of Hero’s device, planned so that a jet of steam blew against a series of vanes arranged on the rim of a wheel.

In the seventeenth century also, that eccentric genius the second Marquis of Worcester published his “Century of Inventions.” In this he suggested a number of mechanical contrivances, some of which contained the fundamental ideas of later inventions, the most notable being that of a steam-engine with a piston and lever; but he does not seem to have designed any vessel which would justify the claim sometimes made on his behalf that he was the inventor of the steamboat.[5]

[5] Partington’s edition of the “Century of Inventions.”

About the same time, Sir S. Morland, another experimenter, estimated the expansive force of water at 2000 times, in which he was not far from the truth.

England, however, was not the only country to produce inventors. One Blasco de Garay, who flourished a hundred years before the Marquis of Worcester, is declared by his champions to have been the first to solve the problem of propelling a vessel by steam-power. But investigations as to the accuracy of the story tend to the belief that he did nothing of the kind, and that the beautifully circumstantial account of his experiment does greater credit to the imagination of the narrator than to his regard for accuracy.[6] De Garay’s experiment was made at Barcelona in the year 1543 in the presence of representatives of the Emperor Charles V. Ravago, the Treasurer, reported to the Emperor that the vessel would go two leagues in three hours, but that the machine was complex and expensive, and that the cauldron in which the steam was generated might burst. This is exactly the report which a cautious financier, presumably not an expert in mechanics, might be expected to make. Other reports were more favourable to the project, the commissioners appointed for the purpose ascribing to the vessel a speed of a league an hour. What has been established beyond question, however, is that De Garay made the experiment with a boat fitted with paddle-wheels, but that the wheels were turned by men and not by steam.

[6] Mr. John McGregor reported to the Society of Arts that the claim that De Garay used a steam-engine is unfounded, human power being used.

Salomon de Caus, a native of Normandy, is sometimes claimed by French writers to have first thought of using steam as a motive power in 1615, but his invention does not seem to have fructified. Half a century later the unlucky Doctor Denis Papin, a native of Blois, entered the field of invention. He came to this country from France in 1675, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1681, and in 1690 described a steam cylinder fitted with a piston which descended by atmospheric pressure when the steam below it was condensed. He suggested that one of the uses to which his engine might be put was the revolution of paddle-wheels fitted to a ship, several cylinders being applied which worked alternately with the rackwork he designed. He may have been led to this by witnessing in 1681 the experiments on the Thames with a boat designed by Rupert, the Prince Palatine, with revolving fans, which easily left behind a boat manned by a number of oarsmen. It has been claimed for Papin that he was the inventor of the safety-valve, but this is disputed.[7] Prior, however, to his atmospheric engine he brought out in 1685 a machine for raising or pumping water, but the Royal Society treated it with contempt and referred to it as a “mere trick.” Neither of his machines received the recognition which historians have since decided was their due, and he went back disheartened to France, whence he was driven by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes to Marburg. He reappeared in England in 1707 and announced a project for moving ships by means of wheels and steam. Unfortunately for him, Thomas Savery, born in 1658, had already been at work on the problem, and had brought out his fire-engine, which among other things he thought might be used to propel ships. His machine lacked power, and was replaced by one made after the design of his partner Newcomen. Papin was also associated with Newcomen and Savery at one time. Savery says of his own machine that he would refer the question of its suitability for shipping to those more competent than himself to judge. Papin appealed to the Naval Department to consider his invention, but the Government of the day, after the manner of Governments when face to face with a new project, thought it useless, and made severe remarks on his presumption in continuing to invent for them. He exhibited his invention on the Thames, but no one took any interest in it. Thoroughly disheartened by the failures which attended all his efforts, Papin went to Germany, and is stated to have there built a steamer which was actually tried on the Fulda or the Weser, but the local watermen, fearing the rivalry of the new machine, smashed it, and that is the last which history has to record of Papin as a pioneer of steamboats. It is asserted that this boat was built for him by Newcomen and Savery in this country. As an experimenter he did valuable work, for he seems to have been the first to have grasped the importance of the vacuum under the piston.[8]

[7] Hy. Frith’s “Triumphs of Steam.”

[8] Lindsay’s “History of Merchant Shipping.”

In 1730 another remarkable proposition was made for marine propulsion. Doctor John Allen thought it possible to move a boat by pumping in water at the bows and pumping it out again at the stern, this scheme being probably the earliest attempt to secure motion by what has since become known as the jet-propeller system. Like almost all other inventions of his period it was crude in its details and does not seem to have been put to any practical use.

The next inventor who turned his attention to the question was Jonathan Hulls, for whom it has been claimed, with some show of justification, that he was the actual inventor of the steamboat. That he did invent a steamboat is beyond question, but whether his vessel was ever built, and if so whether it attained any measure of success, are points upon which historical evidence is not conclusive. But if it was constructed, and there is strong circumstantial evidence in support of this contention, then to the West of England, which has contributed so largely to the maritime glory of Britain, must be ascribed also the honour of being the birthplace of one of the two inventions which have done more than anything else to aid in the spread of civilisation and commerce. Hulls was born at Aston Magna in 1699. By occupation he was a clock repairer, a precarious trade at best. The difficulties he had to encounter through lack of means were very great, but he persevered, and a patron at last appeared in the person of a Mr. Freeman, of Batsford Park, near Chipping Campden, who supplied him with about £160 to develop and patent his invention. This enabled Hulls to proceed to London, and he petitioned Queen Caroline, as Guardian of the Realm in the absence of her Consort George II. at Hanover, for Letters Patent for the invention, which was accordingly granted to him December 21, 1736, provided he enrolled in Chancery within the following three months a specification describing his invention.[9] The patent read as follows:

“Whereas our Trusty and Well Beloved Jonathan Hulls hath by his petition humbly represented unto Our most dearly beloved Consort the Queen.... That he hath with much Labour and Study, and at Great Expense Invented and Formed a machine for carrying Ships and Vessels out of or into any Harbour, &c., which the Petitioner apprehends may be of great service to our Royal Navy and Merchant Ships, and to Boats and other Vessels, of which Machine the Petitioner hath made oath that he is the sole inventor, as by affidavit to his said petition annexed.

“Know ye therefore that we of our special grace, have given and granted to the said Jonathan Hulls our special license, full power, sole privilege and authority during the term of fourteen years, and he shall lawfully make use of the same for carrying ships and other vessels out to sea, or into any harbour or river.

“In witness whereof we have caused these our letters to be made patent.

“(Witness) Caroline,
“Queen of Great Britain.

“Given by right of Privy Seal at Westminster this 21st day of December 1736.”[10]

[ [9] Mr. J. H. Hulls’ lecture at the Institute of Marine Engineers on “The Introduction of Steam Navigation,” February 26, 1906.

[10] From copy of patent in possession of Mr. J. H. Hulls.

Mr. P. C. Rushen, in referring to the experiment, writes:

“About this time it may be presumed that Jonathan set about constructing a vessel in accordance with his plans, and for this purpose he had the help of the Eagle Foundry at Birmingham, to which he forwarded rough model plans and sketches to aid in founding and forging the various parts. Until quite recent years these relics were existent, but on the sale and demolition of the foundry they seem to have been destroyed.

“The new vessel was tried on the Avon, but tradition says it was a failure, by reason of the inventor not providing the proper means to communicate the power to the paddle. That the experiment was a failure seems evident from the fact that nothing more was heard of the boat, but for the given reason is very improbable, because the very ingenious means the inventor describes, although perhaps not quite practical on a large scale, are not palpably unworkable for a small experimental boat. Even if these means were a failure, it would be ridiculous to suppose that a clever mechanic such as Hulls shows himself to be in his pamphlet would be at a loss for some expedient.

Jonathan Hulls’ Paddle Steamer, 1737.

“The more probable reason of Hulls’ failure was the want of financial support, that previously accorded him being perhaps withdrawn on the first hitch in the experiments, or for some other reason, this so disheartening him that he relinquished the idea. While Hulls had been at work on his project, he had worn a brown paper cap, as usual with mechanics at that time, and this fact was taken advantage of in a scathing doggerel, which was circulated upon his failure, and which ran:

“Jonathan Hull

With his paper skull;

Tried to make a Machine

To go against wind and tide,

But he, like an ass,

Couldn’t bring it to pass

So at last was ashamed to be seen.”[11]

[11] P. C. Rushen’s “History and Antiquities of Chipping Campden in the County of Gloucester,” 1899.

The engine which Hulls used was an adaptation of Newcomen’s. He published a lengthy description of his boat, in which he states that, in his opinion, it would not be practicable to place his machine on anything but a tow-boat, as it would take up too much room to allow of other goods being carried on the same vessel, and it could “not be used in a storm, or when the waves are very raging.” Hulls died in London destitute, and the world inherited his ideas. Steam tow-boats are now found all over the world, and the despised stern-wheeler of his day was the forerunner of the great stern-wheelers of the Mississippi.

Another person who took up the subject seriously was a Frenchman, Jouffroy d’Abbans, better known perhaps as Claude François Dorothée, Marquis de Jouffroy. His invention was known as the Pyroscaphe. It was claimed for him by the Marquis de Bausset-Roquefort that “he was the first who carried out in practice a scheme for navigation by steam, his successful experiments on the Saône at Lyons in 1783 being attested by official documents, and by the evidence of thousands of spectators. The glory of the invention of the means of using steam-power in navigation belongs therefore to France, as is clearly shown by the archives of the town of Lyons.”

The Marquis de Jouffroy was born at Roche-sur-Rognon in 1751. A duel fought while he was page to the Dauphin caused his exile to Provence, where he studied the methods by which the ancient rowing galleys were propelled. He returned to Paris in 1775 and conceived the idea of inventing some form of steamboat while looking at the Chaillot fire-pump which Périer[12] had erected a short time previously. He communicated his project to Périer, who made some fruitless experiments and declared the idea impossible. Jouffroy, however, persevered, and in 1776 had constructed a machine which he adapted for use on a boat. “His first pyroscaphe was 13 m. long, and 1 m. 95 c. wide. The ‘swimming’ apparatus consisted of rods 2 m. 66 c. in length suspended on either side well forward and carrying at their extremity frames fitted with hinged flaps with a dip of 50 c. The frames were capable of describing an arc of 2 m. 66 c. (8 feet) radius and of 1 m. (3 feet) in length, and were drawn forward at the end of the stroke by a counterweight. A single-acting engine by Watt, installed in the middle of the boat, set in action these hinged flaps. The construction of this apparatus in a locality where it was impossible to obtain a cast and bored cylinder was a work of genius, courage, and patience. Despite its imperfections it was superior to anything attempted up to that time in navigation. The boat worked on the Doubs at Baume-les-Dames between Montbéliard and Besançon during the months of June and July.” This system, since called the “Palmipède,” imitated the movements of aquatic birds, and was the only one that could be applied to the steam-engine as then known. It was, however, useless for moving large masses or for working against the current. “Jouffroy saw the defects caused by the fact that the rapidity of the boat’s motion prevented the hinged flaps from reopening after the forward stroke, especially when the pyroscaphe was moving upstream or against the tide. Hence the engine only acted at intervals instead of keeping up a sustained movement. But Jouffroy substituted paddle-wheels for the hinged flaps (volets à charnière) and devised a new machine in which the action of the steam was made continuous by means of two bronze cylinders, the top placed lengthwise with the run of the ship, making with the horizon an angle of about 50 degrees. The bottoms of the cylinders were encased in a metal box containing a sliding tile which opened and shut, alternately giving a passage to the steam and the intake of water in each cylinder.

