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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #63140 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63140)
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Lost Chapter in the History of the
-Steamboat, by John Hazelhurst Boneval Latrobe
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: A Lost Chapter in the History of the Steamboat
-
-Author: John Hazelhurst Boneval Latrobe
-
-Release Date: September 7, 2020 [EBook #63140]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOST CHAPTER--HISTORY OF STEAMBOAT ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
-produced from images generously made available by The
-Internet Archive)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Fund-Publication, No. 5.
-
-
-
-
- A LOST CHAPTER
- IN THE
- History of the Steamboat.
-
-
- THE MARYLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY
- • 1844 •
-
-
- BY
- J. H. B. LATROBE.
-
- _Baltimore, March, 1871._
-
- Printed by John Murphy,
- Printer to the Maryland Historical Society,
- Baltimore, March, 1871.
-
-
-
-
- A LOST CHAPTER
- IN THE
- HISTORY OF THE STEAMBOAT.
-
-
-In the spring of 1828, my law office was in the Athenæum building, so
-called, afterwards destroyed by fire. My business was scant, for I had
-but recently been admitted to the bar. I was ruminating, no doubt, upon
-my prospects, when the door was opened, and a handsome, elderly man, of
-distinguished presence, entered and asked me, in rich unctuous tones,
-and with a strong Irish accent, if my name was Latrobe, and if I
-recollected him. His face was familiar, and so was his voice; but I
-could not place him. Seeing that I hesitated, he said, “and it would be
-strange if you did, for you were but a bit of a child when you last saw
-me in your father’s house. I am John Devereux Delacy,” and he rolled out
-his sounding name as though he was proud of it. I recollected him then.
-Fourteen or fifteen years back it had been his fancy to pet me as a
-child. It was this that had impressed him on my memory. “Ah, you know me
-now,” he said: “you remember when I used to be so much with Fulton and
-Roosevelt and Chancellor Livingston and Dr. Mitchell, at the Navy Yard
-house.” This was the name given to my father’s residence in Washington,
-not far from the Navy Yard. After recalling well remembered incidents
-and indulging in general remarks for a while, Mr. Delacy took a survey
-of my scantily furnished office, and said, “not overwhelmed with
-business, my young friend: so much the better for me: you will have the
-more time to attend to something I want you to undertake. If you
-succeed, it will be the making of both our fortunes. I want suit brought
-against every steamboat owner in the United States; and you must begin
-with old Billy McDonald, here in Baltimore. See this;” and, suiting the
-action to the word, my visitor drew from his breast pocket the original
-parchment letters patent, now before me, signed by James Madison,
-President, James Monroe, Secretary of State, and Richard Rush, Attorney
-General, granting to Nicholas J. Roosevelt the exclusive right to his
-‘new and useful improvement in propelling boats by steam.’ Dated
-December 1st, 1814. The patent had still some months to run. The
-specification contained the following description of the improvement:
-
- “In a boat or vessel of any form, but of sufficient capacity to
- contain the machinery, I place a steam engine of a power proportioned
- to the resistance to be overcome in propelling a boat or vessel a
- given distance in a given time. This steam engine is supplied by a
- boiler of the usual form, or made cylindric, one or more at pleasure,
- so as to be of sufficient capacity to feed the engine. I next place
- two wheels over the sides, on the axles of which I put fliers,
- dispense with them, or otherwise, contrive them at pleasure, either to
- regulate motion, or to give additional velocity; or, they may be
- connected with the valve shaft and steam engine by wheels, so as to
- give any number of revolutions that may be desired. The arms of the
- water wheels I would make of wood, to which I attach floats or paddles
- of cast iron or thick boiler plate sheet iron, though they may be made
- of wood. These floats I make move up and down on the arms by means of
- screws and holes, so as to make them deeper or shallower in the water,
- in taking a hold on the water, agreeably to the depth of the water the
- boat may draw, or the lading there may be on board, or agreeably to
- other circumstances. The supporters of the outer ends of the water
- wheel shaft to be made of iron with braces, though they may be made of
- wood, if required.
-
- Nicholas J. Roosevelt.
- Witnesses:
- Jeremiah Ballard,
- John Dev’x Delacy.”
-
-Delacy watched me closely as I read the letters patent; and, I remember,
-placed his gloved finger on his own name at the bottom. I had not been
-carried away by his promise of a case. He was remarkably well preserved;
-but his habiliments approached what might have been called seediness;
-although his air and carriage would have borne up against even longer
-used apparel. It was easy to be seen that a contingent fee was all that
-could be expected: but the parchment, the accuracy of the description,
-its perfect correspondence with the steamboats in use, and its date,
-made the case look better than I had at first thought it would.
-
-Taking the letters patent from me, Mr. Delacy placed in my hands a
-carefully prepared assignment from Roosevelt to William Griffith, an
-eminent lawyer of New Jersey, conveying them in trust for the benefit of
-Roosevelt, for one-third interest, of Delacy, for one-third, and of
-Griffith and Aaron Ogden, of a well known and distinguished family, for
-the remaining third. The assignment gave Griffith the power to sell
-rights and sue infringers; and excepted from its operation the
-Shrewsbury and Jersey Stage Company and Ogden, who were already
-licensees of Roosevelt, the latter running a boat between Elizabethtown
-and New York.
-
-Nor was this all. Delacy, who evidently was pleased with the impression
-he saw he was making, next handed me an opinion on a case stated, given
-by Mr. Wirt, in 1826, of which the following is an extract:
-
-
- CASE.
-
- In the year 1809, Robert Smith, Esquire, then being Secretary of
- State, an application was made to him by the late Robert Fulton, Esq.,
- for a patent for the using of vertical wheels with steam engines or
- other power to propel boats through the water; but though he filed
- such his application, &c., he neither subscribed nor swore thereto in
- the manner prescribed, or required, by law; for the name, Robert
- Fulton, is in the handwriting of another man.
-
- In 1814, (under view of the circumstances,) a patent was granted to
- Nicholas J. Roosevelt, for the using vertical wheels with steam
- engines, or other acting power, to propel boats, &c., through water,
- the patent or papers issued to Fulton being considered void, and but
- as so much blank paper.
-
- Public notice was given of the patent having been granted to
- Roosevelt, and Fulton never urged his claim, but from that moment
- abandoned it; and Roosevelt’s patent, though well and publicly known
- to exist, and to be in existence for twelve years, has been neither
- impeached nor impugned; neither does any other person lay claim to the
- invention of the application of vertical wheels.
-
- It is asked, if, under the within stated circumstances, the patent to
- Roosevelt is not valid; and at this distance of time from being
- issued, is not now unimpeachable?
-
-Other questions were asked in connection with the assignment. Mr. Wirt’s
-answer to the above is alone important however at this time. It is as
-follows:
-
- Baltimore, _July 11th, 1826_.
-
- On the above statement I am of opinion, that the patent to Roosevelt
- is valid. It is still subject to impeachment, however, on the ground
- that he was not the first discoverer of the improvement which he has
- patented. The distance of time since the date of the patent is
- sufficient to bar a proceeding to set it aside by _scire facias_ under
- the third section of the Act of 1793; but any defendant, against whom
- an action may be brought under the patent, may impeach it at any
- distance of time, under the sixth section of the Act of 1793.
-
-Satisfied from this showing that Mr. Delacy’s case was not a bad one, I
-agreed to undertake it, and wrote to Mr. Roosevelt, in the State of New
-York, upon the subject. He corroborated all that I had heard, sent me
-copies of important correspondence, and referred me to Richard S. Coxe,
-Esq., of Washington, who was the executor of Mr. Griffith, the assignee
-for the original papers. Mr. Griffith had then been for many years dead.
-
-Among my clients, at this time, was the late Mr. John S. Stiles, who,
-hearing what had taken place with Delacy, agreed, in consideration of
-participating in my fee, to visit Washington, call on Mr. Coxe, obtain
-the Griffith papers, and afterward go to Clermont, the residence of the
-late Chancellor Livingston, who, I learned from Mr. Roosevelt, was
-connected with the investigation I was about to make.
-
-On the return of Mr. Stiles to Baltimore, and after an examination of
-papers he had obtained, the case looked so strong, that I called on Mr.
-Wirt, reminded him of his opinion, shewed him my documents, and asked
-him if he would come into the case on a contingent fee. I called also on
-Mr. Taney. Both gentlemen thought the prospect of success was fair; and
-both agreed to participate in the trial, which was to take place in the
-Circuit Court of the United States, in Baltimore. It was thought best,
-on consultation, to begin the litigation by suing the company owning the
-steamboats running from Baltimore to Frenchtown, at the head of which
-was the late General William McDonald; and I addressed myself, at once,
-to as thorough a preparation as I was capable of making, prior to
-issuing a writ. Difficulties now presented themselves which I had not
-appreciated when Mr. Delacy called on me, or while gathering the
-documentary evidence. I am reminded of the first that occurred by Mr.
-Roosevelt’s reply to my letter already mentioned. It was necessary that
-we should have a meeting; but to bring this about required an hundred
-dollars, which neither of us had to spare. Then, commissions were
-necessary to collect the testimony of parties at a distance. In a word,
-it was apparent that more means were needed than I, a young lawyer, just
-beginning the world, could command; and Mr. Stiles had spent all _he_
-could afford in his visits to Washington and Clermont. I was in trouble,
-too, about Delacy. He had procured, on credit, from Patterson, the then
-fashionable tailor in South street, a complete outfit; and not having
-the money to pay for it, Patterson, who was unwilling to wait until our
-success at law made my client’s fortune, put him in jail, in spite of
-his sounding name and lofty bearing. I had to become security for him,
-and ultimately to pay the debt. By this time, I had found out that he
-had an aptitude for this sort of thing; and that it would be for my own
-advantage, and the credit of the great case, to get him out of town as
-soon as possible. Always buoyant in his feelings, gushing in his manner,
-and intending to be honest, he was one of those men who are always in
-trouble. As already intimated, therefore, I was not as hopeful at the
-end of some months as I had been; and, when Mr. Taney asked me, one day,
-how my preparation was getting on, I told him, candidly, all my
-troubles, present and prospective. His advice was kind and prompt. The
-case he still thought was a fair one, and if it went on he would go into
-it with earnest zeal; but, he advised me not to hamper myself in the
-commencement of my professional career. One thing was certain. I would
-have against me every steamboat owner in the United States. Now-a-days,
-combinations often carry on these great cases. It was not so then; and,
-after discussing the matter with Mr. Stiles, I tied up my papers, and
-abandoning the idea of suing General McDonald, placed them in the
-pigeon-hole, where, with a single exception, they have remained
-undisturbed for upwards of forty years, and now see the light, only that
-this Lost Chapter may be written. The exception was this. In 1855 or
-1856, I lent the package to Dr. Hamel, a Russian _savant_, who was about
-preparing a history of steam navigation, and who visited America to
-obtain information on this and other subjects. The papers remained in
-his hands for some months. They were returned when he was on the eve of
-departure for Europe. He has been dead for many years; and I am not
-aware that he made any use of what he got from me. It is probable,
-therefore, that what I am about to tell will be told for the first time,
-now. It seems proper that it should not be wholly lost, and hence I tell
-it.
-
-To us, of to-day, it appears strange that the first suggestion of steam,
-as a motive power for the propulsion of vessels was not accompanied by a
-plan for using vertical wheels over the sides to which to apply it. And
-yet, this was very far from being the case. Fitch, in 1783, propelled a
-boat upon the Delaware by a steam mechanism that moved paddles, as an
-Indian works the paddle in a canoe. Rumsey had a vertical pump, operated
-by steam, in the middle of his boat, that drew in water at the stem and
-expelled it at the stern, through an horizontal trunk in the bottom. Dr.
-Franklin’s plan was to make a current of steam propel the vessel as it
-issued from the stern. Then steam was applied to oars, and for a season
-a boat was rowed by steam between Philadelphia and Bordentown. Dr.
-Kensey built a steam engine that was to operate upon oars, paddles and
-flutter wheels. Fulton himself, as stated by his biographer, Colden,
-after subjecting Rumsey’s mode to the test of calculation, “thought of
-paddles and duck’s feet, abandoning which, he took up the idea of using
-endless chains with resisting boards upon them as propellers. His
-calculations,” still using Colden’s language, “giving him a favorable
-opinion of the mode; at least, he was persuaded it was greatly
-preferable to any other method that had been previously tried.”
-
-The above were notions, mere notions, all of them—all of them were utter
-failures; and the enumeration of them, now, excites our astonishment
-that any one of them should have been tried. Long before the day of
-Fulton, long before the earliest period to which Fulton, at any time,
-ever attempted to carry back the plan of steam navigation, it was, as I
-have shewn, entertained and practically experimented on, here in
-America, by Fitch, Rumsey, Kensey and others, all of whom failed to
-succeed. What made it a success at last? _The use of vertical wheels
-over the sides of the vessel._ Why had it not succeeded previously?
-_Because vertical wheels were not combined with steam power_ in the
-production of the desired result—a successful steamboat, as now
-understood. The merit lies with him, therefore, who first suggested the
-combination that produced success,—describing it in such a practical
-shape that the task of invention was completed, leaving nothing to be
-done but the mechanical execution. Was this the merit of Robert Fulton?
-Unquestionably it was not; and the object of this writing is to
-demonstrate the fact.
-
-I have before me the original “petition of Nicholas J. Roosevelt to the
-Honorable the Governor, the Councils and the Representatives, of the
-State of New Jersey, in Legislative assembly convened,”—dated January
-13th, 1815, in which he “asserts (I quote his words) with the modest and
-manly firmness of honesty that he is the true and original inventor and
-discoverer of steamboats with vertical wheels now in use.” And he prays
-from the Legislature, “as the constitutional guardians of the rights of
-their fellow-citizens and of the interests of the State,” such
-privileges, as on examination and hearing he may be thought entitled to.
-At this time, there were vague notions of the powers of the States over
-their navigable waters, which the decision of the Supreme Court, in
-connection with the steamboat controversy, dissipated at a later day.
-
-Belonging to an old New York family, whose worth had been illustrated
-then, as it has been since, by the honorable positions that its members
-have held in that great State, Mr. Roosevelt was a gentleman of
-character and education, of an active enterprising temper, and addicted
-all his life to matters connected with civil engineering and mechanics.
-Appreciated by all who knew him as a person of unblemished honor, his
-word was independent of his oath; but, attached to the petition just
-referred to is an affidavit, not without interest, of which the
-following is an extract:
-
- “In or about the year 1781 or 1782, this deponent resided with a
- certain Joseph Oosterhaudt, about four miles above Esopus on the
- North, or Hudson river, in the State of New York. That he did at that
- time make very many actual experiments, as well upon mill machinery as
- upon the motion and buoyancy of bodies in and through water; and did
- then and there make, rig and put in operation, on a small brook near
- the house of the aforesaid Oosterhaudt, a small wooden boat or model
- of a boat with vertical wheels over the sides, each wheel having four
- arms or paddles, or floats, made of pieces of shingle attached to the
- periphery of the wheels whereby to take a purchase on the water; and
- that these wheels being acted upon by hickory and whalebone springs
- propelled the model of the boat through the water by the agency of a
- tight cord passed between the wheels and being re-acted on by the
- springs.”
-
-Soon after the evacuation of the city by the British, Mr. Roosevelt
-returned to New York; and following the bent of his inclinations, we
-find him, some years afterward, becoming interested in the Schuyler
-Copper mines in New Jersey, on the Passaic, then called Second river.
-Here he found some parts of an old atmospheric engine, which he used in
-completing a perfect machine of that description; and meeting with an
-engineer from the establishment of Bolton & Watt, whom he employed to
-make improvements, he built engines for various parties, and constructed
-for the water works in Philadelphia, the ponderous machines, which, for
-many years, supplied that city with water, by pumping from the
-Schuylkill into the distributing reservoir at Centre Square. During all
-this time, the subject of steam navigation seems never to have been lost
-sight of. He wanted to substitute for the hickory and whalebone of his
-Esopus experiment the mighty agent with whose multitudinous uses the
-world was then beginning to be familiar.
