"Why," said the boy, "we are prohibited from illuminating our windows with candles, and I'm going to shoot my candles through the air."

"Tut, tut, tut," said Mr. Cossart, laughingly; "that's an impossibility."

"No, sir," said Robert, "there is nothing impossible."[A]

[Footnote A: He proved that this was not impossible, for he had his display, making his rockets himself, and after his own model.]

"Robert was known," says one of his biographers, "to purchase small quantities of quicksilver from Dr. Adam Simon Kuhn, druggist, residing opposite the market-house. He was trying some experiments that he did not wish to make public, and which the workmen in Mr. Fenno's and Mr. Christian Isch's shops were anxious to find out, but could not. He was in the habit almost daily of visiting those shops, and was a favorite among the workmen, who took advantage of his talent for drawing by getting him to make ornamental designs for guns, and sketches of the size and shape of guns, and then giving the calculations of the force, size of the bore and balls, and the distances they would fire; and he would accompany them to the open commons near by potter's field, to prove his calculations by shooting at a mark. On account of his expertness in his calculations, and of their ineffectual efforts to discover the use he was making of quicksilver, the shop-hands nicknamed him 'quicksilver Bob.'

"Mr. Messersmith and Mr. Christian Isch were employed by the Government to make and repair the arms for the troops; and on several occasions guards were stationed at their shops to watch and see that the workmen were constantly employed during whole nights and on Sunday, to prevent any delay. The workmen had so much reliance and confidence in 'quicksilver Bob's' judgment and mechanical skill, that every suggestion he would make as to the alteration of a gun, or any additional ornament that he would design, was invariably adopted by common consent.

"In the summer of 1779, Robert Fulton evinced an extraordinary fondness for inventions. He was a frequent visitor at Mr. Messersmith's and Mr. Fenno's gunsmith shops, almost daily, and endeavored to manufacture a small air-gun."

Among the acquaintances of Robert Fulton at this time was a young man, about eighteen years of age, named Christopher Gumpf, who used frequently to accompany his father in his fishing excursions on the Conestoga. Mr. Gumpf, Sen., being an experienced angler, readily consented to allow Robert to join himself and his son in these expeditions, and made the two boys earn their pleasure by pushing the boat about the stream, as he desired to move from point to point. As the means of propulsion was simply a pole, the labor was very severe, and Robert soon became tired of it. Not wishing, however, to give up his pleasant fishing trips, he determined to devise some means of lightening the labor.

"He absented himself a week, having gone to Little Britain township to spend a few days at his aunt's; and while there he planned and completed a small working model of a fishing boat, with paddle-wheels. On leaving his aunt's, he placed the model in the garret, with a request that it should not be destroyed. Many years afterward, that simple model was the attraction of friends, and became, instead of lumber in the garret, an ornament in the aunt's parlor, who prized it highly. That model was the result of Robert's fishing excursions with Christopher Gumpf; and when he returned from his aunt's he told Christopher that he must make a set of paddles to work at the sides of the boat, to be operated by a double crank, and then they could propel the old gentleman's fishing-boat with greater ease. Two arms or pieces of timber were then fastened together at right angles, with a paddle at each end, and the crank was attached to the boat across it near the stern, with a paddle operating on a pivot as a rudder; and Fulton's first invention was tried on the Conestoga River, opposite Rockford, in the presence of Peter and Christopher Gumpf. The boys were so pleased with the experiment, that they hid the paddles in the bushes on the shore, lest others might use and break them, and attached them to the boat whenever they chose; and thus did they enjoy very many fishing excursions."

This was the first experiment in the science of navigation attempted by the man who afterward became the author of a new system.