[12] The name is spelt “Perrier” by some writers.

The Marquis de Jouffroy’s Steamboat. 1783.

“By July 1, 1783, Jouffroy had constructed a second boat which was launched at Lyons. Its dimensions were considerable, the length attaining 46 m. and the breadth 4 m. 50 c. The wheels were 4 m. diameter, the paddles 1 m. 95 c., dipping 65 c. The draught of water of the vessel was 95 c. The total weight was 327 milliers, of which 27 were for the vessel and 300 for the freight. This enormous vessel voyaged against the tide of the Saône from Lyons to L’île Barbe in the presence of the Commission de Savants and thousands of spectators, as officially recorded in the archives of the Municipality of Lyons.” Arago says this vessel continued to navigate the Saône for sixteen months.[13]

[13] Paper read by the Marquis de Bausset-Roquefort before the Lyons Literary Society in 1864, and preserved at the Mazarin Library (Academy of Sciences), Paris.

Jouffroy now thought of starting a company to run boats on the new system, and applied to the Government for the necessary permission. The question was submitted to the Academy of Sciences, who appointed a Commission to inquire into the matter, but among the members of the Commission was the unsuccessful Périer, whose opposition resulted in the Academy concluding that the experiments at Lyons were not decisive. The Marquis had not the means to continue building steamboats and, profoundly discouraged, he abandoned the rôle of inventor. He had already been subjected to much ridicule, and it was generally agreed that he must be mad to think of “making fire and water agree”; he was even nicknamed “Pump Jouffroy.” He witnessed the experiments of Fulton in France, but did not think of claiming the merit of his discovery until 1816, when he issued a publication entitled “Steamboats.” The same year he took out a patent, formed a company, and on August 20 launched a steamboat at Bercy, but the venture did not come up to the expectations of the shareholders, and this was his last effort. Jouffroy died of cholera at the Hôpital des Invalides in 1832. Arago, the historian, says that his claims to be the first inventor of the steamboat have been established, and, according to Larousse’s “Dictionnaire universel du XIX^e siècle,” Fulton himself openly acknowledged them in the United States law courts.

CHAPTER II
AMERICAN PIONEERS IN STEAM NAVIGATION

Towards the end of the eighteenth century American inventors turned their attention to the problem of navigation by steam, and to one of them, Robert Fulton, the credit of having invented the steamboat has usually been given. Livingston’s “Historical Account of the Application of Steam for the Propelling of Boats” has been accepted as an authority on the subject, but as he was Fulton’s friend and backer, and Fulton married into the Livingston family, there is reason to question the absolute accuracy of the circumstantial story told by this most eloquent special pleader, though there is some excuse for his partiality. A little investigation makes it apparent that Fulton was not the first American to design a successful steamboat, nor even the first to make the running of steamboats a satisfactory speculation.

In 1909 a Mr. John Moray of West Virginia presented a petition to Congress in which he asked for the official recognition of James Rumsay as the inventor of the steamboat, and the perpetuation of his memory by the placing of an appropriate bust in the Statuary Hall at the Capitol. According to the petition “The deed-books of Berkeley County, Va., for the year 1782 record the fact that James Rumsay, a native of Maryland, who was a millwright and Revolutionary soldier, purchased a farm, and soon after a pond, for experimental purposes in the line of his calling. On that pond, as the results of many experiments in steam and hydrostatics by James Rumsay, the wonderful discovery of the principle of steam navigation took place. Thoroughly satisfied by continuous experiments that the newly discovered principle would become of immense value in the world, Rumsay contracted with his brother-in-law, Joseph Barnes, for the building of a boat for steam purposes at St. John’s Run, on the Potomac River. The resulting steamboat was publicly exhibited at Shepherdstown, Va., on the Potomac, on December 3 and 11, 1787. The great success and useful character of Rumsay’s steamboat were established by sworn testimony of many notable witnesses, including General Horatio Gates, conqueror of Burgoyne, and by a multitude of astonished and delighted spectators. This practically successful trial took place twenty years before the Hudson River trial in 1807, and the speed of Rumsay’s boat was fully equal to that of the Clermont in its initial trip to Albany—four miles an hour—without sails, paddles, and the complexities of the Hudson River boat.”

Rumsay afterwards launched on the Potomac a boat propelled by a steam-engine and machinery, both of which were of his own construction. His method of propelling the boat was to force out a stream of water at the stern, a system known as the “Jet,” which has never commended itself to engineers in general, owing to the friction caused in the pipes by the water rushing through them. A trial trip, in December 1787, was successfully made in the presence of a great number of spectators, and resulted in Rumsay being granted the right to navigate the streams of New York, Maryland, and Virginia. His scheme was taken up by an organisation formed in Philadelphia for that purpose, and known as the Rumsay Society. Benjamin Franklin was among its members. Rumsay also visited England and the Continent, and obtained patents for his invention in Great Britain, France, and Holland, but he did not live long enough to develop his schemes. He made a successful trip on the Thames in 1792, and died in London the same year.

His great rival was John Fitch, who, in 1785, conceived the idea of using steam-power for land carriages and afterwards for vessels. His first model of a steamer carried large wheels at the sides, but these were found to labour too much in the water, and in his experiments in July 1786 upon a skiff with a steam-engine having a three-inch cylinder, the wheels were replaced by paddles or oars supported by a framework above the vessel. Convinced of the success which must ultimately attend the use of steam-power, he petitioned Congress and the State Legislature for a grant of money, but without avail. As a result of his efforts to interest “the leading scientific and public men of that day, everywhere and at all times,” and his bold advocacy of the adoption of steam for purposes of navigation, he was generally considered insane. But in 1786 he succeeded in persuading the State of New Jersey to grant him for fourteen years the sole and exclusive right to navigate its waters by steam, and this example was followed in 1787 by the States of New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. He had earned some money by map-making, and now formed a company and built a boat of 60 tons. She was 45 feet long with a beam of 12 feet, had six oars or paddles on each side, and carried an engine with a 12-inch cylinder. She made a successful trial trip at Philadelphia in 1787. A still larger boat followed in 1788, and another in 1790. The latter demonstrated “with their increased speed and facility the value of Fitch’s invention,” and the last was run during the summer as a passenger boat between Philadelphia and Burlington at a speed of about eight miles an hour. She appears, from an illustration in Appleton’s “Cyclopædia of American Biography,” to have had three large paddles at the stern held in place by a projecting frame, a cross-beam at the extreme end of the frame supporting the rudder, which was placed a little distance behind the paddles. Consequent upon the Virginia patent which gave him the exclusive right of navigating “the Ohio River and its tributaries” he now designed a boat called the Perseverance, for freight and passengers on the Mississippi. But as, owing to a storm, she could not be got ready in time, the default clause in the patent became operative. Fitch’s associates now left him and his own resources were at an end, and after one or two other misfortunes he went to France in 1793. Needless to say, that country was in no mood then to entertain the idea of building steamboats. Finding no one ready to listen to his schemes, Fitch departed for London, having deposited his plans and specifications with the American Consul at Lorient.

John Fitch’s Oared Paddle boat, 1786.

A rather curious thing then happened.

“During this absence his (Fitch’s) drawings and papers were loaned by the Consul to Robert Fulton, then in Paris, in whose possession they were for several months.”[14] Until now, it must be remembered, Fulton had scarcely been heard of in connection with steamboats.

[14] Appleton’s “Cyclopædia.”

Meantime the ill-starred Fitch, unable to gain a hearing in England either, worked his passage back to America as a common sailor. In 1796, still determined to convince the public of the need for steamboats, he obtained a ship’s yawl, and fitted her with an engine and screw-propeller. With these he experimented in New York and, as usual, no one took any interest in the boat except the proprietor. In 1798 he made and tried upon a small stream near Bardstown a steamboat model measuring three feet in length, but a few weeks later he committed suicide by taking poison. His “Journal” contains the following passage: “The day will come when some more powerful man will get fame and riches from my invention, but nobody will believe that poor John Fitch can do anything worthy of attention.”

About twenty years later Fitch’s merits as an inventor were recognised by a Committee of the New York Legislature, which reported that “the steamboats built by Livingston and Fulton were in substance the invention patented to John Fitch in 1791, and Fitch during the term of his patent had the exclusive right to use the same in the United States.”

Other inventors were at work. Fulton was in France thinking over the Fitch drawings which had been left there in 1793, trying a submarine boat on the Seine, and in 1801 making a variety of experiments under the auspices of the French Government.

In America, one Samuel Morey, in 1790, built a strange boat with a paddle-wheel in the prow, constructed a steam-engine for her, and presently was voyaging on the Connecticut River at the break-neck speed of four miles an hour. A few years later he had another boat ready which could do five miles an hour, this boat having a wheel at the stern, and by request he took Chancellor R. Livingston and others for a trip in New York waters. The Chancellor, who had made a trip in Morey’s first boat at Orford, perceived two things, first, that the speed ought to be increased, and, second, that there was money in steamboats. He promised Morey 100,000 dollars, it is believed, if he could run a boat at eight miles an hour, and offered him 7000 dollars for a patent for the North River as far as Amboy for what had already been accomplished. The latter offer was not accepted. Morey in 1795 took out a patent for a steam-engine, in which the power was to be applied by crank motion, to propel boats of any size. Two years later he built a steamer which he placed on the Delaware, and propelled it by means of two paddle-wheels, one on either side. These wheels gave better results than any method which had yet been tried.

When, a little later, Livingston went to France and became associated with Fulton as the financier of his enterprises, it is probable that the knowledge the former had gained of Morey’s work and Roosevelt’s experiments, and the latter of Fitch’s designs, proved extremely useful to both of them. Nicholas J. Roosevelt had attracted some attention by building a small wooden boat across which was an axle projecting over the sides, and carrying paddles, the contrivance being made to revolve by a light cord wound round the middle of the machine and attached to hickory and whalebone springs. In 1798 he recommended to Livingston a vertical wheel, and the Chancellor replied, “Vertical wheels are out of the question.” As late as 1802 Fulton favoured chains and floats, and it was not until after Livingston had communicated Roosevelt’s plan to him that they applied vertical wheels on Roosevelt’s system to their boat on the Seine.

About this time also Livingston was engaged with John Stevens, his brother-in-law, and Nicholas J. Roosevelt on the construction of a steamboat to be used on the Hudson, the New York State Legislature having granted the necessary monopoly. The State required that the boat should attain a speed of three miles an hour, but this was not achieved. Livingston was appointed Minister to France in 1801, and was thus cut off from his two partners and brought into communication with Fulton. Another version is that the boat made three miles an hour, and that the State stipulated for four miles an hour.

Robert Fulton, asserted to be an Irishman by descent, was born in Pennsylvania in 1765. When a boy he had witnessed the experiments made on the Delaware by John Fitch, but the problems of steam navigation were only a few of those which occupied his versatile genius. He came to England in 1786, and in 1794 invented a marble-sawing machine, a flax-spinning machine, a machine for ropemaking and a mechanical dredger. In 1795 he published a treatise on canal navigation in which he suggested a number of improvements in lock construction.