-
-Among other persons who had heard of Mr. Roosevelt’s views in this
-direction, was the late Robert R. Livingston, better known as Chancellor
-Livingston, who, on the 8th of December, 1797, wrote to him (I quote
-from the original letter now before me) as follows:
-
- “Mr. Stevens mentioned to me your desire to apply the steam machine to
- a boat. Every attempt of this kind having failed, I have constructed a
- boat on perfectly new principles which, both in the model and on a
- large scale has exceeded my expectations. I was about writing to
- England for a steam machine, but hearing of your wish, I was willing
- to treat with you on terms which I believe you will find advantageous
- for the use of my invention.”
-
-The Chancellor was an inventor, but unlike most inventors was a man of
-large wealth; and the result of the correspondence, thus commenced, all
-of which is before me, was an agreement between the Chancellor,
-Roosevelt, and John Stevens of Hoboken, to build a boat on joint
-account, for which the engines were to be constructed at Second river by
-Roosevelt, while the propelling agency employed was to be on the plan of
-the Chancellor.
-
-I have not been able to make out, from the very voluminous
-correspondence, the precise character of the Chancellor’s contrivance;
-but I infer that it consisted of wheels with vertical axes, submerged at
-the stern, that forced a stream of water outward from between them, and
-so propelled the vessel. The inventor’s own idea of it must have been
-vague in the first instance; for there is scarcely a letter to Roosevelt
-from the time the work was commenced, until it was abandoned, that does
-not suggest changes and alterations. Steam appears to have been applied
-to the machinery about the middle of the year 1798, unsuccessfully; and
-the Chancellor, charging the failure to want of power in the engine,
-proposes to throw the cost of it upon the builder. This is of course
-resisted. Further improvements in the propellers are made. The engine is
-then alleged to be _too_ powerful: and so matters go on, until the 21st
-of October, 1798, when Roosevelt writes to the Chancellor, giving him an
-account of a trial trip, on which the speed attained was equivalent to
-about three miles in still water; though, with wind and tide, the
-Spanish Minister, who was on board and highly elated, estimated the
-actual speed at double that amount.
-
-In the meanwhile however, on the 6th of September, 1798, Roosevelt wrote
-to the Chancellor an important letter in this connection, in which,
-after referring to a change in the plan, he says:
-
- “I would recommend that we throw two wheels of wood over the sides,
- fastened to the axes of the flys (fly wheels) with eight arms or
- paddles; that part which enters the water of sheet iron to shift
- according to the power they require either deeper in the water, or
- otherwise, and that we navigate the vessel with these until we can
- procure an engine of the proper size, which, I think, ought not to be
- less than 24 inch cylinder.”
-
-No better description of a side wheel steamboat has ever been given than
-is contained in this letter of the 6th of September, 1798, the original
-draft of which, with all its interlineations, is now before me; _and
-this is the first practical suggestion of the combination which made
-steam navigation a commercial success_, that there is a record of in
-America; and this also, when, as late as 1802, four years later, Fulton,
-as we are informed by his biographer, had become assured, that endless
-chains and floats were alone to be relied on!
-
-Receiving no reply to the suggestion, thus made, Roosevelt writes to the
-Chancellor on the 16th of September, 1798, saying: “I hope to hear your
-opinion of throwing wheels over the sides;” when the Chancellor answers:
-“I say nothing on the subject of wheels over the sides, as I am
-perfectly convinced from a variety of experiments of the superiority of
-those we have adopted.”
-
-Again, on the 21st October, in the letter giving an account of the trial
-trip with the Spanish Minister on board, Roosevelt says, “he would wish
-the Chancellor’s wheels to be tried, contrasted with paddles on Mr.
-Stevens’ plan, or with wheels over the sides, so as to ascertain the
-difference in the application of the power.” To which the Chancellor
-answers on the 28th October, 1798, referring to the Stevens’ paddles,
-“they are too inconvenient and liable to accidents to be used—AND, AS
-FOR VERTICAL WHEELS, THEY ARE OUT OF THE QUESTION!”
-
-Roosevelt was at this time so strongly impressed with the plan that the
-Chancellor thus peremptorily put aside, that in a letter of the 21st to
-the same John Stevens already mentioned, who, as we have seen, was one
-of the partners in the adventure, he says, “I am firmly of opinion that
-a vessel may be propelled at the rate of _eight_ miles an hour.”
-
-Not even the praise of the Spanish Minister seems to have been
-sufficient to vitalize the Chancellor’s boat; and we are led to suppose
-that it was recognized by all as a failure; for Stevens, who seems to
-have had more influence than Roosevelt, persuaded the Chancellor to
-adapt the engine to his contrivance of a set of paddles in the stern,
-pushing the boat forward as they were made by a crank motion to rise and
-fall. A rough sketch of this contrivance in a letter from Stevens, dated
-July 15th, 1799, is before me. The experiment so racked the Chancellor’s
-boat as to make it unfit for use altogether. We wonder now that such
-things could have been thought of even.
-
-In Mr. Stevens’ letter there is a passage that indicates the reliance
-that was placed on Roosevelt by this, the most practical of his
-associates, and shews him to have been the party on whose skill the
-others depended. He says:
-
- “In the meantime, I would wish to determine on our plan for placing
- the paddles in the stern of the boat and provide immediately to put it
- in execution. You and Stoudinger (a young man brought up by Roosevelt,
- and who subsequently became Fulton’s right hand man, and one of the
- first practical engineers in America,) and Smallman (another of
- Roosevelt’s employees) must lay your heads together on this subject;
- and, as soon as you have fixed upon the plan you conceive will be most
- eligible, I wish you would take a ride down and communicate it to me;
- and, at the same time, I can give you the result of my cogitations.”
-
-The Stevens’ paddles, until they shook the boat to pieces, were far more
-successful than any one of the Chancellor’s inventions; and I remember,
-distinctly, seeing a boat propelled by paddles in the harbor of New
-York, as I crossed the Hudson on my way to West Point, in the fall of
-the year 1818. The paddles I refer to, however, were on the sides, and
-not at the stern, and were literally paddles, being square floats
-attached to upright shafts, which a crank motion caused to rise and
-fall.
-
-It is not difficult to understand why the Chancellor told Roosevelt that
-his vertical wheels were not to be thought of, and why Stevens,
-confessedly a man of ability and mechanical ingenuity, preferred his own
-suggestion. They doubtless believed that the percussion of the floats of
-the vertical wheel as they strike and then enter the water, and before
-they exert their greatest power; which is when they are at right angles
-with the surface, was objectionable and would be fatal to their
-usefulness. They feared also, most probably, the further loss of power
-consequent upon the lifting of the water as the floats emerged from it;
-and, wedded to their own schemes, they refused to subject the matter to
-the test of experiment. The paddles of Stevens, and the floats on the
-endless chains, to which Fulton gave the preference, entered the water
-perpendicularly, or nearly so, and were free from what was regarded, it
-is to be supposed, as the objection to Roosevelt’s vertical wheels over
-the sides. That both Stevens and Fulton were wrong, and that Roosevelt
-was right, time has conclusively established.
-
-Unwilling to abandon the idea of steam navigation, even after so
-complete a failure, the Chancellor devised still another plan, which was
-executed under Roosevelt’s direction at the works on the Passaic, of the
-details of which I have no account. In this Roosevelt had no interest.
-It proved a failure. From all that I can gather, from the documents in
-my possession, the efforts here described were made in 1798, 1799 and
-1800, almost uninterruptedly, and were controlled by the Chancellor, who
-was, evidently, the moneyed man of the concern, and whose dictum, as we
-have said, was regarded as conclusive by his associates. So promising
-did the matter seem after Roosevelt had commenced the engine for the
-boat, that, in March, 1798, the Legislature of New York, granted the
-Chancellor, “the exclusive right of navigating all boats that might be
-propelled by steam on all the waters within the territory, or
-jurisdiction, of the State for the term of twenty years, provided he
-should, within a twelvemonth, build such a boat, the mean of whose
-progress should not be less than four miles an hour.” The month of
-March, 1799, elapsed, however, without the condition of the grant having
-been complied with. At a later date, a similar grant was made to
-Livingston and Fulton.
-
-In the latter part of the year 1800, Mr. Jefferson appointed the
-Chancellor minister to France, where he remained until 1804, having in
-the meanwhile negotiated the treaty which ceded Louisiana to the United
-States, and where he made the acquaintance of Robert Fulton. In 1804,
-the Chancellor made the tour of Europe, and returned the following year
-to the United States.
-
-In Colden’s Life of Fulton, there is an account, in the Chancellor’s own
-words, of the commencement of his acquaintance with Fulton. I quote:
-“Robert R. Livingston, Esquire, when minister in France, met with Mr.
-Fulton, and they formed that friendship and connection with each other
-to which a similarity of pursuits generally gives birth. He communicated
-to Mr. Fulton the importance of steamboats to their own country;
-informed him of what had been attempted in America, and of his
-resolution to resume the pursuit on his return, and advised him to turn
-his attention to the subject.”
-
-We have already seen that Mr. Fulton’s plan, after making calculations
-as to the efficiency of paddles and ducks’ feet, was to use endless
-chains with resisting boards upon them as propellors. With these he made
-a course of experiments on a little rivulet that runs through the
-village of Plombiéres, in France, in 1802; and “addressed several
-letters to Mr. Livingston and Mr. Barlow, giving them a minute account
-of his experiments and assurances of the certainty of success which they
-afforded him.”
-
-That the Chancellor had informed Fulton of what had been attempted in
-America, is admitted by Colden; and this, too, prior doubtless, to the
-experiments at Plombiéres. That Roosevelt’s pertinacity in regard to
-wheels over the sides was communicated with other information is not to
-be doubted; that the Chancellor should have told him, as he told
-Roosevelt, in the letter of October 28th, 1798, “that they were not to
-be thought of,” it is most reasonable to suppose; and that Fulton agreed
-with the Chancellor is proved by the “assurance of certain success”
-which he entertained, of endless chains and floats, or resisting boards.
-
-Between the spring of 1802 and the fall of that year, Mr. Fulton changed
-his mind; for he and Livingston were building a boat, propelled by
-Roosevelt’s vertical wheels, in January, 1803. The Chancellor, by this
-time, had become convinced that vertical wheels were things “to be
-thought of.” That it was Roosevelt’s plan that was adopted after all
-their own plans had failed—the plan derived, with the details of its
-execution, from Roosevelt himself,—does not seem to admit of any
-reasonable doubt.
-
-Biography is too often eulogy. The name of Fulton is irrevocably, and
-justly, the representative name in connection with steam navigation
-throughout all lands. For a while, and in the memory of the writer, the
-name of Livingston was connected with it in men’s mouths. But
-Livingston’s connection with the subject is fast being forgotten.
-Fulton’s never will be forgotten, not because he was the inventor of the
-steamboat however, not because he first suggested the combination that
-made success certain; but because, in his hands, it became a commercial
-success. He was the first who demonstrated its practical utility, when,
-in 1807, he made the first voyage in the Clermont from New York to
-Albany and back. Still he was indebted to others, in the first instance,
-for the elements of his success.
-
-I have said that biography is too often eulogy. The biographer becomes
-jealous of the reputation of his hero. Colden was not exempt from the
-weakness common to his class; and instead of giving to Roosevelt the
-credit of having first put the idea of vertical wheels over the sides
-into a practical shape, by his detailed description of their mechanism,
-he says that the want of success of a French inventor, who had
-horizontal screws on either side of a boat, “it is probable,” induced
-Mr. Fulton again to resort to the wheels, which, in the original paper
-that he communicated to Lord Stanhope, in 1793, he proposed to use as
-propellors. Even had this been so, without any question having arisen as
-to the facts, Roosevelt’s model of a boat at Esopus, with its hickory
-and whalebone springs, would have been ten years ahead of the Frenchman.
-
-But there are some matters connected with the letter to Lord Stanhope,
-which are not without interest in this connection.
-
-We have seen that Roosevelt, in January, 1815, applied to the
-Legislature of New Jersey, for protection as an inventor of the vertical
-wheels over the sides, for which he had obtained letters patent from the
-United States in the preceding month of December, 1814, being the
-original document shewn to me by Delacy. Somewhere about this time, Mr.
-Fulton appeared as a witness before the Legislature in connection with
-this same subject of steam navigation; and Colden’s life contains a
-letter from Mr. Emmet, the celebrated lawyer, in which he states, that,
-in order to shew Mr. Fulton’s prior claim to invention, in the
-application of “water wheels to steamboats,” he examined him to prove a
-copy of the letter in question. Nothing was said, it would seem, of its
-being a copy, when this was first presented: but Governor Ogden noticed
-that the letter was written on _American paper_; and, subsequently, Mr.
-Fulton explained that the first copy having been considerably worn out
-and obscured, he had copied it over again and attached it to the old
-drawings. This was made the subject of uncomfortable criticism by the
-opposite counsel; and Mr. Emmet, in his letter, expresses great
-indignation at what he states was a malicious attempt to injure the
-honor of the dead, and regrets that he omitted to notice, in his reply,
-the insinuations which Mr., afterwards Judge, Hopkinson permitted
-himself to make. The occurrence was unquestionably an unfortunate one,
-whatever the real facts may have been; and respect for the memory of Mr.
-Fulton leads me to hope that Mr. Emmet was correct in his version of the
-transaction. His letter, however, is important in another aspect: it
-shews that the merit of the invention, at the time, was considered to be
-the application of vertical wheels over the sides, and that this was
-claimed for Fulton on the strength of the letter to Lord Stanhope and
-the accompanying drawings of 1793, notwithstanding the endless chains
-and floats already referred to as illustrating the convictions of 1793.
-
-I have never seen the drawings or read the letter of Mr. Fulton; but it
-is difficult for me to believe that he had invented in 1793, what was
-unquestionably the solution of the difficulty, and yet, in 1802, have
-dwelt in his letters to Livingston and Barlow upon his assurances of the
-certainty of success with endless chains and resisting boards. It is
-with no want of charity, that it is suggested, that Mr. Colden, in
-writing a biography, overlooked the possibility of its logic being
-criticized when compared with its facts.
-
-There is some light, however, to be obtained from Lord Stanhope’s reply
-to Mr. Fulton’s letter. It is as follows:
-
- “Holdsworthy Devon, _October 7th, 1793_.
-
- “Sir: I have received yours of the 30th September, in which you
- _propose to communicate to me_ the principles of an invention which
- you say you have discovered respecting the moving of ships by the
- means of steam. It is a subject on which I have made important
- discoveries. I shall be glad to receive the communication which _you
- intend_, as I have made the principles of mechanics my particular
- study, &c.” (There are no words italicised in the original. L.)
-
-Certainly, it is only necessary to read this letter to be satisfied,
-that the one to which it is a reply, and it is not suggested that Mr.
-Fulton ever wrote another, could not have described the combination
-which made the steamboat the thing that it now is: or that it could have
-been accompanied by drawings shewing the plan finally adopted,—the
-Roosevelt plan, going back as far as 1782, and described in practical
-detail in the letter of 21st October, 1798.
-
-It is true that Mr. Fulton obtained letters patent of the United States
-for his steamboat in 1809—in reference to which Mr. Colden says, as
-though to corroborate Fulton’s claim as inventor,
-
- “They (the Chancellor and Mr. Fulton) entered into a contract, by
- which it was, among other things, agreed that a patent should be taken
- out in the United States in Mr. Fulton’s name, which Mr. Livingston
- well knew could not be done without Mr. Fulton _taking an oath that
- the improvement was solely his_.”
-
-And a patent was in fact taken out, in those days when patents were had
-for the asking, and when none of that examination, which now protects
-the public, was required by law.
-
-We have already seen, in the case stated for Mr. Wirt’s opinion, the
-allegation that Fulton neither subscribed nor swore to the
-specification; and that the name Robert Fulton was in the handwriting of
-another man. Unless this had been the fact, it would hardly have been
-alleged in a paper, prepared for the opinion of eminent counsel. But I
-have before me an original letter dated Trenton, January, 1815,
-addressed to Mr. Roosevelt by Delacy, in which the latter gives an
-account of the proceedings before the Legislature, and in which is this
-sentence:
-
- “Fulton has the effrontery to avow his having got Fletcher to sign his
- name and makes light of it, as if he was entitled to violate the laws,
- as well as private rights, at pleasure.”
