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Inventor and engineer, Robert Fulton designed and built the first successfully operating commercial steamboat. The rivers of the United States became a major thoroughfare for the transportation of passengers and commercial cargo after his steamboat, the Clermont , made its maiden voyage up the Hudson River in 1807. Fulton also designed one of the first submarines. which they sailed, the Nautilus .
Robert Fulton’s personal life
Robert Fulton was born on November 14, 1765 in Pennsylvania, United States. His parents, Robert Fulton and Mary Smith Fulton, were Irish immigrants. The Fulton family lived on a farm in Little Britain, Pennsylvania, then a British colony. He had three sisters, Isabella, Elizabeth, and Mary, and a younger brother, Abraham. In 1771, the farm was repossessed and sold, and the family moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Although he had already learned to read and write at home, Robert Fulton began attending a Quaker school in Lancaster at the age of eight. Years later he worked in a Philadelphia jewelry store, where his ability to paint miniature portraits on medallions motivated him to pursue a career as a painter.
Robert Fulton remained single until he was 43, until 1808, when he married Harriet Livingston. She was the niece of his steamboat business partner, Robert R. Livingston. The couple had a son and three daughters.
The artist
Robert Fulton moved to Bath, Virginia, in 1786, beginning his career as a painter. His portraits and landscapes were highly appreciated, and his friends urged him to study art in Europe.
Fulton returned to Philadelphia hoping that his works would win over patrons. A group of merchants were impressed with his work and, also wanting to promote the city’s cultural image, financed Fulton’s trip to London in 1787.
Although he was well received in England and had some popularity, his activity as a painter did not develop significantly and in 1794 he would definitively abandon his artistic career.
The inventor
While working as a painter he came into contact with a number of recent inventions related to naval propulsion. In them, the ship was propelled by a blade powered by jets of water heated by a steam boiler that moved back and forth.
It occurred to Fulton that the use of steam to drive several coupled rotating vanes would move the ship more effectively; he would later develop that idea into the paddle wheel of steamboats. In 1973 he contacted the UK and US governments and presented his ideas on the use of steam propulsion in military and commercial ships, thus beginning his career as an inventor.
His works would focus on the design of inland waterways. In 1796 he wrote a treatise, Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation , in which he proposed combining existing rivers with a network of artificial canals to connect towns and cities throughout England.
Fulton also proposed methods for raising and lowering large vessels without using complex and expensive lock and dam systems. He also designed steamboats to carry heavy loads in shallow water, as well as more stable bridges. In England they showed no interest in his canal network but his canal dredging machine was successful. He also obtained British patents for several of his inventions.
a submarine
Despite the lack of recognition for his ideas in England, Fulton persevered. He traveled to Paris in 1797 and proposed to the French government the idea of making a submarine that would help France in the war it was waging with England. Fulton envisioned a scenario in which his submarine, the Nautilus , would maneuver undetected under British warships, and could attach explosive charges to their hulls.
” If some warships are destroyed by such novel, hidden and unpredictable means, the confidence of the sailors will be gone and the fleet rendered useless from the moment of the first feeling of terror,” said Robert Fulton.
The French government in general and specifically the Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, considered the use of a submarine a cowardly and dishonorable way of fighting, refusing to subsidize its construction.
After a second failed attempt, Robert Fulton finally received authorization from the French Minister of the Navy to build the Nautilus . The submarine was used in two attacks on British ships blockading a small port near Cherbourg. However, due to the winds and tides, the British ships were able to elude the slower submarine.
a steamboat
Fulton met Robert L. Livingston, the United States ambassador to France, in 1803. Livingston was a member of the committee that drafted the United States Declaration of Independence . Before Livingston moved to France, the state of New York had granted him the exclusive right to operate and earn revenue from steamboat navigation on the state’s rivers for a period of 20 years. Fulton and Livingston then entered into a partnership to build a steamboat.
The 20-meter-long steamboat designed by Fulton was tested on the Seine River in Paris on August 9, 1803. Although the French-designed eight-horsepower steam engine broke her hull, Fulton and Livingston appreciated positively the proof: before breaking up, the boat had reached a speed of 5.6 kilometers per hour against the current.
Fulton designed a stronger hull and commissioned a 24 horsepower engine. At the same time, Livingston negotiated an extension of his steamboat navigation monopoly in the state of New York.
Fulton returned to London in 1804 and offered the British government his design for a semi-submersible steam-powered warship. However, after Admiral Nelson’s decisive victory over the French fleet at Trafalgar in 1805, the British government decided that it could maintain its then undisputed dominance of the seas without the unconventional and untested steamships that Fulton offered.
At the time, Fulton’s financial situation was complicated because he had spent much of his money building the Nautilus and his first steamboats. He then decided to return to the United States.
the clermont
Fulton and Livingston met in New York in December 1806 to resume work on building a steamboat. In early August 1807 the ship was ready for her maiden voyage. The steamship was 43 meters long and 5.5 meters wide. She used an innovative 19-horsepower single-cylinder condensing steam engine, designed by Fulton, which drove two 15-foot-diameter paddle wheels mounted on each side of the ship.
The steamer North River , later known as the Clermont , began its trial voyage up the Hudson River from New York City to Albany on August 17, 1807. A crowd gathered to watch the event, but onlookers they expected the ship to fail; they mocked the vessel by calling it the Fulton Folly .
The ship initially stalled, and Fulton and his crew set about finding a solution. Half an hour later the steamboat’s paddle wheels were turning again, propelling the boat against the current of the Hudson River. The ship had an average speed of almost 8 kilometers per hour and completed the 240-kilometer course in just 32 hours, an exceptionally short time compared to the four days required by conventional sailing ships. The return trip downstream was completed in just 30 hours.