In 1797 he went to France and was for some time occupied in designing and experimenting with submarine boats. He suggested to the French Government that his submarine would be useful in destroying the British Fleet. The Directory would have nothing to do with his plans, but when Napoleon became First Consul a Commission was appointed to investigate and report upon them. Beyond agitating the British Government for some time, however, while he experimented with torpedoes designed to destroy their fleet, and trying unsuccessfully to sell his invention to the French Government, nothing was accomplished. He came over to England in 1804 prepared to sell his invention to the British Government. From one point of view Fulton appears as the inventor of a horrible engine of destruction, ready to dispose of it to any country which would buy at a remunerative price.

But there is another aspect of Fulton, and this is exhibited by his enthusiastic biographer Cadwallader D. Colden. According to this gentleman, Fulton took no interest “in the then existing contest” between England and France. England and France were to him possible torpedo buyers and their fleets possible torpedo victims. But his ideals included universal free trade and the liberty of the seas, and he looked upon the annihilation of naval armaments as a step in the right direction, as it would destroy what he called the war system of Europe. If this could be effected nations would engage in education, science, and a rivalry of peaceful arts.

Fulton has been called a prophet and a statesman; but the doctrine that warfare will be ended by elaborating a more deadly means of destruction than has hitherto been known, coupled with the implied assertion that each invention is the last word in destruction, suggests at once conspicuous limitations in prophecy and statecraft. He never thought of torpedo destroyers.

In 1793 Fulton corresponded with Lord Stanhope on the subject of steam navigation. Lord Stanhope was fully aware that invention was knocking at the door, for in a letter to Wilberforce he says: “This country is vulnerable in so many ways, the picture is horrid.... I know, and in a few weeks I shall prove, that ships of any size may be navigated so as to go without wind and even directly against both wind and waves.... The most important consequence which I draw from this stupendous fact is this. It will shortly render all the navies of the world (I mean military navies) no better than lumber. For what can ships do that are dependent on wind and weather against fleets that are wholly independent of either? Therefore the boasted superiority of the British Navy is no more. We must have a new one. The French and other nations will for the same reasons have the same.”

He was himself an experimenter, and had been endeavouring to propel a boat by means of an appliance resembling a mechanical duck’s foot. The plans which Fulton submitted to him show a boat with an immense bow or spring fastened to a stumpy mast amidships, operating on a large paddle for which the rail at the extreme end of a raking stern acted as a fulcrum; a second plan shows the boat with a three-paddle revolving wheel at the side.

When Livingston went to France in 1801, an enthusiast for steam navigation, and, what was more important, an enthusiast of considerable means, Fulton, whom he there met and financed, was stimulated to fresh exertions. By 1803 a boat to their joint account was built, 70 feet long and 8 feet beam. With this it was proposed to experiment on the Seine. But the machinery, which is said to have been made by Périer, who opposed the Marquis de Jouffroy, was too heavy for the hull. The night before the trial trip was to be made was stormy: the boat broke in half and sank. Notwithstanding this blow to their hopes the partners proceeded with their attempts. The machinery was recovered and found to be practically uninjured, and the hull was rebuilt more strongly. The trial trip took place in August 1803, when the boat made four and a half miles an hour. This was a very moderate speed and was disappointing to all concerned. Nevertheless a voyage by a steam-ship had been made, and it is strange that very little notice was taken of the event in France. Livingston wrote home to America and described it enthusiastically, and he and Fulton determined to build a boat for American waters as soon as Fulton should return thither.

Shortly after this experiment Fulton visited Symington, who, as will be seen in the next chapter, had succeeded, with the assistance of Lord Dundas, in starting a little steamer, the Charlotte Dundas, on the Clyde as early as 1802. While this boat was being used on the Forth and Clyde Canal, Fulton introduced himself to Symington, whom he accompanied on a trip in the boat, the voyage being made solely on Fulton’s account.[15] The American took copious notes in a memorandum book and, to quote from Symington’s narrative, “after putting several pointed questions respecting the general construction and effect of the machine, which I answered in a most explicit manner, he jotted down particularly everything then described, with his own remarks upon the boat while moving with him on board along the canal; but he seems to have been altogether forgetful of this, as notwithstanding his fair promises, I never heard anything more of him until reading in a newspaper an account of his death.”

[15] Knight’s “Cyclopædia.”

John Stevens’ “Phœnix,” 1807.

Meantime Stevens, left to himself, had, in 1804, built a vessel propelled by twin screws which navigated the Hudson River. This vessel was remarkable in many ways. The boiler was tubular, and the screw was almost identical with the short four-threaded helix which many years afterwards was generally adopted. It is interesting to note that the screw propeller was tried so early, for it is generally believed that it was not used at all until many years after the introduction of paddles. The engine and boiler of Stevens’ boat are preserved at the Stevens Institute at Hoboken. After his death his son tried the engine and boiler in a boat, which, in the presence of a committee of the American Institute of New York, attained a speed of about nine miles an hour. Although the screw proved its suitability for propulsion, its superiority was not acknowledged, and for many years afterwards marine engineers confined their attention to the improvement of paddle-wheels and the engines for driving them. In 1807, with the assistance of his son Robert, Stevens built the paddle-wheel steamer Phœnix, which plied for six years on the Delaware.

Dr. James Renwick of Columbia said that “the Stevenses were but a few days later” than Fulton “in moving a boat with the required velocity,” and that “being shut out of the waters of New York by the monopoly of Livingston and Fulton, Stevens conceived the bold design of conveying his boat, the Phœnix, to the Delaware by sea, and this boat, which was so near reaping the honour of first success, was the first to navigate the ocean by the power of steam.” The piston-rod of the Phœnix was guided by slides instead of the parallel motion of the Watt engine, and the cylinder rested on the condenser. A point in which the superiority of the Phœnix over the Clermont was shown, was that the paddle-wheel of the Phœnix had a guard beam, which the Clermont lacked. The Phœnix was taken to Philadelphia by sea by Robert Livingston Stevens, son of Robert Stevens. He was accompanied on this voyage by Moses Rogers, to whom the title of “Pioneer Steam Navigator” has been given by American historians, partly on account of this voyage and partly because he was on board the auxiliary sailing ship Savannah on her memorable voyage to Europe.[16]

[16] See [p. 122].

In 1806 Fulton returned to America, having ordered an engine to be made by Messrs. Boulton and Watt at Birmingham. He did not tell them what he proposed to do with it, but it was the engine for the first steamboat constructed by him for American voyages—the famous Clermont. After this engine was delivered in New York it remained in the Customs while Brownne, a shipbuilder, constructed the hull. In 1807 the boat made her first trip on the Hudson.

The original dimensions of the Clermont have been variously stated, the discrepancies being probably due to the alterations to which the vessel was subjected, and also to methods of measurement. From a letter which Fulton wrote it appears that the boat was 150 feet long and 13 feet wide, drawing 2 feet of water.[17] This was no doubt the over-all figure, as other data give slightly less lengths which would be on the water-line, or the inside measurements between stem and stern, both of which raked.

[17] Reprinted in the Nautical Gazette, New York, August 22, 1907.

Messrs. Millard and Kirby, of New York, who made most exhaustive researches into the history of the Clermont with a view to the reproduction of that historical vessel at the centenary celebration at New York in September 1909, state that when Fulton worked out his displacement and wetted surface and resistance, his results corresponded with a boat of the dimensions just given, and no other figures could have given those results.

On November 20, 1807, Fulton wrote to Livingston that the boat was so weak that she must have additional knees and timbers, new side timbers, deck beams and deck, new windows, and cabins altered; that she, perhaps, must be sheathed, her boiler taken out and a new one put in, her axles forged and ironwork strengthened. With all this work the saving of the hull would be of little consequence, particularly as many of her knees, bolts, timbers and planks could be used in the construction of a new boat. His opinion, therefore, was that a new hull should be built with knees and floor timbers of oak, bottom planks of two-inch oak and side planks of two-inch oak for 3 feet high. “She is to be 16 feet wide, 150 feet long; this will make her near twice as stiff as at present and enable us to carry a much greater quantity of sail. The 4 feet additional width will require 1146 lb. additional purchase at the engine, moving 2 feet a second or 15 double strokes a minute; this will be gained by raising the steam 5 lb. to the inch, as 24 inches the diameter of the cylinder gives 570 round inches at 3 lb. to the inch—1710 lb. purchase gained. To accomplish this work a good boiler and a commodious boat running our present speed, of a voyage in 30 hours, I think better and more productive to us than to gain one mile on the present boat.”

The first Clermont had a depth of hold of 7 feet. She had masts and sails but no wheel enclosures, no bulwarks, no berths in the cabin, and no covering over the boilers; this work being done, according to Fulton’s letter of August 29, 1807, after his return from the first trip. When she was altered on account of instability, in the winter 1807-8, she was widened to 16 feet on the bottom and 18 feet at the deck, which made her much stiffer. It was then that her poop was built up and various other improvements made.

Her fly-wheels were outside the hull, placed forward of the paddles, and revolved the same way, and it is related that on a subsequent voyage one of the paddle-wheels becoming disabled, paddles were affixed to the fly-wheel and the voyage resumed.

The American Citizen of August 17, 1807, announced that: “Mr. Fulton’s ingenious Steamboat, invented with a View to the Navigation of The Mississippi from New Orleans upwards, Sails to-day from the North River near The State Prison to Albany, the Velosity of the Steamboat is calculated at four miles an hour; it is said that it will make a progress of two against The Current of The Mississippi, and if so it will certainly be a very valuable acquisition to the Commerce of the Western States.”

An immense crowd assembled to witness the fiasco which was expected to mark the first experimental voyage of “Fulton’s Folly,” and jeered Fulton and his steamer unmercifully. But when the vessel moved into midstream under the power of her own engines, the crowd cheered as energetically as only a crowd can when it has been agreeably surprised and the appeal of facts to its chivalry is irresistible.

“Dense volumes of smoke began to pour forth from the smokestack. The boiler began to hiss. At one o’clock the hawser was drawn in, the throttle opened, and to the accompaniment of the stertorous exhaust, the uncovered sidewheels began to quiver, then slowly to revolve. A hush fell on the spectators. Fulton’s own hand at the helm turned the bow. The Clermont moved out into the stream, the steam connections hissing at the joints, the crude machinery thumping and groaning, the wheels splashing, and the smokestack belching like a volcano.... One honest countryman, after beholding the unaccountable object from the shore, ran home and told his wife he had ‘seen the devil on his way to Albany in a sawmill.’”[18] A passenger, recording the voyage, says a miller boarded the Clermont at Haverstraw and said he “did not know about a mill going up stream and came to inquire about it.”

[18] New York Evening Sun, July 1909.

The boat itself was wedge-shaped at bow and stern, which were cut sharp to an angle of 60 degrees. She was almost wall-sided. She was flat-bottomed and keelless, leeway being prevented by two steering boards. Her tiller was at the back end of the after cabin so that it was difficult for the steersman to see ahead. The paddle-wheels, 15 feet in diameter, being uncovered, splashed tremendously, and drenched the passengers. A paddle-wheel had to be disconnected when it was desired to turn the vessel round.