-
-It is true, this is the letter of a partizan in a struggle before the
-Legislature. Still, the matter of fact would not be misstated in a
-private correspondence, where there was no conceivable motive to
-mislead.
-
-The committee of the Legislature finally reported, and very wisely, that
-it was inexpedient to make any special provision in connection with the
-matter in controversy before that body.
-
-It was in March, 1815, on the heel of the Legislative proceedings, that
-the deed of trust to Mr. William Griffith was made, and the fact of his
-accepting the trust, and that Aaron Ogden of New Jersey, was a party to
-the transaction, shews that the cause of Roosevelt as the inventor of
-vertical wheels over the sides under the patent of 1814, was deemed good
-as against the patent granted to Fulton four or five years previously.
-Had the letter to Lord Stanhope or the reply thereto, been regarded by
-the outside world, or by those interested in the subject, as sufficient
-to establish Fulton’s prior right to the invention of vertical wheels
-over the sides of steamboats, counsel of the standing of Mr. Griffith
-would not have become mixed up in the business, licenses to use
-Roosevelt’s patent would not have been granted, nor would I have made
-the acquaintance of John Devereux Delacy; for Roosevelt’s pretensions
-would have been nipped in the bud.
-
-My tale is nearly ended. The object has been to shew that the merit of
-the practical suggestion of the employment of vertical wheels over the
-sides of steamboats was due to one who has been lost sight of in this
-connection, and wholly ignored in the biography of Fulton, who availing
-himself of the suggestion of another, in all its details, made it a
-great commercial success, and in so doing built upon it a lasting fame.
-That the papers I have referred to, now collated for the first time,
-shew this to be the fact, I think there can be no question.
-
-It may be interesting to state something in regard to the subsequent
-career of Roosevelt. He was once asked why, with the secret of success
-in his possession, he allowed it to slumber. Why did not _he_ anticipate
-the Clermont in the first five years of the present century. I give the
-answer in his own words from a manuscript before me.
-
- “_First_: At the time Chancellor Livingston’s horizontal wheel
- experiment failed, I was under a contract with the corporation for
- supplying the city of Philadelphia with water, by means of two steam
- engines; and, besides, I was under a contract with the United States
- to erect rolling works and supply government with copper, rolled and
- drawn, for six 74 gun ships, that were then to be built. The engines
- for the supplying of Philadelphia with water I completed, though with
- heavy loss. The rolling works I also brought into operation upon a
- very extensive scale, and a considerable quantity of copper was
- delivered. But the encouragement from government by which I had been
- led into this heavy expense was cut off by a change of men in the
- administration. The 74s were laid aside, and no appropriations were
- made, and embarrassment to me was the natural consequence.”
-
-This embarrassment, in the then condition of the law, was imprisonment
-for debts contracted in getting ready to fulfil his contract. In truth,
-he was a broken man. In the meanwhile, on the return of Livingston and
-Fulton to America, the workmen that Roosevelt had brought from Germany
-and made what they were, entered into Fulton’s service, and to their
-skill was he indebted for the mechanical success of his earlier boats.
-In 1807, Roosevelt was introduced to him; and in a letter from the
-Chancellor, now before me, references to old times are pleasantly made;
-and, a year or two afterwards, we find Roosevelt associated with Fulton
-in the introduction of steamboats on the Western waters. Here, he built
-the New Orleans, the pioneer boat that descended the river in 1811—the
-year of the comet and the earthquake. The voyage of the New Orleans is,
-in itself, a romance; but time does not permit it to be told at
-present.[1] With all his merit, Fulton was not an easy man to get along
-with; and Roosevelt had his faults of temper too, no doubt; and after
-the successful voyage of the New Orleans, the two men parted, and
-Roosevelt disappeared from public life, and was lost in the quiet of the
-domestic circle of a numerous and happy family. He died at a very
-advanced age, not many years ago, forgotten by the world as he was
-forgotten by the biographer of Fulton. He appears again before me, as I
-write, as I remember to have seen him in my childhood, and in after
-years—a finished gentleman, energetic and sanguine, warm and generous in
-his temper, a devoted husband and father, and now made the hero of a
-lost chapter in the history of the steamboat.
-
-
-
-
- APPENDIX.
-
-
- N. J. ROOSEVELT TO R. R. LIVINGSTON.
-
- Proposes Vertical Wheels with the Size of Cylinder and presses for
- Money Arrangements.
-
- Second River, _Sept. 6th, 1798_.
-
- Dr Sir,
-
- I have your two letters of the 31st and 1st inst. before me. Since
- writing you the 27th, I made an experiment in order to ascertain as
- nearly as I could the power of the engine, and put on your wheels.
- This was done by laying the vessel on shore stern foremost so as to
- leave the wheels entirely out of the water. The Engine was then put to
- work at the rate of from 40 to 45 strokes and wheels turned from 160
- to 180 revolutions per minute. When the water first entered them it
- was thrown out with great violence; but before it got any considerable
- depth in them the motion of the engine was impeded and in a short time
- entirely stopped. By this experiment I was fully convinced that the
- wheels would require a power far greater than this engine possesses
- and that any attempts to proceed with the power we have and the
- present wheels would be fruitless. I was also farther convinced (by
- getting men whose strength was ascertained to turn the wheels by hand
- before the operation of the engine) tho’ she has her full power and
- indeed considerably more than as first mentioned, I expected we would
- have. Now, Sir, to proceed with the experiment you recommended of
- closing the openings with doors will be doing nothing more than what
- we have already done by the last trial. I would therefore recommend
- that we throw two wheels of wood over the sides fastened to the axes
- of the flys with 8 arms or paddles, that part which enters the water
- of sheet iron to shift according to the power they require either
- deeper in the water or otherwise and that we navigate the vessel with
- those until we can procure an Engine of proper size which I think
- ought not to be less than 24 inches cylinder. The Barometer to
- ascertain the exact power of the engine has not as you observe been
- left to depend entirely on Mr. Van Ness, although I looked upon him as
- your Representative according to the tenor of your own letter; but Mr.
- Mark and Mr. Speyer have both been on the search for one and have not
- yet succeeded. The copper pipe for it is made and we will I believe be
- obliged to wait for the glass until we can get it from the glass house
- above Albany. I have requested Mr. Speyer, who has gone up to the
- Oneida country, to call on Mr. Dezang for that purpose. If you know of
- any to be had in New York please to inform me and I will immediately
- get it.
-
- As to your charge of my want of candor and my possessing too much
- distrust, those Sir are charges which have never before been laid to
- me and which I feel perfectly free from and I will recommend to the
- Chancellor to meet me in future upon equally candid and fair ground. I
- can assure him he shall never have reason to complain of me on that
- score again.[2] We have as you observe put our hands to the oars and
- ought not to look back until we reach port. This I am for, Sir, with
- all my heart, and firmly believe that with this determination we have
- nothing to fear, as I think, _with the wheels I have recommended_,
- that the State patent may be secured. We will then have time to
- prepare for your wheels, and if they should not have the effect you
- promise us, we can then adopt such other plans as we may together
- think best. No bad consequences need be apprehended from what I
- communicated out of your letter to Smallman and Stoudinger as they are
- as anxious for the success of the business and your good opinion as I
- am. As to altering any of the wheels in the way you propose I cannot
- approve, as the alteration will be attended with considerable expense,
- and as I believe any alteration we can make with our present small
- Engine will be inadequate to driving the wheels to any advantage. In
- this the Chancellor will agree with me when he considers that when the
- Engine making 30 strokes per minute the horizontal wheels make 120
- revolutions by which 3/4 is taken from the power to afford this.
-
- I sincerely hope that Mrs. Livingston may soon recover from her
- accident so that you may not be detained long from thoroughly
- investigating everything appertaining to our present concern.
-
- I am, dear Sir, &c., &c.
- N. J. ROOSEVELT.
-
- N. B. I have not, upon overlooking what I have above written, been so
- particular in my objections to your proposed alterations as may be
- agreeable and will ask for a little of your patience. See how the
- alteration of the wheels on the connecting rod by being smaller will
- operate. They will most certainly shorten the stroke of the engine.
- This therefore cannot take place unless we alter the wheels round
- which they move accordingly, which may be done. At the same time in
- doing it we shall be obliged to lengthen the spindle of the horizontal
- wheels and disturb the wooden work the whole of which will be attended
- with considerable expense and require a second alteration when we come
- to operate with power equal to what those wheels will require, and
- indeed, why should we go to any expense in alterations which can do us
- no service; as I clearly saw from actual experiment that about 1400
- pounds will be necessary to be applied directly to the wheels
- independent of friction, which is equal to an engine of 24 inches
- Cylinder. An Engine of this size I find has 5424 pounds power
- independent of the friction of the machine and I think power enough
- for the air pumps (perhaps something more.) This I cannot however
- ascertain until I get a barometer and try our present engine, which I
- believe perfect. I was about trying the power by weights but found
- difficulties which I have not yet been able to get over, as her power
- is equal both ways, and to bring the weight only to the connecting rod
- would tear everything to pieces.
-
- Yours, &c.
- N. J. ROOSEVELT.
-
- A plan of my substitute which may not be quite correct, as I do not
- understand anything of drawing.
- N. J. R.[3]
-
-
- N. J. ROOSEVELT TO R. R. LIVINGSTON.
-
- Second River, _Sept. 10th, 1798_.
-
- Dear Sir,
-
- I acknowledge receipt of yours of the 3d Inst. By this time you have
- doubtless recd. mine of the 6th Inst. which gave you all the
- information on the subject of the boat I was then capable of doing;
- since which I have thought of trying another experiment upon _the
- present plan_ and concluded to morrow to set about it. It will take us
- three days with two hands which will cost very trifling and enable us
- to calculate with more certainty what power will be required _for your
- wheels_. The plan is this. Sun and planet wheels we will take off and
- form a double crank with the coupling links, which at one end will be
- fastened to the shaft of the fly wheels by taking out the brasses and
- drilling holes for pins to enter. This change will give us only half
- the motion of your wheels we first contemplated and consequently
- double the power we now have. I will try this in the same way we did
- the last time by leaving the vessel’s stern on shore, and in the
- meanwhile _I hope to hear your opinion of throwing wheels over the
- sides. I will also be glad_ to know if it is more agreeable to you to
- give a note for the balance of your proportion of the expense
- attending this business or whether you will make me a remittance in
- cash. Could I at present raise money through the house of J. Mark for
- all the ends I have in this quarter I would not solicit more money
- until you come down. This however it is not for them to do. I hope
- the Chancellor will consider my situation in the midst of many workmen
- as an apology and pardon me for my impatience.
-
- Yours, &c.
- N. J. ROOSEVELT.
-
- R. R. Livingston.
-
-
- R. R. LIVINGSTON TO N. J. ROOSEVELT.
-
- Acknowledges Wheels over the Sides to have been Proposed by Roosevelt
- and rejects them.
-
- Clermont, _18th Sept., 1798_.
-
- Dear Sir,
-
- Mr. Mouchette is just returned. I sincerely congratulate you upon the
- success of the engine of which he gives the most favourable report &
- fully justifies yr. confidence in your engines. I am sufficiently
- sanguine to hope that all difficulties are now vanished. Knowing our
- power nothing remains but adapt the vessel to it. In attempting this
- hitherto we have deceived ourselves by wandering into the field of
- conjecture rather than adhereing to plain calculations & we shall
- still do so if we expect that the present engine will turn the wheels
- we now have 80 times in a minute, as will appear from this
- calculation. Our wells contain exactly 60 cubic feet of water. The
- whole of this is set in motion at every revolution of the wheels with
- a rapidity equal to the main motion of the arms, that is if the wheels
- make 80 revolutions in a minute at the rate of 8 miles an hour. Now as
- the boat will not remove more than 20 feet of water if she goes 8
- miles an hour, if it was possible to move the wheels as they are now
- constructed 80 rounds in a minute we should throw away one half of our
- power, for the boat could not move faster than the water in the wheels
- & the power would be uselessly expended in throwing out water
- unnecessarily.
-
- But it will be found on experiment that however perfect our engine is,
- it cannot turn the present wheels 80 times in a minute. The wheels
- then must necessarily be altered or the motion rendered still slower.
- To make the motion slower is to diminish our chance of moving the boat
- fast because she will at no rate move faster than the water in the
- wheels though she may be made to move as fast as I have found on
- actual experiment. The wheels then must be altered, not by making the
- arms shorter for this would diminish their motion, besides that it
- would require an alteration in the boat—but by diminishing their
- depth. They are now if I recollect 18 Inches deep, let them be reduced
- to nine Inches.
-
- Let the motion of the wheels by no means exceed 80 nor be lower than
- 70 turns in a minute and I will answer for the success of the
- experiment, & upon the whole it will turn out a fortunate discovery
- since we shall find that our wells need not be above half the size we
- have made them & of course much room and much weight of water be saved
- in future. That we have erred hitherto should not discourage us. It is
- the fate of all new undertakings and it is happy when the error can be
- so easily discovered & detected. Another circumstance of considerable
- moment must be attended to. If the diminution of the motion is brought
- about by changing the sun and planet wheels, one half the motion of
- the flys will be lost & they rendered almost useless from this
- circumstance. If they are made heavier they will overload the boat.
-
- I would propose as the best mode of altering the motion of the wheels
- to alter the cog wheels & to leave the sun and planet wheels as they
- were—this will give the proper motion to the fly & diminish the
- friction. Let the cog wheels be made smaller and have no more cogs
- than the trunnel rounds, or only so many more as will serve to give
- the motion we require. Nor will this alteration be attended with more
- trouble than the one at first proposed; but even if it is, it is so
- essential to give the flys a rapid motion that we must, now we have
- gone so far, submit to this trouble and expense to have this
- experiment properly made. _I say nothing on the subject of_ WHEELS
- OVER THE SIDES _as I am perfectly convinced from a variety of
- experiments of the superiority of those we have adopted_. I expect to
- be down the last of this month when I shall see you & make such money
- arrangements as we may find necessary.
-
- In the meantime I hope to hear how you go on. I flatter myself no
- delay will be incurred which can possibly be avoided, every moment
- being precious. Mr. Mark will I hope forward this to you the moment it
- arrives, so that the necessary alterations may be made before you
- proceed far on any difficult plan.
-
- I am very much hurt that you should construe any part of my former
- letters into a reflection on your candour. I am sure that nothing of
- this kind was ever intended & I flatter myself that if you attend a
- little more to the expressions (tho: I cannot now recollect them) that
- they will not bear this harsh construction.[4]
-
- I am dear Sir, with esteem, your most ob: hum: servt:
- ROB. R. LIVINGSTON.
-
-
- N. J. ROOSEVELT TO R. R. LIVINGSTON.
-
- Experiment made & Opinion of the Spanish Minister—Again Coaxes to have
- Vertical Wheels tried.
-
- Second River, _Oct. 21st, 1798_.
-
- Dear Sir,
-
- I dropped you a line in haste on Friday last, since which I received
- your favour of the 10th: the person to whom you gave it in charge did
- not put it in the post office until yesterday. Your instructions
- therefore came too late for the rims, as they had by your former
- request been left off and no bad consequence has resulted. I have not
- yet seen Mr. Stevens, but have been expecting him every day, as he
- requested me by letter to inform him what time we would be ready,
- which I did. Had I received your letter sooner I would also have sent
- to see if Mr. Mouchet was still at N. Ark & requested him to come up.
-
- There was no occasion to try the wheels from 5 Inches upwards, as I
- found the Engine overloaded at 5. I think at present the most
- advisable mode of proceeding for us will be to change the wheels on
- shaft and spindle so as to give the Engine her full speed with 50
- revolutions of the lower wheels, and if she will carry more, then
- increase the width of the paddles. I have ordered a pattern made for
- two wheels accordingly and will cast them the first casting we make
- after it is finished. Please to write me if you agree in this respect.