Having chosen the profession of an artist and portrait painter, young Fulton removed to Philadelphia at the age of seventeen, and remained there, pursuing his vocation, until the completion of his twenty-first year. He formed there the acquaintance of Benjamin Franklin, by whom he was much noticed. His success was rapid, and upon attaining his majority he was enabled to purchase and stock a farm of eighty-four acres in Washington County, Pennsylvania, which he gave to his mother for a home as long as she should live. Having thus insured her comfort, he went to England for the purpose of completing his studies in his profession. He took with him letters to Benjamin West, then at the height of his fame, and living in London. He was cordially received by Mr. West, who was also a native of Pennsylvania, and remained an inmate of his family for several years. West was then the President of the Royal Academy of Great Britain, and was thus enabled to extend to Fulton, to whom he became deeply attached, many advantages, both social and professional, of which the young artist was prompt to avail himself.

Upon leaving the family of Mr. West, Fulton commenced a tour for the purpose of examining the treasures of art contained in the residences of the English nobility, and remained for two years in Devonshire. There he became acquainted with the Duke of Bridgewater, to whom England is indebted for the introduction of the canal system within her limits; and it is said that he was induced by this nobleman to abandon the profession of an artist, and enter upon that of a civil engineer. This nobleman being devoted to mechanical investigations, proved a very congenial acquaintance to Fulton. He was engaged at the time on a scheme of steam navigation by a propeller, modeled after the foot of a water fowl. His plan did not commend itself to Fulton's judgment, and he addressed him a letter, setting forth its defects, and advancing some of the views upon which he acted himself in after life. Here he also met with Watt, who had just produced the steam-engine, which Fulton studied enthusiastically. His own inventive genius was not idle, and while living in Devonshire, he produced an improved mill for sawing marble, which won him the thanks and medal of the British Society for the Promotion of the Arts and Commerce; a machine for spinning flax and making ropes; and an excavator for scooping out the channels of canals and aqueducts, all of which were patented. He published a number of communications on the subject of canals in one of the leading London journals, and a treatise upon the same subject. Having obtained a patent in England for canal improvements, he went to France in 1797, with the design of introducing them in that country.

Upon reaching Paris, he took up his residence with Mr. Joel Barlow, and thus was laid the foundation of a friendship between these two gentlemen which lasted during their lives. He remained in Paris seven years, residing during that time with Mr. Barlow, and devoting himself to the study of modern languages, and engineering and its kindred sciences.

His work was continuous and severe in Paris. He invented and painted the first panorama ever exhibited in that city, which he sold for the purpose of raising money for his experiments in steam navigation; he also designed a series of splendid colored illustrations for The Columbiad, the famous poem of his friend Mr. Barlow. Besides these, he invented a number of improvements in canals, aqueducts, inclined planes, boats, and guns, which yielded him considerable credit, but very little profit.

In 1801, he invented a submarine boat which he called the "Nautilus," which is thus described by M. de St. Aubin, a member of the Tribunate:

"The diving-boat, in the construction of which he is now employed, will be capacious enough to contain eight men and provision for twenty days, and will be of sufficient strength and power to enable him to plunge one hundred feet under water, if necessary. He has contrived a reservoir of air, which will enable eight men to remain under water eight hours. When the boat is above water, it has two sails, and looks just like a common boat; when it is to dive, the mast and sails are struck.

"In making his experiments, Mr. Fulton not only remained a whole hour under water, with three of his companions, but had the boat parallel to the horizon at any given distance. He proved that the compass points as correctly under water as on the surface, and that while under water the boat made way at the rate of half a league an hour, by means contrived for that purpose.

"It is not twenty years since all Europe was astonished at the first ascension of men in balloons: perhaps in a few years they will not be less surprised to see a flotilla of diving-boats, which, on a given signal, shall, to avoid the pursuit of an enemy, plunge under water, and rise again several leagues from the place where they descended!

"But if we have not succeeded in steering the balloon, and even were it impossible to attain that object, the case is different with the diving-boat, which can be conducted under water in the same manner as upon the surface. It has the advantage of sailing like the common boat, and also of diving when it is pursued. With these qualities, it is fit for carrying secret orders, to succor a blockaded fort, and to examine the force and position of an enemy in their harbors."