The Clermont reached Chancellor Livingston’s residence at Clermont, 110 miles from New York, in 24 hours, against the wind, the average speed being 4·6 miles an hour. The running time for the whole journey to Albany of 150 miles was 32 hours, or nearly five miles an hour; the return trip was made in 32 hours, running time, the sails not being used on either occasion. An eye-witness as she passed up the river thus describes her:

“It was in the early autumn of the year 1807 that a knot of villagers was gathered on a high bluff, just opposite Poughkeepsie, on the west bank of the Hudson, attracted by the appearance of a strange-looking craft, which was slowly making its way up the river. Some imagined it to be a sea monster, whilst others did not hesitate to express their belief that it was a sign of the approaching judgment. What seemed strange in the vessel was the substitution of a lofty and strange black smoke-pipe rising from the deck, instead of the gracefully tapered masts that commonly stood on the vessels navigating the stream, and, in place of the spars and rigging, the curious play of the working beam and piston, and the slow turning and splashing of the huge and naked paddle-wheels, met their astonished gaze. The dense clouds of smoke, as they rose wave upon wave, added still more to the wonder of the rustics. This strange-looking craft was the Clermont on her trial trip to Albany; and, of the little knot of villagers above mentioned, the writer, then a boy in his eighth year, with his parents, formed a part, and I well remember the scene, one so well fitted to impress a lasting picture upon the mind of a child accustomed to watch the vessels that passed up and down the river. On her return trip, the curiosity she excited was scarcely less intense—the whole country talked of nothing but the sea monster, belching forth fire and smoke.

“The fishermen became terrified and rowed homeward, and they saw nothing but destruction devastating their fishing grounds; whilst the wreaths of black vapours, and rushing noise of the paddle-wheels, foaming with the stirred-up waters, produced great excitement amongst the boatmen, until it was more intelligent than before; for the character of that curious boat, and the nature of the enterprise she was pioneering had been ascertained.”

According to Colden, those who saw the Clermont at night described her as “a monster moving on the water, defying the winds and the tide, and breathing flames and smoke.” She had, he proceeds to say, “the most terrific appearance from other vessels which were navigating the river when she was making her passage. The first steamboats, as others yet do, used dry pine-wood for fuel, which sends forth a column of ignited vapour, many feet above the flue, and whenever the fire is stirred a galaxy of sparks fly off, which in the night have an airy, brilliant, and beautiful appearance. This uncommon light first attracted the attention of crews of other vessels. Notwithstanding the wind and tide were adverse to its approach, they saw with astonishment that it was rapidly coming towards them; and when it came so near that the noise of the machinery and the paddles were heard, the crews in some instances shrunk beneath their decks from the terrific sight; and others left their vessels to go on shore; while others again prostrated themselves, and besought Providence to protect them from the approach of the horrible monster which was marching on the tides, and lighting its path by the fires which it vomited.”

After the improvements had been made in the Clermont she entered in the spring of 1809 upon the regular work for which she was intended—the day service between New York and Albany.

The guards and paddle-boxes, which were mere temporary structures, were made substantial and permanent, and the cabins were rearranged and refitted in the most beautiful manner. The Clermont, said Professor Renwick, “thus converted into a floating palace, gay with ornamental painting, gilding, and polished woods, commenced her course of passages for the second year in the month of April.”[19]

[19] The “Master, Mate, and Pilot.”

When rebuilt she was christened the North River and maintained the service alone until October, when a second Fulton boat, the Car of Neptune, was launched. She was a larger boat, and ran continuously until 1817, and the other vessels which were added to the little fleet also proved successful.

The complete list of Fulton’s steamboats would include also the Rariton (1809), New Orleans (1811), Paragon, Firefly, a Jersey ferryboat, and Camden (1812), Washington and a York ferryboat (1813), Richmond, a Nassau ferryboat, Fulton, Vesuvius, and Demologos, a warship (1814), Aetna, Buffalo, and Mute (1815), Olive Branch, Empress of Russia, and Chancellor Livingston (1816).

Fulton and Livingston’s enterprise was a financial success almost from the first, and naturally others thought to share in it; as they could not join the pioneers they determined to rival them. One of the chief of these was a Captain Elihu S. Bunker, who maintained a line of sailing sloops between Hudson City and New York. The steamers were taking the wind out of his sails in more senses than one, and not liking the prospect of being becalmed, financially, he determined to go in for steam. A syndicate of capitalists of Albany backed him. The fact that Livingston and Fulton had been already granted an absolute monopoly for navigating the waters of the State of New York by steam deterred them not a whit. They ordered two boats, to be about the size of the Clermont, and called them the Hope and Perseverance. They were each 149 feet in length, 25 feet beam inside the paddles, and had a depth of 7 feet 7 inches.

Robert Fulton’s “Clermont,” 1807.

Legal proceedings quickly followed, Livingston and Fulton having their work cut out to defend their monopoly. How like these boats were to the Fulton boats is evident from the affidavit of Charles Brownne, the builder of the Clermont. He says that he has “examined the steamboats Hope and Perseverance and they are not built like any vessels which navigate by wind or oars on any of our waters, or any foreign waters that he knows of. That said steamboats being more than Six the length of their breadth[20] of beam and flat at bottom are not calculated to navigate with sails only. And that the first boats of such make of the said steamboats which he ever saw or heard of was built by him from drawings and directions given to him by Robert Fulton and constructed to be navigated by steam and wind, and which boats are now known by the name of North River and Car of Neptune Steamboats: This deponent also saith that the water wheels; the guards round the water wheels, the covering to the water wheels; the steps from the wheel guards to enter the row-boats, space on the guards for wood for the engine, bins or lockers in the wheel guards and necessaries on the fore part of the wheel guards, are exact copies from the Boats built by him for Livingston and Fulton, and such water wheels, wheel guards and conveniences he has never known or heard of to any other kind of boat or vessel. This deponent further saith that in the said Steamboat Hope the manner of arranging the rudder with a perpendicular iron bar on its after part, and leading from its wheel ropes, along the sides of the boat to a steering wheel before the Chimney of the Boiler and to a Station above the place of the engineer and fireman, is an exact copy from the boats of Livingston and Fulton. This deponent objected to this mode of steering at the time the said Fulton proposed it, believing it to be impracticable, and he does not know of a like mode of steering to any other kind of vessel. This deponent also says that the mode of placing the main mast far forward, and the mizzen mast so far aft, as to leave a convenient space between the two, which shall not be incommoded by ropes, booms, or yards, and afford room for spreading an awning for the comfort and convenience of passengers is the same exactly in the said Hope Steamboat as in the boats built by him for Livingston and Fulton. That this mode of placing masts so far apart, to the best of his knowledge, is not known in any other kind of vessel, and would not answer for a vessel intended to work with wind only, without the aid of steam, but in union with steam has been proved by three years’ experience on the North River Steamboat to succeed perfectly well. This deponent further says that the form and make of the said Hope and Perseverance steamboats, their wheels, wheel guards, manner of steering, mode of placing the masts and rigging, mode of arranging the awning, arrangements of the Cabins and kitchen, suspending their row-boats from the sides instead of from the stern, as is usual, are in his opinion in all these combinations and arrangement, exact copies from the Car of Neptune Steamboat, and more like her than she is like the North River Steamboat which was first built, and further this deponent saith not.”[21]

[20] Sic: probably means “their length was rather more than six times their beam.”

[21] “Steamboats on the Hudson,” in the “Master, Mate, and Pilot,” October 1909.

The Hope and Perseverance ran throughout the season of 1811 with passengers and freight, between New York and Albany, and met with as much of the public patronage as did the other boats. The courts, however, decided that Captain Bunker and his supporters were acting illegally, and gave the drastic order that their steamers should be confiscated and handed over to Livingston and Fulton, who did not run them but had them broken up.

Writing in 1838, in regard to his early experiments, to the Secretary of the Treasury at Washington, Captain Bunker described an incident which unfortunately for American steamship records does not stand alone. The Captain was undoubtedly fortunate that matters were no worse.

“In 1811,” he says, “I had command of the steamboat Hope plying between New York and Albany. The engine and boilers were made and put in by Robert McQueen. On the second trip from New York, while Mr. McQueen’s foreman had still charge of the works on board (they not having been delivered as completed), this man had a gang of his own men from the shop, and, while proving the machinery, had a man that he was instructing to become engineer of the boat. While on the passage, off Esopus meadows, something appeared to be wrong in the fire-room (which was in charge of a miserable drunken fireman) and the engine moving very slowly. I found on examination, that there was not a drop of water in either of the boilers, and that both of them were red-hot, as well as the flues, and must have been so for at least half an hour. The heat was great enough to melt down five solder-joints of steam-pipe, which was made of copper. I immediately started the forcing pump myself, not thinking that there could be any danger in the operation; the effect of which was a crackling in the boiler as the water met the hot iron, the sound of which was like that often heard in a blacksmith’s shop when water is thrown upon a piece of hot iron. I cannot, therefore, believe for a single moment that explosions are produced, to such a degree as I have before recited, by throwing cold water into a red-hot boiler. In the way above described, I cooled down both of the boilers, during which time neither of them jumped out of its place; nor do I see how it could be possible for such an effect to be produced, having always been of opinion that there could be no other cause for a boiler to burst than the pressure of steam inside, and not gas produced by letting cold water or lukewarm water into it; for I deem it impossible for a red-hot boiler to contain heat enough to explode with any quantity of water that might be suddenly thrown into it. Besides, it must be remembered that the supply-pipes are connected with the bottom of all steam-boilers, or are very near to the bottom; therefore, instead of producing explosion, the forcing of cold or lukewarm water into hot water must have the tendency to cool it. For instance, I have known engineers to keep off their feed as long as they possibly dared, when running with another boat, knowing that as soon as they began to feed, the steam would fall, especially if they could not get a full supply of steam for the engine.”[22]

[22] The “Master, Mate, and Pilot,” Vol. II. No. 5.

So far as the Hudson was concerned the decision of the courts crushed Captain Bunker, and frightened off any other possible trespassers on the monopoly. But Bunker had determined to become a steamship owner, and being crowded out of the Hudson he started a line of steamers as near New York City as he could, the Long Island Sound Line. The first of his vessels he named after his late opponent Fulton. She was built in 1813 and plied for the whole of her first season in 1814 on the Hudson River, as, the United States being then at war with England, it was feared that she would be captured if she ventured up the Sound.

The “Paragon.” Built 1811.

At the time the Fulton boats had to meet Bunker’s opposition, the third Fulton steamboat, the Paragon, made its first appearance on the river. She was both faster and larger than her predecessors. She was fitted with two masts, one stepped very far forward, and the other very far aft. The foremast carried an immense square foresail with a little square topsail above it, and there was also a large triangular sail carried on the stay from the end of the bowsprit to the cap of the lower mast. The aftermast carried an ordinary trysail or mizzen. The vessel had a large rudder and was steered from amidships, according to a contemporary print.