- The Spanish Minister was on board the day we made the last experiment
- and was perfectly well pleased with the operation of the Engine and
- will give us an order for one of 36 Inches. This will cost him upwards
- of 13,000 Dolls: Our small one is not equal to the purposes for which
- he wants his. During our sail he, at the time the tide and wind
- favoured us, supposed we went at the rate of 6 miles an hour; but I
- think the delight he felt expressed at the novelty of the Voyage was
- the cause of his mistake. My report to you was three miles, still
- water, which I have reason to believe was accurate. I have at present
- a better opinion of your plan than ever, and could wish them to be
- contrasted with paddles upon Mr. Stevens’ plan, OR WHEELS OVER THE
- SIDES, so as fairly to ascertain the difference of the application of
- the power. We have by the last experiment a striking proof in favor of
- your plan which is demonstrated by the diminution in width and slow
- motion of the wheels. At our last experiment the effect was certainly
- greater than we could have promised ourselves.
-
- I hope to hear from you soon, and in the meanwhile will do what
- strikes me as reasonable upon our present plan so that no time is
- lost.
-
- Mrs. Mark requests me to thank you for your polite invitation of
- visiting Mrs. Livingston, but does not think it will be in her power
- this fall, as Mr. Mark is at present too much occupied with business
- to leave home.
-
- Yours respectfully,
- N. J. ROOSEVELT.
-
-This letter is complim’y to Livingston—about his plan of wheel—but still
-Roosevelt mentions that it would be prudent to try in contrast _Stevens’
-paddles_—(& his _own_ plan) wheels _over the sides_. (Note by Judge
-Griffith.)
-
-
- R. R. LIVINGSTON TO N. J. ROOSEVELT.
-
- Liv’n Acknowledges the Boat to Answer & Refuses to use Vertical
- Wheels.
-
- Clermont, _28 Octr., 1798_.
-
- Dear Sir,
-
- After sending mine of yesterday I received your favor of the 21st, in
- which you enter more particularly into the experiments you have made,
- but not so fully as I would wish, as you will find by the queries I
- have troubled you with. If you are right as to the motion through the
- water, the Spanish Minister could not err much in his calculation, for
- it appears to me that the tide in your river is not short of 2 miles &
- I have found in my models that the velocity of the boat with the tide
- is greater in proportion than the mere difference between that and
- still water.
-
- This is one of the experiments I wished you to ascertain accurately by
- running one hour with the tide & determining the distance and running
- back the same distance against the tide. Be it as it will, we now know
- what we can do with a sufficient power, and tho’ _paddles should even
- do more they are too inconvenient and too liable to accidents to be
- used_—AS FOR VERTICAL WHEELS THEY ARE OUT OF THE QUESTION.
-
- What I principally write now for is to ask you whether it would not be
- better instantly to fit the boat for passengers by putting a deck over
- so much as you make cabbin of. This should be the whole, only leaving
- room for wood near the engine. This deck should be of inch pine boards
- & rounded so as to carry off the water and made as tight as possible.
- It should be raised about ten Inches so as to admit of glasses that
- shove past each other all round The inside only wants to be papered
- with any cheap common paper and to have two rows of benches the one
- behind the other. The rear bench so low as to admit the knees under
- the front one. A narrow table of one board should run through the
- middle. The back cabbin should be fitted for the ship’s company and
- have windows and shutters in case of bad weather. Some arrangement
- should also be made for boiling in pot and kettle. All this should be
- going on while you are fitting the machinery. It will I believe be
- best to get two or three quick hands from New York to do it as your
- shipwright is both slow and extravagant. We have yet one month to use
- and a pretty important one, because the roads will soon be bad, and
- tho’ we should only go 3 miles an hour we shall still be able to pick
- up something besides our expenses and acquire some experience of what
- further is necessary. I have provided a Captain at £5 a month who
- understands the river. You say you have a steward and fire engine
- hand. Tho’ I think Smallman should make the first voyage.
-
- I am, Dr. Sir,
- R. R. LIVINGSTON.
-
- Mr. N. J. Roosevelt.
-
-The headings of the foregoing letters are copied from their respective
-indorsations which would seem to have been made by different hands and
-as though in the preparation of a case.
-
- L.
-
-
- PATENT TO MR. ROOSEVELT.
-
- THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
-
- _To all to whom these LETTERS PATENT shall come_:
-
- Whereas, NICHOLAS J. ROOSEVELT, a Citizen of the United States, hath
- alleged that he has invented a new and useful improvement
-
- IN PROPELLING BOATS &c. BY STEAM,
-
- which improvement he states has not been known or used before his
- application; hath made oath that he does verily believe that he is the
- true inventor or discoverer of the said improvement; hath paid into
- the Treasury of the United States the sum of thirty dollars, delivered
- a receipt for the same, and presented a petition to the Secretary of
- State, signifying a desire of obtaining an exclusive property in the
- said improvement, and praying that a patent may be granted for that
- purpose: These are therefore to grant, according to law, to the said
- NICHOLAS J. ROOSEVELT, his heirs, administrators, or assigns, for the
- term of fourteen years, from the first day of December, one thousand
- eight hundred and fourteen, the full and exclusive right and liberty
- of making, constructing, using and vending to others to be used, the
- said improvement; a description whereof is given in the words of the
- said Nicholas J. Roosevelt himself, in the schedule hereto annexed,
- and is made a part of these presents.
-
- In testimony whereof, I have caused these Letters to be made Patent,
- and the Seal of the United States to be hereunto affixed.
-
- SEAL
-
- Given under my hand, at the City of Washington, this first day of
- December in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
- fourteen and of the independence of the United States of America, the
- thirty-ninth.
-
- JAMES MADISON.
- _By the President._
- Jas. Monroe, _Secretary of State_.
-
- City of Washington, _to wit_:
-
- I do hereby Certify, That the foregoing Letters Patent were delivered
- to me on the first day of December in the year of our Lord, one
- thousand eight hundred and fourteen to be examined; that I have
- examined the same, and find them conformable to law: and I do hereby
- return the same to the Secretary of State within fifteen days from the
- date aforesaid, to wit; on this first day of December in the year
- aforesaid.
-
- Richard Rush,
- _Attorney General of the United States_.
-
-
- To all to Whom these Presents shall come:
-
- _Nicholas J. Roosevelt, of the State of New Jersey, Esqr. sends
- greeting_:
-
- Be it known, That I, the said Nicholas J. Roosevelt have discovered,
- invented and constructed a new & useful mode & improvement in the
- propelling of boats or vessels through water by the force & agency of
- fire & steam, the construction of which discovery, invention &
- improvement is specified as follows, as the mode to which I have given
- a preference reserving to myself the right of varying and changing the
- proportions and combinations of the several parts of the said
- discovery and invention as experience may suggest or as I shall think
- advisable or expedient, to wit.
-
- A true copy from the Specification filed in the Patent Office.
- Geo. Lyon, _Clk._
- Patent Office, _3d December, 1814_.
-
-_THE SCHEDULE referred to in these Letters potent and making part of the
- same containing a description in the words of the said Nicholas J.
- Roosevelt himself of his improvement in propelling Boats, &c. by
- steam._
-
- In a boat or vessel of any form, but of sufficient capacity to contain
- the machinery required, I place a Steam Engine of a power proportioned
- to the restance to be overcome, in propelling a boat or vessel a given
- distance in a given time, this steam Engine is supplied by a boiler of
- the usual form or made Cylindric one or more at pleasure so as to be
- of sufficient capacity to feed the Engine. I next place two wheels
- over the sides, on the axis of which I put flyes, dispence with them
- or otherwise combine them at pleasure, either to regulate motion or
- give additional velocity, or they may be connected with the water
- shaft and steam Engine, by wheels so as to give any number of
- revolutions that may be desired. The arms of the water wheels I would
- make of wood, to which I attach floats or paddles of cast Iron, or of
- Boiler plate thick sheet Iron, though they may be made of wood. These
- floats I make move up and down on the arms, by means of screws and
- holes, so as to make them enter deeper or shallower in the water, in
- taking a purchase or hold on the water agreeably to the depth of water
- the boat may draw, and the lading there may be on board, or agreeably
- to other circumstances. The supporters of the outer ends of the water
- wheels shaft to be made of Iron with braces, though if required they
- may be made of wood.
-
- Ns. J. ROOSEVELT.
- Witnesses:
- Jere’h Ballard,
- John Dev’x DeLacy.
-
-
-Of the foregoing correspondence, but a small portion relates to the
-question of wheels over the sides. It is inserted at length
-however,—going, as it does, to shew the warm interest, and the active
-measures that were on foot at the close of the eighteenth century to
-develope one of the mighty agencies of the nineteenth. The crudeness of
-many of the suggestions and the literary carelessness of the
-correspondence on both sides, is indicative of a very different
-condition of things from that which exists at present.
-
- L.
-
-
-
-
- FOOTNOTES
-
-
-[1]Somewhere about the year 1842, the writer of the foregoing address
- was narrating the substance of it at the White Sulphur Springs of
- Virginia. Among his hearers was Mr. Samuel Davis, of Philadelphia,
- but formerly of Natchez, Mississippi, who supplemented the story
- with the following anecdote. He was standing on the wharf at
- Natchez, one of a crowd, watching the approach of the New Orleans on
- her first voyage. There was a rise in the river at the time; and
- when the steamboat rounded to, to head up stream, she was some short
- distance below the landing,—and, for a while, the current was more
- than she could overcome. At Mr. Davis’ side, was an old negro
- servant, who watched the struggle with much excitement, slapping his
- thighs and gesticulating in a most outlandish way. When at last,
- after a more rapid revolution of the wheels started the boat ahead,
- the negro threw up his hat, exclaiming, “By golly, Sa, old
- Massesseppa got her massa; hooraw.” Mr. Davis sent a quantity of his
- cotton by the boat to New Orleans, against the advice of all his
- friends. He was the first person who ventured a bale on such a risk!
-
-[2]The reference here is to a letter of the Chancellor (numbered 25 in
- the collection I have,) in which, being then in a dissatisfied and
- complaining mood, he says: “I again repeat, Sir, that I trust in a
- few days to hear that experiments have been made and to be minutely
- acquainted with the result, that I may take my measures accordingly.
- In doing of which should wish to receive your advice. From a frank
- and candid communication much more advantage will result to all
- parties than from reserve, silence and distrust.
-
- I am, dear Sir, your most obt. hum. servt.
- R. R. LIVINGSTON.
-
- _See letter of Aug. 31, 1798._
-
-[3]The plan here referred to is not among the papers. L.
-
-[4]The Chancellor had evidently forgotten the concluding paragraph of
- his letter of August 31, 1798.
-
-
-
-
- Transcriber’s Notes
-
-
-—Silently corrected a few typos, including listed errata.
-
-—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook
- is public-domain in the country of publication.
-
-—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
- _underscores_.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Lost Chapter in the History of the
-Steamboat, by John Hazelhurst Boneval Latrobe
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-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Lost Chapter in the History of the
-Steamboat, by John Hazelhurst Boneval Latrobe
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: A Lost Chapter in the History of the Steamboat
-
-Author: John Hazelhurst Boneval Latrobe
-
-Release Date: September 7, 2020 [EBook #63140]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOST CHAPTER--HISTORY OF STEAMBOAT ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
-produced from images generously made available by The
-Internet Archive)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-</pre>
-
-<div id="cover" class="img">
-<img id="coverpage" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="A Lost Chapter in the History of the Steamboat" width="1000" height="1695" />
-</div>
-<div class="box">
-<p class="center"><b>Fund-Publication, No. 5.</b></p>
-<h1><span class="smallest">A LOST CHAPTER
-<br /><span class="smallest">IN THE</span></span>
-<br />History of the Steamboat.</h1>
-<p class="center small"><b>THE MARYLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY
-<br />&#149; 1844 &#149;</b></p>
-<p class="tbcenter"><span class="smaller">BY</span>
-<br />J. H. B. LATROBE.</p>
-<p class="center"><i>Baltimore, March, 1871.</i></p>
-</div>
-<p class="center smaller"><span class="sc">Printed by John Murphy,
-<br />Printer to the Maryland Historical Society,
-<br />Baltimore, March, 1871.</span></p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_3">3</div>
-<h1 title=""><span class="smallest">A LOST CHAPTER
-<br /><span class="smallest">IN THE</span></span>
-<br />HISTORY OF THE STEAMBOAT.</h1>
-<p>In the spring of 1828, my law office was in the
-Athen&aelig;um building, so called, afterwards
-destroyed by fire. My business was scant,
-for I had but recently been admitted to the bar.
-I was ruminating, no doubt, upon my prospects,
-when the door was opened, and a handsome,
-elderly man, of distinguished presence, entered
-and asked me, in rich unctuous tones, and with
-a strong Irish accent, if my name was Latrobe,
-and if I recollected him. His face was familiar,
-and so was his voice; but I could not place him.
-Seeing that I hesitated, he said, &ldquo;and it would
-be strange if you did, for you were but a bit of
-a child when you last saw me in your father&rsquo;s
-house. I am John Devereux Delacy,&rdquo; and he
-<span class="pb" id="Page_4">4</span>
-rolled out his sounding name as though he was
-proud of it. I recollected him then. Fourteen
-or fifteen years back it had been his fancy to pet
-me as a child. It was this that had impressed
-him on my memory. &ldquo;Ah, you know me now,&rdquo;
-he said: &ldquo;you remember when I used to be so
-much with Fulton and Roosevelt and Chancellor
-Livingston and Dr. Mitchell, at the Navy Yard
-house.&rdquo; This was the name given to my father&rsquo;s
-residence in Washington, not far from the Navy
-Yard. After recalling well remembered incidents
-and indulging in general remarks for a while, Mr.
-Delacy took a survey of my scantily furnished
-office, and said, &ldquo;not overwhelmed with business,
-my young friend: so much the better for me: you
-will have the more time to attend to something
-I want you to undertake. If you succeed, it will
-be the making of both our fortunes. I want suit
-brought against every steamboat owner in the
-United States; and you must begin with old Billy
-McDonald, here in Baltimore. See this;&rdquo; and,
-suiting the action to the word, my visitor drew
-from his breast pocket the original parchment
-letters patent, now before me, signed by James
-Madison, President, James Monroe, Secretary
-of State, and Richard Rush, Attorney General,
-granting to Nicholas J. Roosevelt the exclusive
-right to his &lsquo;new and useful improvement in propelling
-boats by steam.&rsquo; Dated December 1st,
-<span class="pb" id="Page_5">5</span>
-1814. The patent had still some months to run.