In connection with this boat, Fulton invented a torpedo, or infernal machine, for the purpose of destroying vessels of war by approaching them under water and breaking up their hulls by the explosion. He offered his invention several times to the French Government, and once to the Ambassador of Holland at Paris, without being able to induce them to consider it. Somewhat later, he visited London, at the request of the British Ministry, and explained his invention to them. Although he succeeded in blowing up a vessel of two hundred tons with one hundred and seventy pounds of powder, and in extorting from Mr. Pitt the acknowledgment that, if introduced into practice, the torpedo would annihilate all navies, his invention was rejected, through the influence of Lord Melville, who feared that its adoption might injure England more than it would benefit her. At the first, when it was thought that England would purchase Fulton's invention, it was intimated to him that he would be required to pledge himself not to dispose of it to any other power. He replied promptly:

"Whatever may be your award, I never will consent to let these inventions lie dormant should my country at any time have need of them. Were you to grant me an annuity of twenty thousand pounds, I would sacrifice all to the safety and independence of my country."

In 1806, Mr. Fulton returned to New York, and in the same year he married Miss Harriet Livingston, a niece of Chancellor Livingston, by whom he had four children. He offered his torpedo to the General Government, but the trial to which it was subjected by the Navy Department was unsuccessful for him, and the Government declined to purchase the invention.

But it was not as the inventor of engines of destruction that Robert Fulton was to achieve fame. A still nobler triumph was reserved for him—one which was to bring joy instead of sorrow to the world. From the time that Fulton had designed the paddle-wheels for his fishing-boat, he had never ceased to give his attention to the subject of propelling vessels by machinery, and after his acquaintance with Watt, he was more than ever convinced that the steam-engine could, under proper circumstances, be made to furnish the motive power.

Several eminent and ingenious men, previous to this, had proposed to propel vessels by steam power, among whom were Dr. Papin, of France, Savery, the Marquis of Worcester, and Dr. John Allen, of London, in 1726. In 1786, Oliver Evans, of Philadelphia, and about the same time Dr. Franklin, proposed to accomplish this result by forcing a quantity of water, by means of steam power, through an opening made for that purpose in the stern of the hull of the boat.

In 1737, Jonathan Hulls issued a pamphlet proposing to construct a boat to be moved by steam power, for the purpose of towing vessels out of harbors against tide and winds. In his plan the paddle-wheel was used, and was secured to a frame placed far out over the stern of the boat. It was given this position by the inventor because water fowls propelled themselves by pushing their feet behind them.

In 1787, Mr. James Rumsey, of Shepherdstown, Virginia, constructed and navigated the first steamboat in actual use. His boat was eighty feet in length, and was propelled by means of a vertical pump in the middle of the vessel, by which the water was drawn in at the bow and expelled at the stern through a horizontal trough in her hull. The engine weighed about one third of a ton, and the boat had a capacity of about three tons burthen. When thus laden, a speed of about four miles an hour could be attained. The boiler held only five gallons of water, and needed but a pint at a time. Rumsey went to England to exhibit his plan on the Thames, and died there in 1793.

About the same time the Marquis de Joffrey launched a steamer one hundred feet long on the Loire, at Lyons, using paddles revolving on an endless chain, but only to find his experiment a failure.