The following year another Fulton steamer, the Firefly, came on the scene. She was a small vessel, only 81 feet in length, and though designed for the lower river service, was used elsewhere as occasion demanded. Fulton by this time was himself planning the placing of steamers on other rivers, and in 1814 the Richmond was launched from his designs for the James River in Virginia. The British-American War at this time rendered it unsafe to send her south, and as the North River, late Clermont, was about worn out by now, the Richmond took her place. Fulton seems to have been associated to some extent with Bunker, for the latter’s boat, Fulton, was designed by Fulton himself. She was a sloop-rigged vessel with a single mast stepped well forward, and made considerable use of sails. She was 134 feet in length and 26 feet beam, and had a large square engine-house that extended rather above the sides of her paddle-boxes. Hitherto all the American steamers had been of the wall-sided, flat-bottomed type inaugurated by the Clermont. The Fulton was the first steamer to be constructed with a round bottom like a sailing ship.

Fulton was also interested in steamboats on the Mississippi and other western waters. He and Nicholas Roosevelt were associated in 1809 in this project, and in 1811 the steamer New Orleans was built. It was the pioneer boat of the service, and descended the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers from Pittsburg to New Orleans in fourteen days. In 1817 the Chancellor Livingston appeared on the Hudson and in her general equipment marked a decided improvement in every respect upon anything that had gone before. She was the finest vessel without exception that Fulton and Livingston ever possessed. Her designer was Henry Eckford, one of the leading naval architects in America. She was, moreover, the biggest steamboat which had been built in the world, as she was of over 500 tons burden. The building of this boat was supervised at first by Fulton himself, but he died before it was completed. The Chancellor Livingston was three-masted, and fore-and-aft rigged throughout, and carried in addition a large square sail on the foremast. She had three funnels which were placed forward of the paddle-boxes and between the fore and main masts. Her engines were of the steeple type. She was square-sterned, and not only carried a deck-house, but the roof of the deck-house was extended to form a square deck or gallery, and above this again were a smaller deck-house and a large awning, so that passengers on either deck were amply protected from the weather. The gallery, at the stern, was the same shape as the stern itself. It was supported by stanchions, and carried as far forward as the paddle-boxes. Early pictures of this vessel represent her as having portholes along the sides of the hull abaft the paddles, from which it would appear that in the body of the ship itself there was also passenger accommodation. She was therefore the first vessel to have three decks devoted to passengers.

The first trip of this boat was made towards the end of March 1817, between New York and Newburgh, the 65 miles being covered in less than nine hours, in only three of which was the tide running with the ship. Coming back she did the distance in eight hours fifteen minutes, for the most part against wind and tide. Her cost complete was 110,000 dollars.

This boat was not allowed to lie idle, and a statement was published in December 1821 that the Chancellor Livingston made during the season of that year “170 trips from New York to Albany. Allowing the distance to be 150 miles the aggregate will exceed 25,000 miles, which would more than have carried her round the globe. We presume the Richmond has performed the same number of trips, and when it is considered that these boats are generally filled with passengers, some idea may be formed of the extent of travel on the North River.”

Already excursions were very popular. The Chancellor Livingston took excursionists once a week during July and August as far as Sandy Hook. The same year, 1821, the steamer Franklin took passengers to the fishing banks twice weekly, and the Olive Branch of the Philadelphia Line gave its patrons what its owners called “a sail around Staten Island and turtle feast,” and it was added that “a fine green turtle will be cooked, and a band of music provided,” all for one dollar seventy-five cents. Captain Bunker, who had the Enterprise built in 1818 at Hartford, Connecticut, brought her into the New York service in 1821, for an excursion starting at half-past four in the morning from the East River for Sands Point. This is one of the earliest records of a steamer built elsewhere coming to New York waters to enter upon the local trade.

Henry Eckford also planned the steamer Robert Fulton, which in 1822 made the first successful steam voyage from New York to New Orleans, and thence to Havana, in which trade she was afterwards engaged regularly. The Robert Fulton then passed into the possession of the Brazilian naval authorities, who turned her into a sailing ship and she became the fastest warsloop in the Brazilian navy.

The Firefly was the first steamer to get round Point Judith, on the Rhode Island shore, and reach Newport from New York. This was May 26, 1817, and the voyage lasted twenty-eight hours. The sailing packets on the route, as usual, resented her incursion, and when the wind was favourable they usually outsailed her. The competition grew so great between the steamer and the sailers that the latter made the typical American sporting proposal not to charge passengers for the voyage between New York and Newport if they did not reach port before the steamer.

Although the size of the American river steamers had been steadily increasing, there had not been a great acceleration in the matter of speed. Even at the time of Fulton’s death few, if any, American river steamers exceeded an average of seven miles an hour for the trip.

Robert Livingston Stevens, son of John Stevens, built about that time (1813) the Philadelphia, which attained an average speed of eight miles. Speed was a question to which he devoted considerable attention, for he realised its importance, and nearly every vessel he turned out was an improvement upon its predecessor. The inventions and improvements which he introduced inaugurated a new era of steamboat construction. Of the fate which overtook some of these early vessels, it may be noted that the Clermont died of premature old age, the Car of Neptune was broken up, the Paragon went to the bottom, and the Hope, the Perseverance, the Firefly, and the Richmond were broken up.

The “Philadelphia.” Built 1826.

According to evidence given before a Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1817 by Mr. Seth Hunt of Louisiana, there were then ten steam vessels running between New York and Albany, two between New York and Connecticut ports, four or five between New York and New Jersey ports, besides ferryboats on the Hudson and East Rivers. There were also steamers on the Delaware, between Philadelphia and Trenton, Newcastle, and Wilmington; also steamers from Baltimore to Norfolk, Virginia, which crossed the estuary of the Chesapeake. Steamers had been to New London and New Hartford. The Powhatan steamer of New York was three days exposed to a gale in the open sea, after which it arrived at Norfolk, Virginia, and thence steamed up the James River to Richmond. At that time, according to this witness, there were on the Mississippi two steamers, the Etna and Vesuvius, which were each of 450 tons, carried 280 tons of merchandise, 100 passengers, and 700 bales of cotton.

Towards the middle of the last century numbers of steamboats were placed on the coastal and river services from New York. The Fulton ferryboats Union and William Cutting were both built in 1827; and in the following year the De Witt Clinton was built in Albany for the passenger service between New York and Albany; she was 571 tons gross, more than any of her contemporaries. A notable vessel, then the fastest steamboat ever built, was the Lexington, which began to run in 1835 between Providence and New York. As the railway companies were formed about the same time, the competition between the steamboat companies and the railways was lively and fares were reduced with American thoroughness. The Narragansett arrived at Providence in October 1836. She was fitted with a 300-horse-power horizontal engine, which was too heavy for her, for on her trial trip she rolled over with the directors of the company and their guests on board. Fortunately no lives were lost. In 1838, the John W. Richmond appeared as the rival of the Lexington and there were many exciting races between the two, but two years later the Richmond was sold for employment elsewhere. The Lexington was burnt in 1840, and the Richmond met with a similar fate three years later. The Fall River Line was established in 1847 and has maintained the service to the present day.

All these steamers were built of wood, and as they increased in size they developed a marked tendency to “sag,” that is, drop in the middle, or to “hog,” that is, drop at the ends. This tendency was overcome by an ingenious system of stump-masts and strutts, and iron ties, invented by Colonel Stevens. There are various methods of applying these stiffeners, and the peculiar framework of wooden arches and stump-masts which appears on so many American river steamers is due to the necessity of employing one or other of these systems for strengthening purposes. In some of the later vessels (as in the De Witt Clinton) these ties are put into the framework of the superstructure.

In construction, the development of American steamers on inland waters since Fulton’s time has proceeded on entirely different lines from those which marked the progress of river navigation in Great Britain. American river steamers were designed not only to cope with the traffic in narrower and shallower places, but to carry whatever was necessary in deeper waters, and at the same time get through the more difficult places somehow. The great distances to be travelled on the American rivers rendered necessary the provision of vessels carrying large quantities of cargo and extensive accommodation for passengers, whilst the bars occurring at intervals in the beds of the rivers made it compulsory that the vessels should be of light draught. The construction of English river steamers, on the other hand, has been conditioned by the comparative narrowness of the English rivers and the lowness of the many bridges which span them.

The “De Witt Clinton.” Built 1828.

The Fall River Line boats were the pioneers of the modern type of Hudson River steamers, the first of them being the famous Bay State, plying between New York and Fall River. She was 315 feet long and 40 feet beam and of 1500 tons burden. Her engines were of 1500 horse-power. The Bay State, being intended for Long Island Sound work, was much more strongly built than those boats which were confined to the Hudson River Line. This vessel was both the largest and fastest craft of her day. She ran the distance from Fall River to New York in nine hours fifteen minutes, including a stop at Newport. In 1864 she was dismantled, and her hull was converted into a barge, her machinery being placed in a new steamer named Old Colony. Vessels followed each other in rapid succession, but although rival companies sprang up with considerable frequency, few of them lasted very long and their boats, if good enough, were sometimes acquired by the Fall River Company. One of the most dangerous competitors was the Merchants’ Shipping Company, which controlled fifteen steamers, and for which William H. Webb, the famous American shipbuilder, constructed those two historic boats, the Bristol and the Providence. The line lost two or three of its steamers in rapid succession, and had to suspend payment. The Bristol and Providence had each two hundred and twenty-three state-rooms. They were lighted by gas throughout, and were afterwards steam-heated. Each boat carried a band of music, and for the first time on an American merchant vessel the officers and crew were in uniform. In 1883 the first iron steamboat in Long Island Sound, the Pilgrim, was built. She had a double hull divided into ninety-six water-tight compartments. The Puritan followed her. The Plymouth was launched in 1890, and was burnt in dock ten years later, and in August of the following year the present Plymouth was launched. All these vessels were side-wheelers, the later ones being of steel, and having a speed of twenty miles an hour.

One of the finest vessels now afloat is the Commonwealth. She is 456 feet in length, 35 feet moulded breadth, 96 feet breadth over the guards, and has a depth of hull of 22 feet. She has sleeping accommodation for 2000 persons.

Like all steamers on the Fall River Line, the Commonwealth is built of steel. Seven doorless bulkheads extend to the main deck. The hull is double, and the space between the bottoms is divided into a great many water-tight compartments. She has also collision bulkheads on each side at the guards and a bulkhead athwart ship. Her engine is of the double inclined compound type, with two high-pressure cylinders 96 inches in diameter, all having a common stroke of piston of 9 feet 6 inches. The wheels are of the feathering type with curved steel buckets. Besides the usual auxiliary steam pumps, there is a large pump for use only on the fire-sprinkler system. Her speed is twenty-two miles an hour.

During the nineteenth century there was an equally striking development among the steamers of the various lines on the Hudson River. The Empire of Troy, to distinguish her from another steamer called the Empire built in the ’forties and belonging to a rival line, was then the largest river steamer in the world, being 307 feet over all and of 936 tons register. She was quickly superseded by the Hendrick Hudson of the Albany Line, which was the first Hudson River steamer to exceed a thousand tons. This in turn was eclipsed by the Oregon. The St. John, of 2645 tons, built in 1863, was the first to exceed 2000 tons, The Adirondack, of 3644 tons, was placed on the river in 1896, and in 1904 the C. W. Morse, of 4307 tons, appeared.

The “William Cutting.” Built 1827.