-The specification contained the following description
-of the improvement:</p>
-<blockquote>
-<p>&ldquo;In a boat or vessel of any form, but of sufficient
-capacity to contain the machinery, I place a steam
-engine of a power proportioned to the resistance
-to be overcome in propelling a boat or vessel a
-given distance in a given time. This steam engine
-is supplied by a boiler of the usual form, or made
-cylindric, one or more at pleasure, so as to be
-of sufficient capacity to feed the engine. I next
-place two wheels over the sides, on the axles of
-which I put fliers, dispense with them, or otherwise,
-contrive them at pleasure, either to regulate
-motion, or to give additional velocity; or, they
-may be connected with the valve shaft and steam
-engine by wheels, so as to give any number of
-revolutions that may be desired. The arms of
-the water wheels I would make of wood, to which
-I attach floats or paddles of cast iron or thick
-boiler plate sheet iron, though they may be made
-of wood. These floats I make move up and down
-on the arms by means of screws and holes, so as
-to make them deeper or shallower in the water,
-in taking a hold on the water, agreeably to the
-depth of the water the boat may draw, or the
-lading there may be on board, or agreeably to
-other circumstances. The supporters of the outer
-<span class="pb" id="Page_6">6</span>
-ends of the water wheel shaft to be made of iron
-with braces, though they may be made of wood,
-if required.</p>
-<div class="verse">
-<p class="lr"><span class="sc">Nicholas J. Roosevelt.</span></p>
-<p class="t0">Witnesses:</p>
-<p class="t"><span class="sc">Jeremiah Ballard</span>,</p>
-<p class="t"><span class="sc">John Dev&rsquo;x Delacy</span>.&rdquo;</p>
-</div>
-</blockquote>
-<p>Delacy watched me closely as I read the letters
-patent; and, I remember, placed his gloved finger
-on his own name at the bottom. I had not been
-carried away by his promise of a case. He was
-remarkably well preserved; but his habiliments
-approached what might have been called seediness;
-although his air and carriage would have
-borne up against even longer used apparel. It
-was easy to be seen that a contingent fee was all
-that could be expected: but the parchment, the
-accuracy of the description, its perfect correspondence
-with the steamboats in use, and its date,
-made the case look better than I had at first
-thought it would.</p>
-<p>Taking the letters patent from me, Mr. Delacy
-placed in my hands a carefully prepared assignment
-from Roosevelt to William Griffith, an eminent
-lawyer of New Jersey, conveying them in
-trust for the benefit of Roosevelt, for one-third
-interest, of Delacy, for one-third, and of Griffith
-and Aaron Ogden, of a well known and distinguished
-<span class="pb" id="Page_7">7</span>
-family, for the remaining third. The
-assignment gave Griffith the power to sell rights
-and sue infringers; and excepted from its operation
-the Shrewsbury and Jersey Stage Company
-and Ogden, who were already licensees of Roosevelt,
-the latter running a boat between Elizabethtown
-and New York.</p>
-<p>Nor was this all. Delacy, who evidently was
-pleased with the impression he saw he was making,
-next handed me an opinion on a case stated,
-given by Mr. Wirt, in 1826, of which the following
-is an extract:</p>
-<h3 id="c1">CASE.</h3>
-<blockquote>
-<p>In the year 1809, Robert Smith, Esquire, then
-being Secretary of State, an application was made
-to him by the late Robert Fulton, Esq., for a
-patent for the using of vertical wheels with steam
-engines or other power to propel boats through
-the water; but though he filed such his application,
-&amp;c., he neither subscribed nor swore thereto
-in the manner prescribed, or required, by law;
-for the name, Robert Fulton, is in the handwriting
-of another man.</p>
-<p>In 1814, (under view of the circumstances,) a
-patent was granted to Nicholas J. Roosevelt, for
-the using vertical wheels with steam engines, or
-other acting power, to propel boats, &amp;c., through
-<span class="pb" id="Page_8">8</span>
-water, the patent or papers issued to Fulton being
-considered void, and but as so much blank paper.</p>
-<p>Public notice was given of the patent having
-been granted to Roosevelt, and Fulton never urged
-his claim, but from that moment abandoned it;
-and Roosevelt&rsquo;s patent, though well and publicly
-known to exist, and to be in existence for twelve
-years, has been neither impeached nor impugned;
-neither does any other person lay claim to the
-invention of the application of vertical wheels.</p>
-<p>It is asked, if, under the within stated circumstances,
-the patent to Roosevelt is not valid; and
-at this distance of time from being issued, is not
-now unimpeachable?</p>
-</blockquote>
-<p>Other questions were asked in connection with
-the assignment. Mr. Wirt&rsquo;s answer to the above
-is alone important however at this time. It is
-as follows:</p>
-<blockquote>
-<p class="jr1"><span class="sc">Baltimore</span>, <i>July 11th, 1826</i>.</p>
-<p>On the above statement I am of opinion, that
-the patent to Roosevelt is valid. It is still subject
-to impeachment, however, on the ground that he
-was not the first discoverer of the improvement
-which he has patented. The distance of time since
-the date of the patent is sufficient to bar a proceeding
-to set it aside by <i>scire facias</i> under the
-third section of the Act of 1793; but any defendant,
-<span class="pb" id="Page_9">9</span>
-against whom an action may be brought under
-the patent, may impeach it at any distance of time,
-under the sixth section of the Act of 1793.</p>
-</blockquote>
-<p>Satisfied from this showing that Mr. Delacy&rsquo;s
-case was not a bad one, I agreed to undertake
-it, and wrote to Mr. Roosevelt, in the State of
-New York, upon the subject. He corroborated
-all that I had heard, sent me copies of important
-correspondence, and referred me to Richard S.
-Coxe, Esq., of Washington, who was the executor
-of Mr. Griffith, the assignee for the original papers.
-Mr. Griffith had then been for many years dead.</p>
-<p>Among my clients, at this time, was the late
-Mr. John S. Stiles, who, hearing what had taken
-place with Delacy, agreed, in consideration of participating
-in my fee, to visit Washington, call on
-Mr. Coxe, obtain the Griffith papers, and afterward
-go to Clermont, the residence of the late
-Chancellor Livingston, who, I learned from Mr.
-Roosevelt, was connected with the investigation
-I was about to make.</p>
-<p>On the return of Mr. Stiles to Baltimore, and
-after an examination of papers he had obtained,
-the case looked so strong, that I called on Mr.
-Wirt, reminded him of his opinion, shewed him
-my documents, and asked him if he would come
-into the case on a contingent fee. I called also
-on Mr. Taney. Both gentlemen thought the prospect
-<span class="pb" id="Page_10">10</span>
-of success was fair; and both agreed to participate
-in the trial, which was to take place in the
-Circuit Court of the United States, in Baltimore.
-It was thought best, on consultation, to begin the
-litigation by suing the company owning the steamboats
-running from Baltimore to Frenchtown, at
-the head of which was the late General William
-McDonald; and I addressed myself, at once, to
-as thorough a preparation as I was capable of
-making, prior to issuing a writ. Difficulties now
-presented themselves which I had not appreciated
-when Mr. Delacy called on me, or while gathering
-the documentary evidence. I am reminded of the
-first that occurred by Mr. Roosevelt&rsquo;s reply to my
-letter already mentioned. It was necessary that
-we should have a meeting; but to bring this about
-required an hundred dollars, which neither of us
-had to spare. Then, commissions were necessary
-to collect the testimony of parties at a distance.
-In a word, it was apparent that more means were
-needed than I, a young lawyer, just beginning
-the world, could command; and Mr. Stiles had
-spent all <i>he</i> could afford in his visits to Washington
-and Clermont. I was in trouble, too, about
-Delacy. He had procured, on credit, from Patterson,
-the then fashionable tailor in South street,
-a complete outfit; and not having the money to
-pay for it, Patterson, who was unwilling to wait
-until our success at law made my client&rsquo;s fortune,
-<span class="pb" id="Page_11">11</span>
-put him in jail, in spite of his sounding name
-and lofty bearing. I had to become security for
-him, and ultimately to pay the debt. By this
-time, I had found out that he had an aptitude
-for this sort of thing; and that it would be for
-my own advantage, and the credit of the great
-case, to get him out of town as soon as possible.
-Always buoyant in his feelings, gushing in his
-manner, and intending to be honest, he was one
-of those men who are always in trouble. As
-already intimated, therefore, I was not as hopeful
-at the end of some months as I had been; and,
-when Mr. Taney asked me, one day, how my
-preparation was getting on, I told him, candidly,
-all my troubles, present and prospective. His
-advice was kind and prompt. The case he still
-thought was a fair one, and if it went on he would
-go into it with earnest zeal; but, he advised me
-not to hamper myself in the commencement of
-my professional career. One thing was certain.
-I would have against me every steamboat owner
-in the United States. Now-a-days, combinations
-often carry on these great cases. It was not so
-then; and, after discussing the matter with Mr.
-Stiles, I tied up my papers, and abandoning the
-idea of suing General McDonald, placed them in
-the pigeon-hole, where, with a single exception,
-they have remained undisturbed for upwards of
-forty years, and now see the light, only that this
-<span class="pb" id="Page_12">12</span>
-Lost Chapter may be written. The exception was
-this. In 1855 or 1856, I lent the package to Dr.
-Hamel, a Russian <i>savant</i>, who was about preparing
-a history of steam navigation, and who visited
-America to obtain information on this and other
-subjects. The papers remained in his hands for
-some months. They were returned when he was
-on the eve of departure for Europe. He has been
-dead for many years; and I am not aware that
-he made any use of what he got from me. It is
-probable, therefore, that what I am about to tell
-will be told for the first time, now. It seems
-proper that it should not be wholly lost, and
-hence I tell it.</p>
-<p>To us, of to-day, it appears strange that the first
-suggestion of steam, as a motive power for the
-propulsion of vessels was not accompanied by a
-plan for using vertical wheels over the sides to
-which to apply it. And yet, this was very far
-from being the case. Fitch, in 1783, propelled a
-boat upon the Delaware by a steam mechanism
-that moved paddles, as an Indian works the paddle
-in a canoe. Rumsey had a vertical pump, operated
-by steam, in the middle of his boat, that drew
-in water at the stem and expelled it at the stern,
-through an horizontal trunk in the bottom. Dr.
-Franklin&rsquo;s plan was to make a current of steam
-propel the vessel as it issued from the stern.
-Then steam was applied to oars, and for a season
-<span class="pb" id="Page_13">13</span>
-a boat was rowed by steam between Philadelphia
-and Bordentown. Dr. Kensey built a steam engine
-that was to operate upon oars, paddles and flutter
-wheels. Fulton himself, as stated by his biographer,
-Colden, after subjecting Rumsey&rsquo;s mode to
-the test of calculation, &ldquo;thought of paddles and
-duck&rsquo;s feet, abandoning which, he took up the
-idea of using endless chains with resisting boards
-upon them as propellers. His calculations,&rdquo; still
-using Colden&rsquo;s language, &ldquo;giving him a favorable
-opinion of the mode; at least, he was persuaded
-it was greatly preferable to any other method
-that had been previously tried.&rdquo;</p>
-<p>The above were notions, mere notions, all of
-them&mdash;all of them were utter failures; and the
-enumeration of them, now, excites our astonishment
-that any one of them should have been tried.
-Long before the day of Fulton, long before the
-earliest period to which Fulton, at any time, ever
-attempted to carry back the plan of steam navigation,
-it was, as I have shewn, entertained and
-practically experimented on, here in America, by
-Fitch, Rumsey, Kensey and others, all of whom
-failed to succeed. What made it a success at
-last? <i>The use of vertical wheels over the sides of
-the vessel.</i> Why had it not succeeded previously?
-<i>Because vertical wheels were not combined with steam
-power</i> in the production of the desired result&mdash;a
-successful steamboat, as now understood. The
-<span class="pb" id="Page_14">14</span>
-merit lies with him, therefore, who first suggested
-the combination that produced success,&mdash;describing
-it in such a practical shape that the task of invention
-was completed, leaving nothing to be done
-but the mechanical execution. Was this the merit
-of Robert Fulton? Unquestionably it was not;
-and the object of this writing is to demonstrate
-the fact.</p>
-<p>I have before me the original &ldquo;petition of
-Nicholas J. Roosevelt to the Honorable the Governor,
-the Councils and the Representatives, of
-the State of New Jersey, in Legislative assembly
-convened,&rdquo;&mdash;dated January 13th, 1815, in which
-he &ldquo;asserts (I quote his words) with the modest
-and manly firmness of honesty that he is the true
-and original inventor and discoverer of steamboats
-with vertical wheels now in use.&rdquo; And he prays
-from the Legislature, &ldquo;as the constitutional guardians
-of the rights of their fellow-citizens and of
-the interests of the State,&rdquo; such privileges, as on
-examination and hearing he may be thought entitled
-to. At this time, there were vague notions
-of the powers of the States over their navigable
-waters, which the decision of the Supreme Court,
-in connection with the steamboat controversy,
-dissipated at a later day.</p>
-<p>Belonging to an old New York family, whose
-worth had been illustrated then, as it has been
-since, by the honorable positions that its members
-<span class="pb" id="Page_15">15</span>
-have held in that great State, Mr. Roosevelt was
-a gentleman of character and education, of an
-active enterprising temper, and addicted all his
-life to matters connected with civil engineering
-and mechanics. Appreciated by all who knew
-him as a person of unblemished honor, his word
-was independent of his oath; but, attached to the
-petition just referred to is an affidavit, not without
-interest, of which the following is an extract:</p>
-<blockquote>
-<p>&ldquo;In or about the year 1781 or 1782, this deponent
-resided with a certain Joseph Oosterhaudt,
-about four miles above Esopus on the North, or
-Hudson river, in the State of New York. That
-he did at that time make very many actual experiments,
-as well upon mill machinery as upon
-the motion and buoyancy of bodies in and through
-water; and did then and there make, rig and put
-in operation, on a small brook near the house of
-the aforesaid Oosterhaudt, a small wooden boat
-or model of a boat with vertical wheels over the
-sides, each wheel having four arms or paddles,
-or floats, made of pieces of shingle attached to
-the periphery of the wheels whereby to take a
-purchase on the water; and that these wheels
-being acted upon by hickory and whalebone
-springs propelled the model of the boat through
-the water by the agency of a tight cord passed
-between the wheels and being re-acted on by the
-springs.&rdquo;</p>
-</blockquote>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_16">16</div>
-<p>Soon after the evacuation of the city by the
-British, Mr. Roosevelt returned to New York;
-and following the bent of his inclinations, we
-find him, some years afterward, becoming interested
-in the Schuyler Copper mines in New
-Jersey, on the Passaic, then called Second river.
-Here he found some parts of an old atmospheric
-engine, which he used in completing a perfect
-machine of that description; and meeting with
-an engineer from the establishment of Bolton
-&amp; Watt, whom he employed to make improvements,
-he built engines for various parties, and
-constructed for the water works in Philadelphia,
-the ponderous machines, which, for many years,
-supplied that city with water, by pumping from
-the Schuylkill into the distributing reservoir at
-Centre Square. During all this time, the subject
-of steam navigation seems never to have been
-lost sight of. He wanted to substitute for the
-hickory and whalebone of his Esopus experiment
-the mighty agent with whose multitudinous uses
-the world was then beginning to be familiar.</p>
-<p>Among other persons who had heard of Mr.
-Roosevelt&rsquo;s views in this direction, was the late
-Robert R. Livingston, better known as Chancellor
-Livingston, who, on the 8th of December, 1797,
-wrote to him (I quote from the original letter now
-before me) as follows:</p>
-<blockquote>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_17">17</div>
-<p>&ldquo;Mr. Stevens mentioned to me your desire to
-apply the steam machine to a boat. Every attempt
-of this kind having failed, I have constructed a
-boat on perfectly new principles which, both in
-the model and on a large scale has exceeded my
-expectations. I was about writing to England
-for a steam machine, but hearing of your wish,
-I was willing to treat with you on terms which
-I believe you will find advantageous for the use
-of my invention.&rdquo;</p>
-</blockquote>
-<p>The Chancellor was an inventor, but unlike
-most inventors was a man of large wealth; and
-the result of the correspondence, thus commenced,
-all of which is before me, was an agreement
-between the Chancellor, Roosevelt, and John Stevens
-of Hoboken, to build a boat on joint account,
-for which the engines were to be constructed at
-Second river by Roosevelt, while the propelling
-agency employed was to be on the plan of the
-Chancellor.</p>
-<p>I have not been able to make out, from the
-very voluminous correspondence, the precise character
-of the Chancellor&rsquo;s contrivance; but I infer
-that it consisted of wheels with vertical axes, submerged
-at the stern, that forced a stream of water
-outward from between them, and so propelled the
-vessel. The inventor&rsquo;s own idea of it must have
-been vague in the first instance; for there is
-<span class="pb" id="Page_18">18</span>
-scarcely a letter to Roosevelt from the time the
-work was commenced, until it was abandoned,
-that does not suggest changes and alterations.
