Old Steamboat Days on The Hudson River
By: David Lear Buckman, The Grafton Press, 1907

CHAPTER 2

The First Steamboat

It was built largely after Fulton’s plans and drawings at Boulton & Watt’s shops, in Birmingham, and sent to this country. It had a twenty-four inch cylinder and four foot stroke, while the boiler was twenty feet long, seven feet deep and eight feet wide.

The boat was built on the East River at the yards of Charles Brownne. It was one hundred and thirty feet long, sixteen feet beam, seven foot hold, and drew twenty-eight inches of water. Others give her length as one hundred and thirty-three and one hundred and forty feet and draft as four feet. The paddle wheels were at the side and uncovered. They were fifteen feet in diameter, four feet wide with a dip of two feet. She was named the Clermont after Chancellor Livingston’s country seat on the east shore of the Hudson River in Columbia County.

After many disappointments and delays Fulton left New York for Albany, August 17, 1807, in his little boat, making the trip in thirty-two hours, and successfully demonstrated to the world the possibilities of steam navigation. Others place the date of this first steamboat trip as one week earlier.

Fulton’s own account of that first memorable trip is:

“I left New York on Monday at four o’clock and arrived at Clermont, the seat of Chancellor Livingston, at one o’clock on Tuesday, time, twenty-four hours, distance, one hundred and ten miles. On Wednesday I departed from the Chancellor’s at nine o’clock in the morning and arrived at Albany at five in the afternoon; distance, forty miles, time, eight hours. The sum is one hundred and fifty miles in thirty-two hours, equal to near five miles an hour. On Thursday at nine o’clock in the morning I left Albany and arrived at the Chancellor’s at six in the evening. I started from thence at seven and arrived at New York at four in the afternoon; time, thirty hours, space run, one hundred and fifty miles. Throughout my whole way, both going and returning, the wind was ahead; no advantage could be derived from my sails; the whole has, therefore, been performed by the power of the steam engine.”

“The power of propelling boats by steam is now fully proved. The morning I left New York there were not perhaps thirty persons in the city who believed the boat would ever move one mile an hour, or be of the least utility and while we were putting off from the wharf I heard a number of sarcastic remarks. This is the way in which ignorant men compliment what they call philosophers and projectors."

The condition had been fulfilled, steamboating on the Hudson had begun, but many a hard-fought battle was ahead of Fulton and Livingston to protect the “exclusive” privilege the Legislature had given them.

One of the incidents of this first eventful trip of the Clermont, which should not be overlooked, is said to have been the announcement of the betrothal of Fulton to Harriet Livingston, a relative of the Chancellor’s, and whose subsequent marriage has already been noticed in the preceding chapter.

The success of the Clermont as a passenger boat was assured from the first. People would not content themselves with the slow travel of the sloops or stagecoaches when they could go to Albany in thirty-two hours on the steamboat! The dangerous competition, however, was feared by the rivermen. The new steamboat was obstructed by the sloops and fouled intentionally. The very next winter the Legislature was compelled to enact a law imposing a fine and imprisonment on anyone willfully attempting to injure the Clermont or any other steamboat. The same act also provided a five year extension of the exclusive privilege to Livingston and Fulton, for every additional boat they should build and put on the river.

The Clermont was much like a schooner, built with two masts and an exceedingly large funnel, for she burned pine wood under her boilers. She poured out volumes of black smoke, which at night assumed a more startling effect, on account of the sparks that flew out with the smoke.

A writer of the day assures us:

“The crews of many sailing vessels shrunk beneath their decks at the terrific sight, while others prostrated themselves and besought Providence to protect them from the approach of the horrible monster which was marching on the tide and lighting its path by the fire that it vomited.”

As soon as the Clermont’s first season was closed, she was hauled out of the river at Red Hook for several improvements, which the practical operation of the boat had suggested to Fulton’s mind. She was increased in length from one hundred and thirty to one hundred and fifty feet and in beam from sixteen to eighteen feet. Her cabin work was enlarged and her machinery overhauled. The cast iron wheel shaft was replaced by one of wrought iron and outside supports were built for the paddle wheel shaft, relieving the strain that had been manifest from the first. The paddle wheels were also boxed in at the same time. She was renamed the North River and went into regular service on the Hudson at the opening of navigation. Her boiler, however, gave out and after a delay of two months she was fitted with a new one and the boat ran regularly for the balance of the season, with Samuel Jenkins as captain and David Mandeville as pilot.

One of the last survivors of the first trip of the North River to Albany, in a letter written in 1857, describing the trip, says:

“At the hour appointed for her departure, 9 A. M., Chancellor Livingston with a number of invited friends came on board, and, after a good deal of bustle and no little noise and confusion the boat was got out into the stream and headed up the river. Steam was put on and sails were set, for she was provided with large square sails, attached to masts, that were so constructed that they could be raised and lowered as the direction and strength of the wind might require. There was at this time a light breeze from the south and with steam and sails a very satisfactory rate of speed was obtained, and as the favorable wind continued we kept on the even tenor of our way and just before sunrise, next morning, we were at Clermont, the residence of the Chancellor, who with his friends landed and the boat proceeded to Albany, where she arrived at two or three o’clock, P.M."

Fulton, as soon as he produced a practical steamboat, turned his attention to steam ferryboats for the North and East Rivers. The Jersey was put on the river in 1812 and the York in 1813. These took the place of the old ferryboats which were propelled by driving two or four horses round and round in the hold of the boat. The horses were attached to a pole connected with a gear movement that rotated the paddle wheels. These horse boats were most primitive affairs and very, very slow.

The steam ferryboats produced by Fulton were a great improvement on the old horse boats, in both speed and comfort. They were twin boats having two complete hulls and united by a bridge, shaped at both ends so that they could move in either direction with equal rapidity. One of the boats made the trip across the river loaded with eight four-wheel carriages, twenty-nine horses and one hundred passengers, and it was considered a great feat.

Not only did Fulton devise the ferryboat, but he produced the pontoon or floating bridge-dock that rises and falls with the tides and makes it possible for the trucks and carriages to drive on and off the boats substantially as they do to-day.

Though Fulton’s grave in Trinity Churchyard for years was not marked by any monument, his name was honored in Fulton Ferry and to-day you may take the ferryboat Fulton if you will, from the foot of one of New York’s most busy streets of the same name, and land at the foot of the principal street in Brooklyn, also bearing the same illustrious name. Further, as you leave the ferryhouse on the Brooklyn side you will walk beneath the statue of Fulton, holding in his hand a model of his ferryboat. You have never noticed it possibly. Next time you are going that way, look; it will pay you.

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