The Hudson River boats, after the first or experimental types of vessel, have always been famous for their speed and beauty no less than their comfort. One of the most famous of them all was the Alida. Two others, which raced occasionally, were the Oregon and the C. Vanderbilt, one notable contest in which they engaged being in 1847, for a stake of 1000 dollars. On the way back the Oregon ran short of fuel, whereupon the owners threw into the furnaces the furniture and everything else that would burn which they could lay hands on. The time of the run was 3 hours 15 minutes, which gave an average speed of 20 miles an hour. After the heroic sacrifice made by the Oregonians, it is satisfactory to learn that the Oregon won by 400 yards. The Alida and the Hendrick Hudson raced from New York to Albany, the former doing the voyage in 7 hours 55 minutes, the latter boat being 15 minutes longer on the voyage. The scheduled time of the present Hudson River Day Line steamers over the same water is 9 hours 30 minutes, from which it would appear that the boats of sixty years ago were as capable of fast travelling as are their palatial successors of the present day. One of these, a second Hendrick Hudson, was launched on the Hudson in 1907, a hundred years from the day of the Clermont’s first voyage up the river.

The “Mary Powell.”

The decade from 1840 to 1850 was the golden age for steamboat proprietors on the Hudson River, as there was then no railroad competition, though there were several competitive steam-ship companies. In 1849 there were no less than twenty steamers on the route between New York and Albany, and the fares were cut as low as 12¹⁄₂ cents for the 145 miles. One of the steamers on the river in the ’forties was the Norwich. A few years later she was converted into a tug-boat, and up to the end of 1909 was still in active service. She has been repaired so often, however, that not much of her original hull is left, but her first engine is still in use. A steamer which is still held in affectionate memory by all frequenters of the Hudson River, the celebrated Mary Powell, was launched in 1861, and was never eclipsed in speed by any vessel until the modern torpedo-boats were built. She frequently covered 27 miles an hour. This remarkable boat came from the New Jersey yards of Messrs M. A. Allison. Originally she was 260 feet in length, but in 1874 she was increased to 286 feet, and again in 1897 to 300 feet. Her paddle-wheels were 31 feet in diameter, with 26 floats to the wheel, each float being 10¹⁄₂ feet long by 1 foot 9 inches wide and dipping 3¹⁄₂ feet. One vessel, the Glen Cove, attained notoriety if not fame by being the first to carry that novel musical instrument known as the calliope. Fortunately for New Yorkers, the innovation was not popular. The machine consisted of a large steam chest, on the top of which were arranged a number of valves according to the number of whistles to be blown. As a powerful calliope could be heard for a distance of some miles, and as the instrument frequently consisted of from eight to twelve whistles, and the selection performed upon it was of the “Shall we gather at the river” variety, it cannot be said that the English have been the only people to take their pleasures sadly. Three boats plying in New York Bay carried these excruciating instruments. The Glen Cove was sold with her calliope to ply on the James River in Virginia, and was sunk by the Confederates during the Civil War. The most aggressive calliope was carried on the Armenia. It had thirty-four powerful whistles.

The “Hendrick Hudson” (Hudson River Day Line), 1906.

In 1860, the Daniel Drew, a long and very narrow boat, reduced the time of the voyage to Albany to seven hours twenty minutes. It is impossible for the heavy steamers of the present day to travel on the up-river stages as fast as the lightly built boats of that time, but in the deeper waters of the lower river they are faster than the lighter vessels. A steamer of the latest type is the Robert Fulton, built for the Day Line by the New York Shipbuilding Company of Camden, N.J., and the W. and A. Fletcher Company of Hoboken. Her trials took place exactly 116 days after her keel was laid, and she began to run in 1909.

The development of the steam-ships on the lakes was no less remarkable than on the sea-coasts. At the outset the boats were of wood, which was gradually superseded first by iron and then by steel, and with the introduction of the latter has come also their greatest development in carrying capacity. The first steamer placed in service on the Great Lakes, above Niagara Falls, was launched in 1818, and bore the picturesque Indian name Walk in the Water, after a noted Wyandotte chief. She was of 338 tons gross and built at a spot which is now a part of the City of Buffalo. The machinery was furnished by Robert McQueen of New York, one of her owners.

By 1844 there were three large steamers of over 1000 tons each on the lakes, built wholly for the American passenger service from Buffalo. The first screw-propelled boat on the lakes was the Vandalia, built at Oswego in 1841. She was one of the earliest vessels to have her machinery placed right aft. By 1849 there were enrolled at Buffalo, which was the chief lake port, 29 side-wheelers, 18 of which were of from 500 to 1500 tons, and 10 screw-propelled boats of under 500 tons, but by 1862 the number of steamers had increased to 147 side-wheelers and 203 screw-propelled boats. The construction of the Welland Canal and the Sault Ste. Marie Canal with larger locks than hitherto had a most stimulating effect on lake shipping. American ingenuity devised freight-carrying steamers peculiarly adapted for work on the lakes. The largest boat on the Great Lakes is the William M. Mills, a “bulk-freighter.” She is virtually an immense box girder 607 feet in length, 585 feet length of keel, 60 feet beam, and 32 feet in depth, with triple-expansion engines. She is built on the hopper and girder system, and has a cargo hold 447 feet long without obstruction other than three screen bulkheads fitted for convenience in carrying grain; her cargo capacity is 514,505 bushels of wheat. She and her two sister ships can each carry 12,380 tons of ore. Her water-ballast tanks will take 7000 tons, and her pumps are so powerful that the whole of this quantity can be discharged overboard in three hours. The officers and crew are accommodated in a deck-house situated on the forecastle. Above this deck-house are the navigating bridge and steering-house. The engines are placed at the extreme end of the vessel, so that the whole space between the engine bulkhead and the forecastle is devoted to the cargo. The scantlings of the hull throughout are the heaviest on fresh water.

The “Robert Fulton” (Hudson River Day Line), 1909.

On the Mississippi River and its tributaries a type of large shallow steamers, propelled by immense side or stern paddle-wheels, was developed. These vessels were noted for their high superstructures and towering funnels. Racing was frequent among them.

In April 1838 the Mississippi River steamer Moselle, crowded from stem to stern with passengers for St. Louis, blew up. She had gone a little way up the river from Cincinnati for the purpose of exhibiting herself and of coming back past the city “a-flying.” As she stopped to turn, the boilers exploded, blowing the ship to fragments. The captain, who was in the pilot-house, was blown about eighty yards away; a boy on board was found dead on the roof of a house on shore. It was never known exactly how many perished, but the number is estimated at anything from one hundred to two hundred. One of the boilers was thrown ashore by the explosion, and in falling made a large hole in the pavement.[23]

[23] Cincinnati Evening Post, April 25, 1838.

Another accident of that year befell the steamer Oroonoko on the Mississippi. Her boilers blew up and, the wreck taking fire, about one hundred lives were lost, most of the victims being burnt to death. The engineer, before he died, said the boilers were full of water, and that his department was not in fault, but that the boilers were old and worn out and not fit for such a boat.[24]

[24] Vicksburg Register.

About the same time two other steamers, the Pioneer and Ontario, were racing on the river near Cincinnati and collided. The Ontario ran purposely into the Pioneer, which returned the compliment by deliberately ramming the Ontario, killing one passenger, dangerously wounding two others, and smashing the Ontario’s guards. The Pioneer won that race, but intentional collisions were too much even for the sensation-loving public which patronised the racing Mississippi steamers and used to bet heavily on the result, and dangerous racing of this character was for a time tabooed.

One of the most famous races on record was that between the Eclipse and the Natchez, two magnificent vessels which were very evenly matched. It is recorded that the immense funnels of these two boats, as they tore along almost on a level with only a few feet between them, were red-hot, and that the blaze from their pine-fed furnaces made the dwellers on either side of the bank think that the vessels were on fire.

The finest passenger steamer which has ever been placed on the Lakes is, without exception, the City of Cleveland. The hull, built of mild steel, is divided into ten compartments by water-tight cross bulkheads extending from the keel to the main deck. The double bottom, which reaches nearly the entire length of the ship, is also divided into ten compartments, which can be used for water-ballast, and she has a steadying tank holding 100 tons of water and situated amidships to check the rolling in a heavy sea. The City of Cleveland is 400 feet over all, 390 feet keel, 54 feet across the hull, and has a depth of 22 feet. Like nearly all American paddle-steamers she is decked to the full width of the guards. She has seven decks, the main deck, which is of steel, being sheathed with wood to deaden the noise of the handling of cargo. Her electric plant provides 1500 lights, as well as a search-light of 50,000 candle-power. Her engine was constructed by the American Shipbuilding Company and consists of an inclined three-cylinder compound engine, the high pressure being arranged between the two low-pressure cylinders. The high-pressure cylinder is 54 inches in diameter and the low-pressure cylinders are each 82 inches and the stroke of piston is 8 feet. The paddle-wheels are 29 feet in diameter and are fitted with feathering blades, each of which is 14 feet long and 4 feet wide. This steamer makes two trips a day between Detroit and Cleveland, and is credited with having attained to a speed of twenty-four miles an hour.

The “City of Cleveland.”

The “William M. Mills.”

The Canadian-built lake steamers are similar to those from United States yards, and a typical specimen of colonial construction is the Midland Prince, launched in 1907 by the Collingwood Shipbuilding Company of Collingwood, Ontario, which, like the Collingwood, is an immense freighter.

One or two “whalebacks,” a type designed for the Lakes by Captain McDougall, have been seen on the Atlantic occasionally, but they were not a great success. A vessel of this type visited Liverpool some years ago, the Charles Wetmore, and having her engines placed aft, and being built with a perfectly flush whaleback, without hatchways, and with a “scow and pig-snout” bow, was a decided curiosity. The ingenuity of her design and the excellent workmanship displayed in her construction impressed naval architects favourably, but there was nothing to show that she was superior as a cargo vessel to the single-deck steamers on this side of the Atlantic. The whaleback steamer is less in favour than it was, even in America, but a good many of them are still to be seen on the Lakes and the Pacific coast.

CHAPTER III
THE PROGRESS OF STEAM-SHIP BUILDING IN GREAT BRITAIN

The first steam-ship built in the United Kingdom (and so far as is known unnamed) was constructed on the River Carron in 1789 by William Symington, and the engines for it were made at the Carron Works at a cost of £363 10s. 10d. The following affidavits relating to this vessel are of interest, as they go far to prove that William Symington was the inventor of the marine steam-engine, the patent of which was taken out in 1786:

“I, William Symington, civil engineer, now residing at Falkirk, in the County of Stirling, in that part of the United Kingdom called Scotland, produce herewith, and refers[25] to a memorial containing a narrative of his connection with the invention of steamboat navigation, each page of which memorial is subscribed by the deponent as his relative hereto, and he maketh oath and sayeth that the said memorial contains a true narrative of facts, as connected with the said invention; and he further sweareth that he did not receive any aid or assistance of any kind to enable him to invent and apply a steam-engine to the propelling of boats.

“Sworn at Woodburn, in the County of Stirling, upon the first day of December, in the year one thousand eight hundred and twenty-four, before me, one of His Majesty’s Justices of the Peace for the County of Stirling.

“(Signed) William Symington.
“(Signed) John Callander, J.P.”