-Steam appears to have been applied to the
-machinery about the middle of the year 1798,
-unsuccessfully; and the Chancellor, charging the
-failure to want of power in the engine, proposes
-to throw the cost of it upon the builder. This
-is of course resisted. Further improvements in
-the propellers are made. The engine is then
-alleged to be <i>too</i> powerful: and so matters go on,
-until the 21st of October, 1798, when Roosevelt
-writes to the Chancellor, giving him an account
-of a trial trip, on which the speed attained was
-equivalent to about three miles in still water;
-though, with wind and tide, the Spanish Minister,
-who was on board and highly elated, estimated
-the actual speed at double that amount.</p>
-<p>In the meanwhile however, on the 6th of September,
-1798, Roosevelt wrote to the Chancellor
-an important letter in this connection, in which,
-after referring to a change in the plan, he says:</p>
-<blockquote>
-<p>&ldquo;I would recommend that we throw two wheels
-of wood over the sides, fastened to the axes of
-the flys (fly wheels) with eight arms or paddles;
-that part which enters the water of sheet iron to
-shift according to the power they require either
-deeper in the water, or otherwise, and that we
-<span class="pb" id="Page_19">19</span>
-navigate the vessel with these until we can procure
-an engine of the proper size, which, I think,
-ought not to be less than 24 inch cylinder.&rdquo;</p>
-</blockquote>
-<p>No better description of a side wheel steamboat
-has ever been given than is contained in this letter
-of the 6th of September, 1798, the original draft
-of which, with all its interlineations, is now before
-me; <i>and this is the first practical suggestion of the
-combination which made steam navigation a commercial
-success</i>, that there is a record of in America;
-and this also, when, as late as 1802, four years
-later, Fulton, as we are informed by his biographer,
-had become assured, that endless chains and
-floats were alone to be relied on!</p>
-<p>Receiving no reply to the suggestion, thus made,
-Roosevelt writes to the Chancellor on the 16th of
-September, 1798, saying: &ldquo;I hope to hear your
-opinion of throwing wheels over the sides;&rdquo; when
-the Chancellor answers: &ldquo;I say nothing on the
-subject of wheels over the sides, as I am perfectly
-convinced from a variety of experiments of the
-superiority of those we have adopted.&rdquo;</p>
-<p>Again, on the 21st October, in the letter giving
-an account of the trial trip with the Spanish Minister
-on board, Roosevelt says, &ldquo;he would wish the
-Chancellor&rsquo;s wheels to be tried, contrasted with
-paddles on Mr. Stevens&rsquo; plan, or with wheels over
-the sides, so as to ascertain the difference in the
-<span class="pb" id="Page_20">20</span>
-application of the power.&rdquo; To which the Chancellor
-answers on the 28th October, 1798, referring
-to the Stevens&rsquo; paddles, &ldquo;they are too inconvenient
-and liable to accidents to be used&mdash;<span class="smaller">AND, AS FOR
-VERTICAL WHEELS, THEY ARE OUT OF THE QUESTION</span>!&rdquo;</p>
-<p>Roosevelt was at this time so strongly impressed
-with the plan that the Chancellor thus peremptorily
-put aside, that in a letter of the 21st to the
-same John Stevens already mentioned, who, as we
-have seen, was one of the partners in the adventure,
-he says, &ldquo;I am firmly of opinion that a vessel
-may be propelled at the rate of <i>eight</i> miles an
-hour.&rdquo;</p>
-<p>Not even the praise of the Spanish Minister
-seems to have been sufficient to vitalize the
-Chancellor&rsquo;s boat; and we are led to suppose
-that it was recognized by all as a failure; for
-Stevens, who seems to have had more influence
-than Roosevelt, persuaded the Chancellor to adapt
-the engine to his contrivance of a set of paddles
-in the stern, pushing the boat forward as they
-were made by a crank motion to rise and fall.
-A rough sketch of this contrivance in a letter from
-Stevens, dated July 15th, 1799, is before me. The
-experiment so racked the Chancellor&rsquo;s boat as to
-make it unfit for use altogether. We wonder
-now that such things could have been thought
-of even.</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_21">21</div>
-<p>In Mr. Stevens&rsquo; letter there is a passage that
-indicates the reliance that was placed on Roosevelt
-by this, the most practical of his associates, and
-shews him to have been the party on whose skill
-the others depended. He says:</p>
-<blockquote>
-<p>&ldquo;In the meantime, I would wish to determine
-on our plan for placing the paddles in the stern
-of the boat and provide immediately to put it in
-execution. You and Stoudinger (a young man
-brought up by Roosevelt, and who subsequently
-became Fulton&rsquo;s right hand man, and one of the
-first practical engineers in America,) and Smallman
-(another of Roosevelt&rsquo;s employees) must lay
-your heads together on this subject; and, as soon
-as you have fixed upon the plan you conceive will
-be most eligible, I wish you would take a ride
-down and communicate it to me; and, at the same
-time, I can give you the result of my cogitations.&rdquo;</p>
-</blockquote>
-<p>The Stevens&rsquo; paddles, until they shook the boat
-to pieces, were far more successful than any one
-of the Chancellor&rsquo;s inventions; and I remember,
-distinctly, seeing a boat propelled by paddles in
-the harbor of New York, as I crossed the Hudson
-on my way to West Point, in the fall of the year
-1818. The paddles I refer to, however, were on
-the sides, and not at the stern, and were literally
-paddles, being square floats attached to upright
-<span class="pb" id="Page_22">22</span>
-shafts, which a crank motion caused to rise and
-fall.</p>
-<p>It is not difficult to understand why the Chancellor
-told Roosevelt that his vertical wheels
-were not to be thought of, and why Stevens,
-confessedly a man of ability and mechanical ingenuity,
-preferred his own suggestion. They doubtless
-believed that the percussion of the floats of
-the vertical wheel as they strike and then enter
-the water, and before they exert their greatest
-power; which is when they are at right angles
-with the surface, was objectionable and would be
-fatal to their usefulness. They feared also, most
-probably, the further loss of power consequent
-upon the lifting of the water as the floats emerged
-from it; and, wedded to their own schemes, they
-refused to subject the matter to the test of experiment.
-The paddles of Stevens, and the floats
-on the endless chains, to which Fulton gave the
-preference, entered the water perpendicularly, or
-nearly so, and were free from what was regarded,
-it is to be supposed, as the objection to Roosevelt&rsquo;s
-vertical wheels over the sides. That both Stevens
-and Fulton were wrong, and that Roosevelt was
-right, time has conclusively established.</p>
-<p>Unwilling to abandon the idea of steam navigation,
-even after so complete a failure, the
-Chancellor devised still another plan, which was
-executed under Roosevelt&rsquo;s direction at the works
-<span class="pb" id="Page_23">23</span>
-on the Passaic, of the details of which I have no
-account. In this Roosevelt had no interest. It
-proved a failure. From all that I can gather,
-from the documents in my possession, the efforts
-here described were made in 1798, 1799 and 1800,
-almost uninterruptedly, and were controlled by the
-Chancellor, who was, evidently, the moneyed man
-of the concern, and whose dictum, as we have
-said, was regarded as conclusive by his associates.
-So promising did the matter seem after Roosevelt
-had commenced the engine for the boat, that, in
-March, 1798, the Legislature of New York, granted
-the Chancellor, &ldquo;the exclusive right of navigating
-all boats that might be propelled by steam on all
-the waters within the territory, or jurisdiction, of
-the State for the term of twenty years, provided
-he should, within a twelvemonth, build such a
-boat, the mean of whose progress should not be
-less than four miles an hour.&rdquo; The month of
-March, 1799, elapsed, however, without the condition
-of the grant having been complied with.
-At a later date, a similar grant was made to
-Livingston and Fulton.</p>
-<p>In the latter part of the year 1800, Mr. Jefferson
-appointed the Chancellor minister to France, where
-he remained until 1804, having in the meanwhile
-negotiated the treaty which ceded Louisiana to the
-United States, and where he made the acquaintance
-of Robert Fulton. In 1804, the Chancellor
-<span class="pb" id="Page_24">24</span>
-made the tour of Europe, and returned the following
-year to the United States.</p>
-<p>In Colden&rsquo;s Life of Fulton, there is an account,
-in the Chancellor&rsquo;s own words, of the commencement
-of his acquaintance with Fulton. I quote:
-&ldquo;Robert R. Livingston, Esquire, when minister
-in France, met with Mr. Fulton, and they formed
-that friendship and connection with each other to
-which a similarity of pursuits generally gives birth.
-He communicated to Mr. Fulton the importance
-of steamboats to their own country; informed him
-of what had been attempted in America, and of his
-resolution to resume the pursuit on his return, and
-advised him to turn his attention to the subject.&rdquo;</p>
-<p>We have already seen that Mr. Fulton&rsquo;s plan,
-after making calculations as to the efficiency of
-paddles and ducks&rsquo; feet, was to use endless chains
-with resisting boards upon them as propellors.
-With these he made a course of experiments on
-a little rivulet that runs through the village of
-Plombi&eacute;res, in France, in 1802; and &ldquo;addressed
-several letters to Mr. Livingston and Mr. Barlow,
-giving them a minute account of his experiments
-and assurances of the certainty of success which
-they afforded him.&rdquo;</p>
-<p>That the Chancellor had informed Fulton of
-what had been attempted in America, is admitted
-by Colden; and this, too, prior doubtless, to the
-experiments at Plombi&eacute;res. That Roosevelt&rsquo;s pertinacity
-<span class="pb" id="Page_25">25</span>
-in regard to wheels over the sides was
-communicated with other information is not to
-be doubted; that the Chancellor should have told
-him, as he told Roosevelt, in the letter of October
-28th, 1798, &ldquo;that they were not to be thought of,&rdquo;
-it is most reasonable to suppose; and that Fulton
-agreed with the Chancellor is proved by the &ldquo;assurance
-of certain success&rdquo; which he entertained,
-of endless chains and floats, or resisting boards.</p>
-<p>Between the spring of 1802 and the fall of that
-year, Mr. Fulton changed his mind; for he and
-Livingston were building a boat, propelled by
-Roosevelt&rsquo;s vertical wheels, in January, 1803.
-The Chancellor, by this time, had become convinced
-that vertical wheels were things &ldquo;to be
-thought of.&rdquo; That it was Roosevelt&rsquo;s plan that
-was adopted after all their own plans had failed&mdash;the
-plan derived, with the details of its execution,
-from Roosevelt himself,&mdash;does not seem to admit
-of any reasonable doubt.</p>
-<p>Biography is too often eulogy. The name of
-Fulton is irrevocably, and justly, the representative
-name in connection with steam navigation
-throughout all lands. For a while, and in the
-memory of the writer, the name of Livingston
-was connected with it in men&rsquo;s mouths. But
-Livingston&rsquo;s connection with the subject is fast
-being forgotten. Fulton&rsquo;s never will be forgotten,
-not because he was the inventor of the steamboat
-<span class="pb" id="Page_26">26</span>
-however, not because he first suggested the combination
-that made success certain; but because,
-in his hands, it became a commercial success.
-He was the first who demonstrated its practical
-utility, when, in 1807, he made the first voyage
-in the Clermont from New York to Albany and
-back. Still he was indebted to others, in the first
-instance, for the elements of his success.</p>
-<p>I have said that biography is too often eulogy.
-The biographer becomes jealous of the reputation
-of his hero. Colden was not exempt from the
-weakness common to his class; and instead of
-giving to Roosevelt the credit of having first put
-the idea of vertical wheels over the sides into a
-practical shape, by his detailed description of their
-mechanism, he says that the want of success of a
-French inventor, who had horizontal screws on
-either side of a boat, &ldquo;it is probable,&rdquo; induced
-Mr. Fulton again to resort to the wheels, which,
-in the original paper that he communicated to
-Lord Stanhope, in 1793, he proposed to use as
-propellors. Even had this been so, without any
-question having arisen as to the facts, Roosevelt&rsquo;s
-model of a boat at Esopus, with its hickory and
-whalebone springs, would have been ten years
-ahead of the Frenchman.</p>
-<p>But there are some matters connected with the
-letter to Lord Stanhope, which are not without
-interest in this connection.</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_27">27</div>
-<p>We have seen that Roosevelt, in January, 1815,
-applied to the Legislature of New Jersey, for protection
-as an inventor of the vertical wheels over
-the sides, for which he had obtained letters patent
-from the United States in the preceding month
-of December, 1814, being the original document
-shewn to me by Delacy. Somewhere about this
-time, Mr. Fulton appeared as a witness before the
-Legislature in connection with this same subject
-of steam navigation; and Colden&rsquo;s life contains a
-letter from Mr. Emmet, the celebrated lawyer, in
-which he states, that, in order to shew Mr. Fulton&rsquo;s
-prior claim to invention, in the application of
-&ldquo;water wheels to steamboats,&rdquo; he examined him
-to prove a copy of the letter in question. Nothing
-was said, it would seem, of its being a copy, when
-this was first presented: but Governor Ogden
-noticed that the letter was written on <i>American
-paper</i>; and, subsequently, Mr. Fulton explained
-that the first copy having been considerably worn
-out and obscured, he had copied it over again and
-attached it to the old drawings. This was made the
-subject of uncomfortable criticism by the opposite
-counsel; and Mr. Emmet, in his letter, expresses
-great indignation at what he states was a malicious
-attempt to injure the honor of the dead, and
-regrets that he omitted to notice, in his reply,
-the insinuations which Mr., afterwards Judge,
-Hopkinson permitted himself to make. The occurrence
-<span class="pb" id="Page_28">28</span>
-was unquestionably an unfortunate one,
-whatever the real facts may have been; and respect
-for the memory of Mr. Fulton leads me to hope
-that Mr. Emmet was correct in his version of the
-transaction. His letter, however, is important in
-another aspect: it shews that the merit of the
-invention, at the time, was considered to be the
-application of vertical wheels over the sides, and
-that this was claimed for Fulton on the strength
-of the letter to Lord Stanhope and the accompanying
-drawings of 1793, notwithstanding the
-endless chains and floats already referred to as
-illustrating the convictions of 1793.</p>
-<p>I have never seen the drawings or read the
-letter of Mr. Fulton; but it is difficult for me to
-believe that he had invented in 1793, what was
-unquestionably the solution of the difficulty, and
-yet, in 1802, have dwelt in his letters to Livingston
-and Barlow upon his assurances of the certainty
-of success with endless chains and resisting
-boards. It is with no want of charity, that it is
-suggested, that Mr. Colden, in writing a biography,
-overlooked the possibility of its logic being
-criticized when compared with its facts.</p>
-<p>There is some light, however, to be obtained
-from Lord Stanhope&rsquo;s reply to Mr. Fulton&rsquo;s letter.
-It is as follows:</p>
-<blockquote>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_29">29</div>
-<p class="jr1">&ldquo;<span class="sc">Holdsworthy Devon</span>, <i>October 7th, 1793</i>.</p>
-<p>&ldquo;<span class="sc">Sir</span>: I have received yours of the 30th September,
-in which you <i>propose to communicate to me</i>
-the principles of an invention which you say you
-have discovered respecting the moving of ships by
-the means of steam. It is a subject on which I
-have made important discoveries. I shall be glad
-to receive the communication which <i>you intend</i>, as
-I have made the principles of mechanics my particular
-study, &amp;c.&rdquo; (There are no words italicised
-in the original.<span class="hst"> L.</span>)</p>
-</blockquote>
-<p>Certainly, it is only necessary to read this letter
-to be satisfied, that the one to which it is a reply,
-and it is not suggested that Mr. Fulton ever wrote
-another, could not have described the combination
-which made the steamboat the thing that it now
-is: or that it could have been accompanied by
-drawings shewing the plan finally adopted,&mdash;the
-Roosevelt plan, going back as far as 1782, and
-described in practical detail in the letter of 21st
-October, 1798.</p>
-<p>It is true that Mr. Fulton obtained letters patent
-of the United States for his steamboat in 1809&mdash;in
-reference to which Mr. Colden says, as though
-to corroborate Fulton&rsquo;s claim as inventor,</p>
-<blockquote>
-<p>&ldquo;They (the Chancellor and Mr. Fulton) entered
-into a contract, by which it was, among other
-<span class="pb" id="Page_30">30</span>
-things, agreed that a patent should be taken out
-in the United States in Mr. Fulton&rsquo;s name, which
-Mr. Livingston well knew could not be done
-without Mr. Fulton <i>taking an oath that the improvement
-was solely his</i>.&rdquo;</p>
-</blockquote>
-<p>And a patent was in fact taken out, in those
-days when patents were had for the asking, and
-when none of that examination, which now protects
-the public, was required by law.</p>
-<p>We have already seen, in the case stated for
-Mr. Wirt&rsquo;s opinion, the allegation that Fulton
-neither subscribed nor swore to the specification;
-and that the name Robert Fulton was in the
-handwriting of another man. Unless this had
-been the fact, it would hardly have been alleged
-in a paper, prepared for the opinion of eminent
-counsel. But I have before me an original letter
-dated Trenton, January, 1815, addressed to Mr.