Robert Fulton wrote in a letter to a friend about the historic event: ” I had a light breeze against me all the way, both coming and going, and the journey was made entirely by steam-engine power. I overtook many sloops and schooners, sailing to windward, and separated from them as if they had been at anchor. The power of propelling ships with steam engines has already been fully demonstrated .”
With the addition of additional moorings and other improvements, the North River began its regular passenger and light cargo service between New York and Albany on September 4, 1807. During its first season of service, the North River suffered repeated mechanical problems. mainly caused by captains of rival sailing ships accidentally ramming their paddle wheels as they were exposed to the sides of the vessel.
In the winter of 1808, Fulton and Livingston added metal guards to the paddle wheels, improved passenger accommodations, and re-registered the steamboat now under the name North River of Clermont , later shortened to Clermont . In 1810, the Clermont and two new steamboats designed by Robert Fulton provided regular passenger and freight service on the Hudson and Raritan rivers in upstate New York.
The New Orleans
Fulton, Livingston, and inventor and businessman Nicholas Roosevelt entered into a new joint venture between 1811 and 1812. They envisioned building steamboats capable of traveling between Pittsburgh and New Orleans, a journey of more than 1,800 miles across the Mississippi and Ohio. They named the new steamer New Orleans .
Eight years after the United States government purchased the Spanish Louisiana Territory from France, the Mississippi and Ohio rivers remained unprotected; moreover, much of its course was unmapped. The Ohio River route between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Cairo, Illinois, required the steamboat to navigate across the treacherous Falls of the Ohio. It was an 8 meter drop along about two kilometers of the river.
The steamer New Orleans left Pittsburgh on October 20, 1811, and arrived in New Orleans on January 18, 1812.
While the trip up the Ohio River was uneventful, navigation up the Mississippi River proved challenging. On December 16, 1811, there was a great earthquake in New Madrid, Missouri, which altered the position of previously charted river landmarks (such as islands and channels), making navigation difficult. The trees felled by the earthquake formed dangerous obstacles that were in constant motion and blocked the path of the ship.
Although fraught with difficulties, the success of the New Orleans’ first voyage demonstrated that steamboats could overcome the many dangers and problems posed by navigation on the western rivers of the United States. A decade later, Robert Fulton-inspired steamships would be the primary mode of passenger and cargo transportation in the American heartland.
the demologos
When the English navy began blockading American ports during the War of 1812, the United States government hired Robert Fulton to design what would be the world’s first steam-powered warship: the Demologos .
The Demologos was, in essence, a floating gun battery. This steam warship was 45 meters long with two hulls, between which the paddle wheel was located, to protect it. With the steam engine located in one hull and the boiler in the other, the armored ship and her armament weighed 2,745 tons, which limited her speed to 11 kilometers per hour. She was dangerously slow in combat. Although sea trials in October 1814 were successful, Demologos was never used in battle.
The United States Navy dismantled the Demologos in 1815, when the war ended. The ship made her last voyage in 1817, carrying President James Monroe from New York to Staten Island. Her steam engines were dismantled in 1821 and the ship was towed to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where she remained until she was destroyed by an accidental explosion in 1829.
Robert Fulton’s death
From 1812 until his death in 1815, Robert Fulton spent most of his time and money in legal battles to protect patents for his steamboat designs. His savings were depleted due to a series of failed submarine designs, bad investments in art and loans to relatives that were never repaid.
In early 1815, Fulton rescued a friend who had fallen overboard while walking on the frozen Hudson River and was drenched in the freezing water. As a consequence, he contracted pneumonia and died on February 24, 1815, at the age of 49, in New York City. He was laid to rest in the Trinity Episcopal Church Cemetery on iconic Wall Street.
Upon learning of Robert Fulton’s death, both houses of the New York State Legislature voted to wear black mourning clothing for six weeks; It was the first time that a tribute of this type was paid to a citizen.
The industrialization of the United States
By enabling the affordable and reliable transportation of raw materials and finished goods, Robert Fulton’s steamships were essential in the development of the American industrial revolution. Along with the dawn of the romantic era of luxury riverboat travel, Fulton’s ships contributed significantly to the westward expansion of the United States. In addition, his developments in steam-powered warships helped make the United States Navy a military power.
Fulton’s legacy is palpable in American culture and there are many places, associations and objects that bear his name. Some are:
- Five United States Navy ships have been named USS Fulton .
- The Robert Fulton statue is part of the National Collection in the Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol.
- Fulton Hall of the United States Merchant Marine Academy houses the Department of Marine Engineering.
- Along with the inventor of the telegraph Samuel FB Morse, Robert Fulton is depicted on the reverse of the 1896 United States $2 silver certificate.
- Since 2006, Robert Fulton has been a member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame (the Hall of Fame for Inventors) in Alexandria, Virginia.
Sources
- Canney, Donald L. The Old Steam Navy, Volume One: Frigates, Sloops, and Gunboats 1815-1885. Naval Institute Press, 1990.
- Dickinson, H.W. Robert Fulton, Engineer and Artist: His Life and Works. University Press of the Pacific, 1913.
- Latrobe, John H.B. A Lost Chapter in the History of the Steamboat . Maryland Historical Society, 1871, http://www.myoutbox.net/nr1871b.htm
- Przybylek, Leslie. The Incredible Journey of the Steamboat New Orleans . Senator John Heinz History Center, October 18, 2017, https://www.heinzhistorycenter.org/blog/western-pennsylvania-history/the-incredible-journey-of-the-steamboat-new-orleans .
- Sutcliffe, Alice Crary. Robert Fulton and The Clermont. The Century Co., 1909.