[25] Sic in original.

Patrick Miller’s Triple Boat the “Edinburgh.”

“Joseph Stainton Esq., of Biggarshiels, manager for Carron Company at Carron, in the County of Stirling, in that part of the United Kingdom called Scotland, maketh oath, and sayeth: That he knows William Symington, engineer at Falkirk. That he has access to know that the said William Symington made certain experiments in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine, by applying a steam-engine to propel a boat along the Forth and Clyde Canal. That the machinery for said experiment was made at Carron, under the direction of the said William Symington, and the expense thereof, amounting to three hundred and sixty-three pounds, ten shillings and ten-pence, was paid to Carron Company by the now deceased Patrick Miller, Esq., of Dalswinton. That the deponent has seen the boat in which the said experiments were made, and has frequently heard of the experiments mentioned. That in the year one thousand eight hundred and one, or about that time, the said William Symington was employed by the now deceased Thomas Lord Dundas to erect a boat and construct a steam-engine to propel it along the said canal. That the deponent saw the said boat when completed, and had access to know that it was employed in the way of experiments to drag vessels along the canal. That it consists with the deponent’s knowledge, Robert Weir was employed by the said William Symington about the said boat. That he knew the said Robert Weir, who now resides at Kincardine, to be a man of respectable character and of veracity. That the said William Symington afterwards constructed a larger boat, and the deponent had access to see both the boats, and to know that they were propelled by steam.”

“Sworn at Carron, in the County of Stirling, upon the thirtieth day of November, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-four, before me, one of His Majesty’s Justices of the Peace for the County of Stirling.

“(Signed) John Callander, J.P.
“(Signed) J. Stainton.”[26]

[26] “A Century and a Half of Commercial Enterprise,” by the Carron Company.

Scotland owes her pre-eminence in shipbuilding and marine engineering to Patrick Miller, an Edinburgh banker who, having retired with a large fortune to Dalswinton, among other things set himself to ascertain whether some better means of propelling vessels than sails or oars could not be obtained. He had exhibited at Leith a triple vessel “having rotatory paddles in the two interspaces driven by a crank,” which was turned by four men. This he matched against a fast-sailing Customs wherry between Incholm and Leith Harbour over a distance of six or seven miles, and was very well satisfied with the victory he secured. But his sons’ tutor, James Taylor of Cumnock, having taken his turn at the crank, was so convinced by the violence of the exertion that some more reliable power was needed, that he urged on Mr. Miller the propriety of employing a steam-engine. Mr. Miller had placed a new double boat on his lake at Dalswinton, and Taylor, with his permission, arranged with his friend William Symington to fit it with a steam-engine. Symington, who was then engaged as a mining engineer, at Wanlockhead, had constructed a model of a steam carriage in which he had converted the reciprocating motion of the pistons into a rotatory motion. Miller and Taylor were shown this model in December 1787. The engine had only four-inch brass cylinders, made, curiously enough, by George Watt of Edinburgh. The trial trip of Miller’s boat took place on October 14, 1788, in the presence of several hundreds of people, and was so successful that Miller resolved to repeat the experiment on a larger scale. In the next year a twin vessel, 60 feet long and fitted with an engine with 18-inch cylinders, attained a speed of seven miles an hour on the Forth and Clyde Canal. For some reason Miller became dissatisfied with Symington, and abandoned his project of making a sea trip with a third vessel from Leith to London. The cost of fitting up a second vessel, for one thing, was greater than he had anticipated, and he was further discouraged by a miscalculation through which the machinery was made too heavy for the hull. Symington’s original engine of 1788 is now at South Kensington, and a [photograph] of it is here reproduced.

Model of Miller’s Double Boat.

Symington was the only one of the three who persevered.[27] He brought his design for a steam vessel under the notice of Lord Dundas, who was largely interested in the Forth and Clyde Canal, and suggested to him the advisability of towing barges by steam-power. The Charlotte Dundas was accordingly built in 1801 under the patronage of Lord Dundas, and made her appearance on the canal in 1802. The propelling machinery of the vessel was a long way in advance of the time, inasmuch as it consisted of a stern wheel driven by the first horizontal direct-acting engine that was ever constructed.[28] She was 56 feet in length by 18 feet beam and 8 feet depth, and towed two barges of 70 tons a distance of nineteen and a half miles in six hours against strong winds. But complaints were made that the swell she created damaged the canal banks, and her proprietors were forced to abandon the enterprise. Thus the Charlotte Dundas, though an unquestioned engineering success, was a commercial failure, and on being withdrawn from service was laid up in Lock No. 16 and allowed to rot, a monument to the genius of her constructor and the prejudice of those who were too ignorant to recognise the obvious. A photograph of the [model] at South Kensington Science Museum, and a [section] showing her machinery, are given here.

[27] Chambers’ Journal, 1857.

[28] Sir G. Holmes’ “Ancient and Modern Ships.”

The “Charlotte Dundas” (Longitudinal Section).

Symington’s Original Engine of 1788.

Symington also brought his steamboat to the notice of the Duke of Bridgewater, who became his patron and contemplated trying steam-towage upon the Bridgewater Canal; but on the Duke’s death his executors repudiated the verbal contract and dashed Symington’s hope to the ground. He was reduced to abject poverty, and died in the East End some years later.[29]

[29] Notes and Queries.

The next experiment of importance in steam navigation was made by Henry Bell of Helensburgh. He was a house carpenter at Glasgow for many years, and then, having opened a boarding-house at Helensburgh, he conceived the idea of inducing more visitors to go thither by providing for their convenience boats moved by paddles worked by manual labour. This failing, he determined upon a steamboat.

He was probably influenced in his decision by the correspondence he had with Fulton. The exact nature of the relations between Fulton and Bell has never been satisfactorily determined. The Caledonian Mercury in 1816 published a letter from Bell stating that Fulton wrote to him about Miller’s boats, and asked for a drawing and description of the machinery. Bell saw Miller and sent Fulton the required information. The date of this transaction is not given, though Fulton is said to have written afterwards to Bell that he had constructed a steamer from the drawings Bell sent.

Bell’s story was that these letters were left in Miller’s hands. Bell further states that the consideration of the absurdity of writing his opinion to other countries, and not putting it into practice himself, roused him to design a steamboat for which he made various models. The result was the Comet, built for him by John Wood and Co. She was 40 feet on the keel, 10¹⁄₂ feet beam, and about 25 tons burden. The vessel was inferior to Symington’s. The furnace was enclosed with brickwork and the fire was not wholly surrounded by water. The boiler was placed at one side of the vessel, and the funnel, bent so as to rise from the centre, also had to do duty as a mast.

Bell had previously witnessed the experiments made in 1789 at Carron with Miller’s second boat, and when Symington’s experiments came to an end in 1803 he continued to investigate on his own account.

He advertised that his vessel was for passengers only, and that he had “at much expense, fitted up a handsome vessel to ply upon the River Clyde, between Glasgow and Greenock, to sail by the power of wind, air, and steam.” The vessel was to go down to Helensburgh one day and return the next, thus making three trips each way in the week. Many of the sailing-boat owners regarded the Comet with undisguised hatred, and its invention as a device of the evil one. Thus, one Dougal Jamson, a Clyde skipper, whenever the steamboat passed his slow-going sloop,[30] invariably piped all hands—a man and a boy—and bade them “Kneel down and thank God that ye sail wi’ the A’michty’s ain win’, an’ no’ wi’ the deevil’s sunfire an’ brimstane, like that spluttery thing there.”

[30] The Steamship, January 1883.

Model of the “Charlotte Dundas.”

The Comet’s engine, which was built by John Robertson, was of four nominal horse-power with a single upright cylinder of 12¹⁄₂ inches diameter and 16 inches stroke, and drove a pair of half side-levers by means of two rods. A connecting-rod from the levers worked the crank shaft, which carried a heavy fly-wheel. The slide valve was driven by an eccentric on the main shaft through a rocking shaft, while the condenser was placed between the side-levers, which drove the vertical air-pump. Originally the engine was fitted with a smaller cylinder, but after being used for some months this was replaced by the one described. Steam was supplied by an internal flue boiler, built by David Napier. The vessel was originally propelled by two paddle-wheels on each side, driven by spur gear, with the paddles on detached arms, but this arrangement giving trouble, complete wheels were substituted, and subsequently, after the vessel had been lengthened about 20 feet, the number of wheels was reduced to two.[31]

[31] “The Clyde Passenger Steamers,” by Captain Williamson, and Catalogue of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

They had considerable difficulty with the boiler. Its builder, David Napier, writes that they first tried to make the internal flues of cast iron, but finding that would not do they tried malleable iron, “and ultimately succeeded by various devices in getting the boiler fitted.” The Comet’s first master was William Mackenzie, originally a schoolmaster at Helensburgh, and the engineer was Robert Robertson. The crew numbered eight, not forgetting a piper. According to an advertisement, “the elegance, safety, comfort, and speed of this vessel require only to be seen to meet the approbation of the public.”[32] But her speed was unsatisfactory and Bell arranged with Robertson to make alterations in the engine and paddle-wheels. She then made six miles an hour, but even this was not sufficient to attract passengers. The boat was not a financial success, and it is believed that neither the builders’ nor Robertson’s accounts were ever settled. The career of the Comet, indeed, was not a long one. On December 13, 1820, she was wrecked outside Crinan. She parted amidships, and while the stern drifted away the remainder of the vessel, with Bell, his crew, passengers, and machinery, stuck fast. All scrambled ashore, and the machinery was afterwards recovered. Her original engine was put to some strange uses. A Glasgow coachbuilder took it as payment for a vehicle he had previously supplied to Bell, and used it to drive the machinery in his coach-works. It then went to Greenock and was installed in a brewery. Another purchaser brought it back to Glasgow, and it ultimately came into the possession of Messrs. R. Napier and Sons of Glasgow, and Messrs. R. and J. Napier in 1862 presented it to the South Kensington Museum.

[32] The Glasgow Chronicle, August 14, 1812.

But the Comet was not the only boat with which Robertson was concerned. Wood built the Clyde for him in 1813, and she began her work in June of that year. She was 72 feet long with a beam of 14 feet and depth of 7 feet 6 inches, and regularly went from Glasgow to Gourock and back in about 3¹⁄₂ hours each way, including a few stoppages, on a coal consumption of 24 cwt. The Tay was built for him at Dundee in 1814, but he had the engine built at Glasgow. She plied for some time between Perth and Dundee, and in 1818 was back at Glasgow, being then known as the Oscar. In 1814 Robertson had two other boats built at Dundee, for which he provided the engines. These were the Caledonia and the Humber, and are thought to have been the first steamers sent from Scotland to England.

Rivals quickly appeared on the scene, for the Comet had shown that what had hitherto been looked upon as an impossible undertaking could now be regarded as a commercial speculation. In 1813 the Elizabeth was built and was followed shortly afterwards by the Clyde. The Elizabeth was sent to Liverpool and was the first British steamer to make a sea voyage. The vessel was in charge of Colin Watson, his cousin, neither of them nineteen years of age, and a boy.[33] The engine of the Elizabeth was only 8 horse-power. The three adventurers brought the vessel in safety from Glasgow to Liverpool through a violent gale—a very remarkable performance. This voyage was made in 1815.