-Roosevelt by Delacy, in which the latter gives
-an account of the proceedings before the Legislature,
-and in which is this sentence:</p>
-<blockquote>
-<p>&ldquo;Fulton has the effrontery to avow his having
-got Fletcher to sign his name and makes light of
-it, as if he was entitled to violate the laws, as
-well as private rights, at pleasure.&rdquo;</p>
-</blockquote>
-<p>It is true, this is the letter of a partizan in a
-struggle before the Legislature. Still, the matter
-<span class="pb" id="Page_31">31</span>
-of fact would not be misstated in a private correspondence,
-where there was no conceivable motive
-to mislead.</p>
-<p>The committee of the Legislature finally reported,
-and very wisely, that it was inexpedient
-to make any special provision in connection with
-the matter in controversy before that body.</p>
-<p>It was in March, 1815, on the heel of the Legislative
-proceedings, that the deed of trust to Mr.
-William Griffith was made, and the fact of his
-accepting the trust, and that Aaron Ogden of
-New Jersey, was a party to the transaction, shews
-that the cause of Roosevelt as the inventor of
-vertical wheels over the sides under the patent
-of 1814, was deemed good as against the patent
-granted to Fulton four or five years previously.
-Had the letter to Lord Stanhope or the reply
-thereto, been regarded by the outside world, or
-by those interested in the subject, as sufficient to
-establish Fulton&rsquo;s prior right to the invention of
-vertical wheels over the sides of steamboats, counsel
-of the standing of Mr. Griffith would not have
-become mixed up in the business, licenses to use
-Roosevelt&rsquo;s patent would not have been granted,
-nor would I have made the acquaintance of John
-Devereux Delacy; for Roosevelt&rsquo;s pretensions would
-have been nipped in the bud.</p>
-<p>My tale is nearly ended. The object has been
-to shew that the merit of the practical suggestion
-<span class="pb" id="Page_32">32</span>
-of the employment of vertical wheels over the
-sides of steamboats was due to one who has been
-lost sight of in this connection, and wholly ignored
-in the biography of Fulton, who availing himself
-of the suggestion of another, in all its details,
-made it a great commercial success, and in so
-doing built upon it a lasting fame. That the
-papers I have referred to, now collated for the
-first time, shew this to be the fact, I think there
-can be no question.</p>
-<p>It may be interesting to state something in
-regard to the subsequent career of Roosevelt.
-He was once asked why, with the secret of success
-in his possession, he allowed it to slumber.
-Why did not <i>he</i> anticipate the Clermont in the
-first five years of the present century. I give
-the answer in his own words from a manuscript
-before me.</p>
-<blockquote>
-<p>&ldquo;<i>First</i>: At the time Chancellor Livingston&rsquo;s
-horizontal wheel experiment failed, I was under
-a contract with the corporation for supplying the
-city of Philadelphia with water, by means of two
-steam engines; and, besides, I was under a contract
-with the United States to erect rolling works
-and supply government with copper, rolled and
-drawn, for six 74 gun ships, that were then to be
-built. The engines for the supplying of Philadelphia
-with water I completed, though with heavy
-<span class="pb" id="Page_33">33</span>
-loss. The rolling works I also brought into operation
-upon a very extensive scale, and a considerable
-quantity of copper was delivered. But the
-encouragement from government by which I had
-been led into this heavy expense was cut off by
-a change of men in the administration. The 74s
-were laid aside, and no appropriations were made,
-and embarrassment to me was the natural consequence.&rdquo;</p>
-</blockquote>
-<p>This embarrassment, in the then condition of
-the law, was imprisonment for debts contracted
-in getting ready to fulfil his contract. In truth,
-he was a broken man. In the meanwhile, on
-the return of Livingston and Fulton to America,
-the workmen that Roosevelt had brought from
-Germany and made what they were, entered
-into Fulton&rsquo;s service, and to their skill was he
-indebted for the mechanical success of his earlier
-boats. In 1807, Roosevelt was introduced to
-him; and in a letter from the Chancellor, now
-before me, references to old times are pleasantly
-made; and, a year or two afterwards, we find
-Roosevelt associated with Fulton in the introduction
-of steamboats on the Western waters. Here,
-he built the New Orleans, the pioneer boat that
-descended the river in 1811&mdash;the year of the
-comet and the earthquake. The voyage of the
-New Orleans is, in itself, a romance; but time
-<span class="pb" id="Page_34">34</span>
-does not permit it to be told at present.<a class="fn" id="fr_1" href="#fn_1">[1]</a>
-With all his merit, Fulton was not an easy man to
-get along with; and Roosevelt had his faults of
-temper too, no doubt; and after the successful
-voyage of the New Orleans, the two men parted,
-and Roosevelt disappeared from public life, and
-was lost in the quiet of the domestic circle of a
-numerous and happy family. He died at a very
-advanced age, not many years ago, forgotten by
-the world as he was forgotten by the biographer of
-Fulton. He appears again before me, as I write,
-as I remember to have seen him in my childhood,
-and in after years&mdash;a finished gentleman,
-energetic and sanguine, warm and generous in
-his temper, a devoted husband and father, and
-now made the hero of a lost chapter in the
-history of the steamboat.</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_35">35</div>
-<h2 id="c2"><span class="small">APPENDIX.</span></h2>
-<h3 id="c3">N. J. ROOSEVELT TO R. R. LIVINGSTON.</h3>
-<p class="center"><span class="sc">Proposes Vertical Wheels with the Size of Cylinder and presses for Money Arrangements.</span></p>
-<blockquote>
-<p class="jr1"><span class="sc">Second River</span>, <i>Sept. 6th, 1798</i>.</p>
-<p><span class="sc">Dr Sir</span>,</p>
-<p>I have your two letters of the 31st and 1st inst. before me. Since writing
-you the 27th, I made an experiment in order to ascertain as nearly as I
-could the power of the engine, and put on your wheels. This was done by
-laying the vessel on shore stern foremost so as to leave the wheels entirely
-out of the water. The Engine was then put to work at the rate of from
-40 to 45 strokes and wheels turned from 160 to 180 revolutions per minute.
-When the water first entered them it was thrown out with great violence;
-but before it got any considerable depth in them the motion of the engine
-was impeded and in a short time entirely stopped. By this experiment I
-was fully convinced that the wheels would require a power far greater
-than this engine possesses and that any attempts to proceed with the power
-we have and the present wheels would be fruitless. I was also farther
-convinced (by getting men whose strength was ascertained to turn the
-wheels by hand before the operation of the engine) tho&rsquo; she has her full
-power and indeed considerably more than as first mentioned, I expected
-we would have. Now, Sir, to proceed with the experiment you recommended
-of closing the openings with doors will be doing nothing more
-than what we have already done by the last trial. <span class="sc">I would therefore
-recommend that we throw two wheels of wood over the sides
-fastened to the axes of the flys with 8 arms or paddles, that
-part which enters the water of sheet iron to shift according to
-the power they require either deeper in the water or otherwise
-and that we navigate the vessel with those until we can
-procure an Engine of proper size which I think ought not to be
-less than 24 inches cylinder.</span> The Barometer to ascertain the exact
-power of the engine has not as you observe been left to depend entirely on
-Mr. Van Ness, although I looked upon him as your Representative according
-to the tenor of your own letter; but Mr. Mark and Mr. Speyer have
-<span class="pb" id="Page_36">36</span>
-both been on the search for one and have not yet succeeded. The copper
-pipe for it is made and we will I believe be obliged to wait for the glass
-until we can get it from the glass house above Albany. I have requested
-Mr. Speyer, who has gone up to the Oneida country, to call on Mr. Dezang
-for that purpose. If you know of any to be had in New York please to
-inform me and I will immediately get it.</p>
-<p>As to your charge of my want of candor and my possessing too much
-distrust, those Sir are charges which have never before been laid to me and
-which I feel perfectly free from and I will recommend to the Chancellor
-to meet me in future upon equally candid and fair ground. I can assure
-him he shall never have reason to complain of me on that score again.<a class="fn" id="fr_2" href="#fn_2">[2]</a>
-We have as you observe put our hands to the oars and ought not to look
-back until we reach port. This I am for, Sir, with all my heart, and firmly
-believe that with this determination we have nothing to fear, as I think,
-<i>with the wheels I have recommended</i>, that the State patent may be secured.
-We will then have time to prepare for your wheels, and if they should not
-have the effect you promise us, we can then adopt such other plans as we
-may together think best. No bad consequences need be apprehended from
-what I communicated out of your letter to Smallman and Stoudinger as
-they are as anxious for the success of the business and your good opinion
-as I am. As to altering any of the wheels in the way you propose I cannot
-approve, as the alteration will be attended with considerable expense,
-and as I believe any alteration we can make with our present small Engine
-will be inadequate to driving the wheels to any advantage. In this the
-Chancellor will agree with me when he considers that when the Engine
-making 30 strokes per minute the horizontal wheels make 120 revolutions
-by which 3/4 is taken from the power to afford this.</p>
-<p>I sincerely hope that Mrs. Livingston may soon recover from her accident
-so that you may not be detained long from thoroughly investigating
-everything appertaining to our present concern.</p>
-<div class="verse">
-<p class="lc">I am, dear Sir, &amp;c., &amp;c.</p>
-<p class="lr">N. J. ROOSEVELT.</p>
-</div>
-<p>N. B. I have not, upon overlooking what I have above written, been so
-particular in my objections to your proposed alterations as may be agreeable
-<span class="pb" id="Page_37">37</span>
-and will ask for a little of your patience. See how the alteration
-of the wheels on the connecting rod by being smaller will operate. They
-will most certainly shorten the stroke of the engine. This therefore cannot
-take place unless we alter the wheels round which they move accordingly,
-which may be done. At the same time in doing it we shall be obliged to
-lengthen the spindle of the horizontal wheels and disturb the wooden work
-the whole of which will be attended with considerable expense and require
-a second alteration when we come to operate with power equal to what
-those wheels will require, and indeed, why should we go to any expense in
-alterations which can do us no service; as I clearly saw from actual experiment
-that about 1400 pounds will be necessary to be applied directly to the
-wheels independent of friction, which is equal to an engine of 24 inches
-Cylinder. An Engine of this size I find has 5424 pounds power independent
-of the friction of the machine and I think power enough for the air
-pumps (perhaps something more.) This I cannot however ascertain until I
-get a barometer and try our present engine, which I believe perfect. I was
-about trying the power by weights but found difficulties which I have not
-yet been able to get over, as her power is equal both ways, and to bring the
-weight only to the connecting rod would tear everything to pieces.</p>
-<div class="verse">
-<p class="lc">Yours, &amp;c.</p>
-<p class="lr">N. J. ROOSEVELT.</p>
-</div>
-<p>A plan of my substitute which may not be quite correct, as I do not understand
-anything of drawing.
-<span class="lr">N. J. R.<a class="fn" id="fr_3" href="#fn_3">[3]</a></span></p>
-</blockquote>
-<hr />
-<h3 id="c4">N. J. ROOSEVELT TO R. R. LIVINGSTON.</h3>
-<blockquote>
-<p class="jr1"><span class="sc">Second River</span>, <i>Sept. 10th, 1798</i>.</p>
-<p><span class="sc">Dear Sir</span>,</p>
-<p>I acknowledge receipt of yours of the 3d Inst. By this time you have
-doubtless recd. mine of the 6th Inst. which gave you all the information
-on the subject of the boat I was then capable of doing; since which I have
-thought of trying another experiment upon <i>the present plan</i> and concluded
-to morrow to set about it. It will take us three days with two hands
-which will cost very trifling and enable us to calculate with more certainty
-what power will be required <i>for your wheels</i>. The plan is this. Sun and
-planet wheels we will take off and form a double crank with the coupling
-links, which at one end will be fastened to the shaft of the fly wheels by
-taking out the brasses and drilling holes for pins to enter. This change
-will give us only half the motion of your wheels we first contemplated and
-<span class="pb" id="Page_38">38</span>
-consequently double the power we now have. I will try this in the same
-way we did the last time by leaving the vessel&rsquo;s stern on shore, and in the
-meanwhile <i>I hope to hear your opinion of throwing wheels over the sides.
-I will also be glad</i> to know if it is more agreeable to you to give a note for
-the balance of your proportion of the expense attending this business or
-whether you will make me a remittance in cash. Could I at present raise
-money through the house of J. Mark for all the ends I have in this quarter
-I would not solicit more money until you come down. This however it
-is not for them to do. I hope the Chancellor will consider my situation
-in the midst of many workmen as an apology and pardon me for my
-impatience.</p>
-<p><span class="center">Yours, &amp;c.</span>
-<span class="lr">N. J. ROOSEVELT.</span></p>
-<p><span class="sc">R. R. Livingston.</span></p>
-</blockquote>
-<hr />
-<h3 id="c5">R. R. LIVINGSTON TO N. J. ROOSEVELT.</h3>
-<p class="center"><span class="sc">Acknowledges Wheels over the Sides to have been Proposed by Roosevelt and rejects them.</span></p>
-<blockquote>
-<p class="jr1"><span class="sc">Clermont</span>, <i>18th Sept., 1798</i>.</p>
-<p><span class="sc">Dear Sir</span>,</p>
-<p>Mr. Mouchette is just returned. I sincerely congratulate you upon the
-success of the engine of which he gives the most favourable report &amp; fully
-justifies yr. confidence in your engines. I am sufficiently sanguine to hope
-that all difficulties are now vanished. Knowing our power nothing remains
-but adapt the vessel to it. In attempting this hitherto we have deceived
-ourselves by wandering into the field of conjecture rather than adhereing
-to plain calculations &amp; we shall still do so if we expect that the present
-engine will turn the wheels we now have 80 times in a minute, as will appear
-from this calculation. Our wells contain exactly 60 cubic feet of
-water. The whole of this is set in motion at every revolution of the wheels
-with a rapidity equal to the main motion of the arms, that is if the wheels
-make 80 revolutions in a minute at the rate of 8 miles an hour. Now as
-the boat will not remove more than 20 feet of water if she goes 8 miles an
-hour, if it was possible to move the wheels as they are now constructed 80
-rounds in a minute we should throw away one half of our power, for the
-boat could not move faster than the water in the wheels &amp; the power
-would be uselessly expended in throwing out water unnecessarily.</p>
-<p>But it will be found on experiment that however perfect our engine is, it
-cannot turn the present wheels 80 times in a minute. The wheels then
-must necessarily be altered or the motion rendered still slower. To make
-<span class="pb" id="Page_39">39</span>
-the motion slower is to diminish our chance of moving the boat fast because
-she will at no rate move faster than the water in the wheels though she
-may be made to move as fast as I have found on actual experiment. The
-wheels then must be altered, not by making the arms shorter for this would
-diminish their motion, besides that it would require an alteration in the
-boat&mdash;but by diminishing their depth. They are now if I recollect 18
-Inches deep, let them be reduced to nine Inches.</p>
-<p>Let the motion of the wheels by no means exceed 80 nor be lower than
-70 turns in a minute and I will answer for the success of the experiment,
-&amp; upon the whole it will turn out a fortunate discovery since we shall find
-that our wells need not be above half the size we have made them &amp; of
-course much room and much weight of water be saved in future. That we
-have erred hitherto should not discourage us. It is the fate of all new
-undertakings and it is happy when the error can be so easily discovered &amp;
-detected. Another circumstance of considerable moment must be attended
-to. If the diminution of the motion is brought about by changing the sun
-and planet wheels, one half the motion of the flys will be lost &amp; they rendered
-almost useless from this circumstance. If they are made heavier
-they will overload the boat.</p>
-<p>I would propose as the best mode of altering the motion of the wheels
-to alter the cog wheels &amp; to leave the sun and planet wheels as they were&mdash;this
-will give the proper motion to the fly &amp; diminish the friction. Let
-the cog wheels be made smaller and have no more cogs than the trunnel
-rounds, or only so many more as will serve to give the motion we require.
-Nor will this alteration be attended with more trouble than the one at first
-proposed; but even if it is, it is so essential to give the flys a rapid motion
-that we must, now we have gone so far, submit to this trouble and expense
-to have this experiment properly made. <i>I say nothing on the subject of</i>
-<span class="smaller">WHEELS OVER THE SIDES</span> <i>as I am perfectly convinced from a variety of experiments
-of the superiority of those we have adopted</i>. I expect to be down
-the last of this month when I shall see you &amp; make such money arrangements
-as we may find necessary.</p>
-<p>In the meantime I hope to hear how you go on. I flatter myself no delay
-will be incurred which can possibly be avoided, every moment being precious.
-Mr. Mark will I hope forward this to you the moment it arrives, so
-that the necessary alterations may be made before you proceed far on any
-difficult plan.</p>
-<p>I am very much hurt that you should construe any part of my former
-letters into a reflection on your candour. I am sure that nothing of this
-kind was ever intended &amp; I flatter myself that if you attend a little more
-<span class="pb" id="Page_40">40</span>
-to the expressions (tho: I cannot now recollect them) that they will not
-bear this harsh construction.<a class="fn" id="fr_4" href="#fn_4">[4]</a></p>
-<p><span class="center">I am dear Sir, with esteem, your most ob: hum: servt:</span>
-<span class="lr">ROB. R. LIVINGSTON.</span></p>
-</blockquote>
-<hr />
-<h3 id="c6">N. J. ROOSEVELT TO R. R. LIVINGSTON.</h3>
-<p class="center"><span class="sc">Experiment made &amp; Opinion of the Spanish Minister&mdash;Again Coaxes to have Vertical Wheels tried.</span></p>
-<blockquote>
-<p class="jr1"><span class="sc">Second River</span>, <i>Oct. 21st, 1798</i>.</p>
-<p><span class="sc">Dear Sir</span>,</p>
-<p>I dropped you a line in haste on Friday last, since which I received your
-favour of the 10th: the person to whom you gave it in charge did not put
-it in the post office until yesterday. Your instructions therefore came too
-late for the rims, as they had by your former request been left off and no
-bad consequence has resulted. I have not yet seen Mr. Stevens, but have
-been expecting him every day, as he requested me by letter to inform him
-what time we would be ready, which I did. Had I received your letter
-sooner I would also have sent to see if Mr. Mouchet was still at N. Ark
-&amp; requested him to come up.</p>
-<p>There was no occasion to try the wheels from 5 Inches upwards, as I
-found the Engine overloaded at 5. I think at present the most advisable
-mode of proceeding for us will be to change the wheels on shaft and spindle
-so as to give the Engine her full speed with 50 revolutions of the lower
-wheels, and if she will carry more, then increase the width of the paddles.
-I have ordered a pattern made for two wheels accordingly and will cast
-them the first casting we make after it is finished. Please to write me if
-you agree in this respect. The Spanish Minister was on board the day we
-made the last experiment and was perfectly well pleased with the operation
-of the Engine and will give us an order for one of 36 Inches. This will cost
-him upwards of 13,000 Dolls: Our small one is not equal to the purposes
-for which he wants his. During our sail he, at the time the tide and wind
-favoured us, supposed we went at the rate of 6 miles an hour; but I think
-the delight he felt expressed at the novelty of the Voyage was the cause of
-his mistake. My report to you was three miles, still water, which I have
-reason to believe was accurate. I have at present a better opinion of your
-plan than ever, and could wish them to be contrasted with paddles upon
-<span class="pb" id="Page_41">41</span>
-Mr. Stevens&rsquo; plan, <span class="smaller">OR WHEELS OVER THE SIDES</span>, so as fairly to ascertain
-the difference of the application of the power. We have by the last experiment
-a striking proof in favor of your plan which is demonstrated by the
-diminution in width and slow motion of the wheels. At our last experiment
-the effect was certainly greater than we could have promised ourselves.</p>
-<p>I hope to hear from you soon, and in the meanwhile will do what strikes
-me as reasonable upon our present plan so that no time is lost.</p>
-<p>Mrs. Mark requests me to thank you for your polite invitation of visiting
-Mrs. Livingston, but does not think it will be in her power this fall,
-as Mr. Mark is at present too much occupied with business to leave home.</p>
-<p><span class="center">Yours respectfully,</span>
-<span class="lr">N. J. ROOSEVELT.</span></p>
-</blockquote>
-<p>This letter is complim&rsquo;y to Livingston&mdash;about his plan of wheel&mdash;but
-still Roosevelt mentions that it would be prudent to try in contrast <i>Stevens&rsquo;
-paddles</i>&mdash;(&amp; his <i>own</i> plan) wheels <i>over the sides</i>. (Note by Judge Griffith.)</p>
-<hr />
-<h3 id="c7">R. R. LIVINGSTON TO N. J. ROOSEVELT.</h3>
-<p class="center"><span class="sc">Liv&rsquo;n Acknowledges the Boat to Answer &amp; Refuses to use Vertical Wheels.</span></p>
-<blockquote>
-<p class="jr1"><span class="sc">Clermont</span>, <i>28 Octr., 1798</i>.</p>
-<p><span class="sc">Dear Sir</span>,</p>
-<p>After sending mine of yesterday I received your favor of the 21st, in
-which you enter more particularly into the experiments you have made,
-but not so fully as I would wish, as you will find by the queries I have
-troubled you with. If you are right as to the motion through the water,
-the Spanish Minister could not err much in his calculation, for it appears
-to me that the tide in your river is not short of 2 miles &amp; I have found in
-my models that the velocity of the boat with the tide is greater in proportion
-than the mere difference between that and still water.</p>
-<p>This is one of the experiments I wished you to ascertain accurately by
-running one hour with the tide &amp; determining the distance and running
-back the same distance against the tide. Be it as it will, we now know
-what we can do with a sufficient power, and tho&rsquo; <i>paddles should even do
-more they are too inconvenient and too liable to accidents to be used</i>&mdash;<span class="smaller">AS FOR
-VERTICAL WHEELS THEY ARE OUT OF THE QUESTION</span>.</p>
-<p>What I principally write now for is to ask you whether it would not be
-better instantly to fit the boat for passengers by putting a deck over so
-much as you make cabbin of. This should be the whole, only leaving
-room for wood near the engine. This deck should be of inch pine boards
-<span class="pb" id="Page_42">42</span>
-&amp; rounded so as to carry off the water and made as tight as possible. It
-should be raised about ten Inches so as to admit of glasses that shove past
-each other all round The inside only wants to be papered with any cheap
-common paper and to have two rows of benches the one behind the other.
-The rear bench so low as to admit the knees under the front one. A
-narrow table of one board should run through the middle. The back
-cabbin should be fitted for the ship&rsquo;s company and have windows and
-shutters in case of bad weather. Some arrangement should also be made
-for boiling in pot and kettle. All this should be going on while you are
-fitting the machinery. It will I believe be best to get two or three quick
-hands from New York to do it as your shipwright is both slow and extravagant.
-We have yet one month to use and a pretty important one,
-because the roads will soon be bad, and tho&rsquo; we should only go 3 miles an
-hour we shall still be able to pick up something besides our expenses and
-acquire some experience of what further is necessary. I have provided a
-Captain at &pound;5 a month who understands the river. You say you have a
-steward and fire engine hand. Tho&rsquo; I think Smallman should make the
-first voyage.</p>
-<p><span class="center">I am, Dr. Sir,</span>
-<span class="lr">R. R. LIVINGSTON.</span></p>
-<p><span class="sc">Mr. N. J. Roosevelt.</span></p>
-</blockquote>
-<p>The headings of the foregoing letters are copied from their respective
-indorsations which would seem to have been made by different hands and
-as though in the preparation of a case.</p>
-<p class="jr1">L.</p>
-<hr />
-<h3 id="c8">PATENT TO MR. ROOSEVELT.</h3>
-<blockquote>
-<p>THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,</p>
-<p><i>To all to whom these LETTERS PATENT shall come</i>:</p>
-<p><span class="sc">Whereas</span>, NICHOLAS J. ROOSEVELT, a Citizen of the United
-States, hath alleged that he has invented a new and useful improvement</p>
-<p class="center">IN PROPELLING BOATS &amp;c. BY STEAM,</p>
-<p>which improvement he states has not been known or used before his application;
-hath made oath that he does verily believe that he is the true inventor
-or discoverer of the said improvement; hath paid into the Treasury
-of the United States the sum of thirty dollars, delivered a receipt for the
-same, and presented a petition to the Secretary of State, signifying a desire
-of obtaining an exclusive property in the said improvement, and praying
-that a patent may be granted for that purpose: <span class="sc">These are therefore</span> to
-grant, according to law, to the said NICHOLAS J. ROOSEVELT, his
-<span class="pb" id="Page_43">43</span>
-heirs, administrators, or assigns, for the term of fourteen years, from the
-first day of December, one thousand eight hundred and fourteen, the full
-and exclusive right and liberty of making, constructing, using and vending
-to others to be used, the said improvement; a description whereof is
-given in the words of the said Nicholas J. Roosevelt himself, in the schedule
-hereto annexed, and is made a part of these presents.</p>
-<p><span class="sc">In testimony whereof</span>, I have caused these Letters to be made
-Patent, and the Seal of the United States to be hereunto affixed.</p>
-<p class="center"><span class="ab1">SEAL</span></p>
-<p><span class="sc">Given</span> under my hand, at the City of Washington, this
-first day of December in the year of our Lord one thousand
-eight hundred and fourteen and of the independence
-of the United States of America, the thirty-ninth.</p>
-<div class="verse">
-<p class="lr">JAMES MADISON.</p>
-<p class="t0"><i>By the President.</i></p>
-<p class="lr"><span class="sc">Jas. Monroe</span>, <i>Secretary of State</i>.</p>
-</div>
-<p class="tb"><span class="sc">City of Washington</span>, <i>to wit</i>:</p>
-<p><span class="sc">I do hereby Certify</span>, That the foregoing Letters Patent were delivered
-to me on the first day of December in the year of our Lord, one thousand
-eight hundred and fourteen to be examined; that I have examined
-the same, and find them conformable to law: and I do hereby return the
-same to the <span class="sc">Secretary of State</span> within fifteen days from the date aforesaid,
-to wit; on this first day of December in the year aforesaid.</p>
-<p><span class="lr"><span class="sc">Richard Rush</span>,</span>
-<span class="lr"><i>Attorney General of the United States</i>.</span></p>
-<p class="tb"><span class="sc">To all to Whom these Presents shall come</span>:</p>
-<p><i>Nicholas J. Roosevelt, of the State of New Jersey, Esqr. sends greeting</i>:</p>
-<p><span class="sc">Be it known</span>, That I, the said Nicholas J. Roosevelt have discovered,
-invented and constructed a new &amp; useful mode &amp; improvement in the propelling
-of boats or vessels through water by the force &amp; agency of fire &amp;
-steam, the construction of which discovery, invention &amp; improvement is
-specified as follows, as the mode to which I have given a preference reserving
-to myself the right of varying and changing the proportions and combinations
-of the several parts of the said discovery and invention as experience
-may suggest or as I shall think advisable or expedient, to wit.</p>
-<div class="verse">
-<p class="lc">A true copy from the Specification filed in the Patent Office.</p>
-<p class="lr"><span class="sc">Geo. Lyon</span>, <i>Clk.</i></p>
-<p class="t0"><span class="sc">Patent Office</span>, <i>3d December, 1814</i>.</p>
-</div>
-</blockquote>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_44">44</div>
-<p class="revint"><i>THE SCHEDULE referred to in these Letters potent and making part of
-the same containing a description in the words of the said Nicholas J.
-Roosevelt himself of his improvement in propelling Boats, &amp;c. by steam.</i></p>
-<blockquote>
-<p>In a boat or vessel of any form, but of sufficient capacity to contain the
-machinery required, I place a Steam Engine of a power proportioned to
-the restance to be overcome, in propelling a boat or vessel a given distance
-in a given time, this steam Engine is supplied by a boiler of the
-usual form or made Cylindric one or more at pleasure so as to be of sufficient
-capacity to feed the Engine. I next place two wheels over the sides,
-on the axis of which I put flyes, dispence with them or otherwise combine
-them at pleasure, either to regulate motion or give additional velocity, or
-they may be connected with the water shaft and steam Engine, by wheels
-so as to give any number of revolutions that may be desired. The arms
-of the water wheels I would make of wood, to which I attach floats or paddles
-of cast Iron, or of Boiler plate thick sheet Iron, though they may be
-made of wood. These floats I make move up and down on the arms, by
-means of screws and holes, so as to make them enter deeper or shallower
-in the water, in taking a purchase or hold on the water agreeably to the
-depth of water the boat may draw, and the lading there may be on board,
-or agreeably to other circumstances. The supporters of the outer ends of
-the water wheels shaft to be made of Iron with braces, though if required
-they may be made of wood.</p>
-<div class="verse">
-<p class="lr">Ns. J. ROOSEVELT.</p>
-<p class="t0">Witnesses:</p>
-<p class="t2"><span class="sc">Jere&rsquo;h Ballard</span>,</p>
-<p class="t2"><span class="sc">John Dev&rsquo;x DeLacy</span>.</p>
-</div>
-</blockquote>
-<hr />
-<p>Of the foregoing correspondence, but a small portion relates to the question
-of wheels over the sides. It is inserted at length however,&mdash;going, as
-it does, to shew the warm interest, and the active measures that were on
-foot at the close of the eighteenth century to develope one of the mighty
-agencies of the nineteenth. The crudeness of many of the suggestions and
-the literary carelessness of the correspondence on both sides, is indicative of
-a very different condition of things from that which exists at present.</p>
-<p><span class="lr">L.</span></p>
-<h2 id="c9"><span class="small">FOOTNOTES</span></h2>
-<div class="fnblock"><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_1" href="#fr_1">[1]</a>Somewhere
-about the year 1842, the writer of the foregoing address was
-narrating the substance of it at the White Sulphur Springs of Virginia.
-Among his hearers was Mr. Samuel Davis, of Philadelphia, but formerly
-of Natchez, Mississippi, who supplemented the story with the following
-anecdote. He was standing on the wharf at Natchez, one of a crowd,
-watching the approach of the New Orleans on her first voyage. There
-was a rise in the river at the time; and when the steamboat rounded to, to
-head up stream, she was some short distance below the landing,&mdash;and, for
-a while, the current was more than she could overcome. At Mr. Davis&rsquo;
-side, was an old negro servant, who watched the struggle with much excitement,
-slapping his thighs and gesticulating in a most outlandish way.
-When at last, after a more rapid revolution of the wheels started the boat
-ahead, the negro threw up his hat, exclaiming, &ldquo;By golly, Sa, old Massesseppa
-got her massa; hooraw.&rdquo; Mr. Davis sent a quantity of his cotton
-by the boat to New Orleans, against the advice of all his friends. He was
-the first person who ventured a bale on such a risk!
-</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_2" href="#fr_2">[2]</a>The
-reference here is to a letter of the Chancellor (numbered 25 in the collection
-I have,) in which, being then in a dissatisfied and complaining mood, he says: &ldquo;I
-again repeat, Sir, that I trust in a few days to hear that experiments have been made
-and to be minutely acquainted with the result, that I may take my measures accordingly.
-In doing of which should wish to receive your advice. From a frank and candid
-communication much more advantage will result to all parties than from reserve,
-silence and distrust.</div>
-<div class="fncont"><span class="center">I am, dear Sir, your most obt. hum. servt.</span>
-<span class="jr1">R. R. LIVINGSTON.</span></div>
-<div class="fncont"><i>See letter of Aug. 31, 1798.</i>
-</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_3" href="#fr_3">[3]</a>The plan here referred to is not among the papers. L.
-</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_4" href="#fr_4">[4]</a>The Chancellor had evidently forgotten the
-concluding paragraph of his letter of August 31, 1798.
-</div>
-</div>
-<h2>Transcriber&rsquo;s Notes</h2>
-<ul>
-<li>Silently corrected a few typos, including listed errata.</li>
-<li>Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook is public-domain in the country of publication.</li>
-<li>In the text versions only, text in <i>italics</i> is delimited by _underscores_.</li>
-</ul>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
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