[33] Letter from Mr. K. Y. Watson in the second edition of Mr. John Kennedy’s “History of Steam Navigation.”

The Original Engines of the “Comet.”

Watson left Glasgow for Grangemouth on May 8, and on the following day started from Grangemouth with the Elizabeth, bringing her along the canal. Obstacles of one sort or another caused detention in the canal, specially at Lock No. 27, and Bowling was not reached until May 12. The voyagers arrived at Port Glasgow on the 13th, where another stay was made while the damages sustained in navigating the canal were repaired, and preparations were made for the sea voyage.

The Clyde was left on June 2, but the little vessel had to be brought up in Lamlash, Isle of Arran, there being a “dreadful storm at night,” as the captain narrates. They sailed from Lamlash about one o’clock in the afternoon of the 4th, “and after undergoing great peril, reached Port Patrick the same night twelve o’clock.” A lengthy stay was made there, due partly to an accident, the nature of which is not stated, “but principally the want of money,” till Saturday 24th, when they left Port Patrick. The Elizabeth’s adventures were by no means over, for she was obliged to bring up in Ramsey Bay, Isle of Man, an accident throwing off one of her paddles. The financial difficulty having been further overcome to the extent of six guineas, the Elizabeth left the Isle of Man with a fine breeze, “day lovely, but, after working all day and night, we found on the morning of Wednesday 28th, we had been deceived by our compass and were off the coast of Wales.

“We again unshipped our paddles, and drifted nearly to Dublin ere we could again get them to work, but luckily did effect that and anchored off George’s Dock Pier, Liverpool.”[34]

[34] The full log appears in Mr. Colin Watson’s “Doubly in Crown Service”; the original log is stated to be preserved in Brown’s Museum.

Another famous vessel of this period was built in 1814 at Fairlie by William Fyfe. This was the Industry, known in later years as the Coffee Mill because of the grinding noise made by the cog-wheels in her machinery.[35] She is also remarkable as being the only trading steamer ever built at the Fairlie yard, for William Fyfe steadfastly refused to construct anything but yachts and smart fishing smacks.[36]

[35] Mr. John Hastie’s Address to the Institute of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland, December 2, 1880.

[36] “The Clyde Passenger Steamers.”

The year 1814 saw the building of the Princess Charlotte and Prince of Orange, the first British steamers with engines by Boulton and Watt. In the same year at Dumbarton, Archibald MacLachlan built the Marjory, the first steam vessel to enter the Thames. She was sent through the Forth and Clyde Canal and down the east coast, and as her beam was wider than the canal locks her wings had to be removed.

Steamship building now proceeded with great energy. In 1815 boats were built in Ireland at Cork, and the first voyage of a steamer from Glasgow to London was made by the Thames, while in England the London river steamboat service was opened.

The Thames, previously the Argyle, is described by the Times, July 8, 1815, as a steam yacht, and as a “rapid, capacious, and splendid vessel,” which “lately accomplished a voyage of 1500 miles, has twice crossed St. George’s Channel, and came round the Land’s End with a rapidity unknown before in naval history.... She has the peculiar advantage of proceeding either by sails or steam, separated or united, by which means the public have the pleasing certainty of never being detained on the water after dark, much less one or two nights, which has frequently occurred with the old packets.”

The “Comet,” 1812.

The Thames always did her journey, a trip to Margate, in one day. “Her cabins,” says the Times eulogist, “are spacious and are fitted up with all that elegance could suggest or all that personal comfort requires, presenting a choice library, backgammon boards, draught tables, and other means of amusement. For the express purpose of combining delicacy with comfort a female servant tends upon the ladies.” The Thames was of 70 tons register, 79 feet on the keel, 16 feet beam, and carried engines of 14 horse-power. Her funnel did duty as a mast, and carried a large square sail. “A gallery upon which the cabin windows opened projected so as to form a continuous deck, interrupted only by the paddle-boxes, an arrangement which had the further effect of making the vessel appear larger than she really was.”[37] She also displayed on her sides eighteen large painted ports, besides two on her stern, which gave her such a formidable appearance that several naval officers stated in evidence before a Parliamentary Committee that they would have attempted to reconnoitre her before bringing her to. For in those days merchant vessels carried cannons and did not hesitate to show their noses through the ports if need were.

[37] Kennedy’s “History of Steam Navigation.”

Her voyage to London was made under the command of a former naval officer named Dodd. She sailed from Glasgow about the middle of May, carrying, besides Dodd, a mate, engineer, stoker, four seamen, and a boy. The first night out they met a heavy gale, and instead of being off the Irish coast as Dodd intended, they found themselves in the morning perilously near Port Patrick, its rock-bound coast being less than half a league on their lee. Dodd saw that his only hope of safety was to run the engine for all it was worth, and the little steamer managed to fight her way against the wind and a tempestuous sea, gaining at the rate of about three miles an hour. Two passengers, a Mr. and Mrs. Weld, joined the ship at Dublin.[38] Weld’s journal records that he went to see the vessel “and found her on the point of starting with a number of curious visitors upon an experimental trip in the Bay.” He was so pleased that he asked Captain Dodd, who at once consented, to take him as a passenger to London, and Mrs. Weld “resolved on sharing the dangers of the voyage.”

[38] Chambers’ Journal, April 25, 1857.

When the adventurous journey was resumed several persons went with them as far as Dunleary, now Kingstown, where they landed after being violently sea-sick owing to the rough water. Some naval officers on board prophesied that the vessel could not live long in heavy seas. Kingstown was left, and the steamer soon found herself in as rough a sea as ever. The next morning they arrived off Wexford. The smoke led the people to suppose the vessel was on fire, and all the pilots in the place put off to her help, but their dreams of salvage were disappointed. The weather becoming worse, Dodd sought safety in Wexford Bay. They sailed again for St. David’s Head. Both paddle-wheels met with an accident and had to have a blade cut away, the vessel’s progress, however, suffering but slightly in consequence. Milford Haven was safely reached, but when nearing the port they met the Government mail packet from Milford to Waterford under full sail. They had passed the packet about a quarter of a mile when Dodd thought he would send some letters by her to Ireland; accordingly the Thames was put about, overhauled the packet, and sailed round her. The letters having been put aboard, Dodd took his boat again round the packet, although the latter was under way, and then continued his journey. At Milford the engine and boiler were cleaned. But after leaving Milford the pilot declined to attempt to round the Land’s End that night. Dodd put into St. Ives, where the Thames was again mistaken for a ship on fire. There being no shelter at St. Ives he went on to Hayle. Off Cornwall Head a tremendous swell from the Atlantic met the steamer, and the waves were of such a height as to render her position most alarming. Dodd battled on, and after a night’s struggle rounded the Land’s End. At Plymouth and Portsmouth officials and thousands of sightseers went to see her, and at Portsmouth the Port Admiral was asked to grant the voyagers a guard that order might be preserved.

The “Industry,” 1814.

The Thames steamed up the harbour with wind and tide at nearly fourteen miles an hour. A court-martial which was being held at the time on one of the warships hurriedly adjourned to witness the wonderful sight. Margate and London were reached in due course, the ninety miles’ run from Margate to Limehouse being done in ten hours.

Sir Richard Phillips, in his “Million of Facts,” published in 1839, writes: “In her first voyage to Margate none would trust themselves, and the editor and three of his family with five or six more were the first hardy adventurers. To allay alarm he published a letter in the newspapers, and the end of that summer he saw the same packet depart with three hundred and fifty passengers!” They must have been packed as tightly as herrings in a barrel.

Another steamer on the Thames in 1815 was the Defiance. She was possibly the first steamer to be built on the banks of the Thames, but as there is no discoverable record of the fact, it is equally possible she was built as a sailer, and was fitted with engines. The Majestic appeared in 1816, and is thought to have been the first steamer employed in towing ships. On August 28, 1816, she towed the Hope, an Indiaman, from Deptford to Woolwich at a rate of three miles an hour against the wind.[39]

[39] Kennedy’s “History of Steam Navigation.”

It is recorded that prior to the appearance on the Thames of the Marjory, Defiance, and Thames, a man named Dawson in 1813 had a steamer on the river plying between Gravesend and London. This Dawson is stated to have made steamship experiments in Ireland, and according to his own account he built a steamboat of 50 tons burden, worked by a high-pressure steam-engine as early as 1811, which, by one of those singular coincidences frequently met with in the history of inventions, he named the Comet.[40]

[40] Stuart’s “History” and Knight’s “Cyclopædia.”

The first steam vessel known with certainty to have been built on the Thames was the Regent, designed by Isambard Brunel, and built in 1816 by Maudslay, the founder of one of the most famous shipbuilding firms London river has known. She was of 112 tons, with engines of 24 horse-power, and her machinery and paddles together were so light that they only weighed five tons. She was placed on the London and Margate passenger service, and in July 1817 was burnt off Whitstable. Fortunately no lives were lost.

An apparently insignificant incident which occurred in 1818 resulted in one of the most important discoveries in the history of the marine engine. James Watt the younger happened to be on the steamer Dumbarton Castle, built a year earlier, when the engineer told him that the vessel had grounded the previous evening, and that the rising tide, turning the paddles the wrong way, had caused the engines to reverse. Watt explained to the engineer the importance of this, and at last took off his coat and showed what could be done with the engines. Before that date the reversing of machinery on steamers was either unknown or not generally practised. Watt’s discovery enabled the steamer to take its position at Rothesay Quay with precision and promptitude, the custom previously having been to stop the engine some distance from the point of mooring and allow the vessel to drift alongside.[41]

[41] “The Clyde Passenger Steamers,” by Captain J. Williamson.

Plan and Lines of the “Comet.”

The Engine of the “Leven.”

After the experimental voyages described above it was not long before owners of steam vessels and enterprising shippers generally recognised the benefits to be derived from the establishment of regular coastal steamship services. The year 1816 saw steam communication established between Great Britain and Ireland with the Hibernia of 112 tons register, which enjoyed the distinction of being the first boat employed in cross-channel service in the British Islands. She was built for the Holyhead and Howth service, was lugger-rigged, nearly 80 feet in length, and about 9 feet draught, and her passages averaged about seven hours.

David Napier now introduced a great change in the shape of the fore part of steamers’ hulls, which added to the superiority of their speed over sailing ships. Hitherto steamers had been built with the bluff bows which characterised the sailers. Napier observed that the obstruction caused to a ship’s progress by bows of this shape was very great, especially in dirty weather. He was crossing from Glasgow to Belfast on one of the sailing packets which then did the journey in anything up to a week, and perched himself on the bows, where he remained, heedless of the waves and spray which continually dashed over him. He was engaged in watching the bows and the waves, and thinking. Occasionally he turned to the captain and asked if the sea was rough. The captain said it could not yet be called very rough. The weather grew worse, and at last a tremendous wave, breaking over the vessel, swept her from stem to stern. Napier went back to the captain and asked, “Do you call it rough now?” The captain replied that he could not remember a worse night in his experience. To his astonishment Napier was delighted with this answer, and went down to his cabin remarking, “I think I can manage if that is all.”[42]

[42] An account of this voyage by Napier is given in the American Admiral Preble’s “History of Steam Navigation.”