In December, 1786, John Fitch published the following account of a steamer with which he had made several experiments on the Delaware, at Philadelphia, and which came nearer to success than any thing that had at that time been invented:

"The cylinder is to be horizontal, and the steam to work with equal force at each end. The mode by which we obtain what I term a vacuum is, it is believed, entirely new, as is also the method of letting the water into it, and throwing it off against the atmosphere without any friction. It is expected that the cylinder, which is of twelve inches diameter, will move a clear force of eleven or twelve cwt. after the frictions are deducted: this force is to be directed against a wheel of eighteen inches diameter. The piston moves about three feet, and each vibration of it gives the axis about forty revolutions. Each revolution of the axis moves twelve oars or paddles five and a half feet: they work perpendicularly, and are represented by the strokes of a paddle of a canoe. As six of the paddles are raised from the water, six more are entered, and the two sets of paddles make their strokes of about eleven feet in each revolution. The crank of the axis acts upon the paddles about one-third of their length from their lower ends, on which part of the oar the whole force of the axis is applied. The engine is placed in the bottom of the boat, about one-third from the stern, and both the action and reaction turn the wheel the same way."

Fitch was unfortunate in his affairs, and became so disheartened that he ceased to attempt to improve his invention, and finally committed suicide by drowning himself in the Alleghany River at Pittsburgh.

In 1787, Mr. Patrick Miller, of Dalwinston, Scotland, designed a double vessel, propelled by a wheel placed in the stern between the two keels. This boat is said to have been very successful, but it was very small, the cylinder being only four inches in diameter. In 1789, Mr. Miller produced a larger vessel on the same plan, which made seven miles per hour in the still water of the Forth and Clyde Canal, but it proved too weak for its machinery, which had to be taken out.

It was in the face of these failures that Fulton applied himself to the task of designing a successful steamboat. During his residence in Paris he had made the acquaintance of Mr. Robert R. Livingston, then the American minister in France, who had previously been connected with some unsuccessful steamboat experiments at home. Mr. Livingston was delighted to find a man of Fulton's mechanical genius so well satisfied of the practicability of steam navigation, and joined heartily with him in his efforts to prove his theories by experiments. Several small working models made by Fulton convinced Mr. Livingston that the former had discovered and had overcome the cause of the failure of the experiments of other inventors, and it was finally agreed between them to build a large boat for trial on the Seine. This experimental steamer was furnished with paddle wheels, and was completed and launched early in the spring of 1803. On the very morning appointed for the trial, Fulton was aroused from his sleep by a messenger from the boat, who rushed into his chamber, pale and breathless, exclaiming, "Oh, sir, the boat has broken in pieces and gone to the bottom!" Hastily dressing and hurrying to the spot, he found that the weight of the machinery had broken the boat in half and carried the whole structure to the bottom of the river. He at once set to work to raise the machinery, devoting twenty-four hours, without resting or eating, to the undertaking, and succeeded in doing so, but inflicted upon his constitution a strain from which he never entirely recovered. The machinery was very slightly damaged, but it was necessary to rebuild the boat entirely. This was accomplished by July of the same year, and the boat was tried in August with triumphant success, in the presence of the French National Institute and a vast crowd of the citizens of Paris.

This steamer was very defective, but still so great an improvement upon all that had preceded it, that Messrs. Fulton and Livingston determined to build one on a larger scale in the waters of New York, the right of navigating which by steam vessels had been secured by the latter as far back as 1798. The law which granted this right had been continued from time to time through Mr. Livingston's influence, and was finally amended so as to include Fulton within its provisions. Having resolved to return home, Fulton set out as soon as possible, stopping in England on his return, to order an engine for his boat from Watt and Boulton. He gave an exact description of the engine, which was built in strict accordance with his plan, but declined to state the use to which he intended putting it.

Very soon after his arrival in New York, he commenced building his first American boat, and finding that her cost would greatly exceed his estimate, he offered for sale a third interest in the monopoly of the navigation of the waters of New York, held by Livingston and himself, in order to raise money to build the boat, and thus lighten the burdens of himself and his partner, but he could find no one willing to risk money in such a scheme. Indeed, steam navigation was universally regarded in America as a mere chimera, and Fulton and Livingston were ridiculed for their faith in it. The bill granting the monopoly held by Livingston was regarded as so utterly absurd by the Legislature of New York, that that wise body could with difficulty be induced to consider it seriously. Even among scientific men the project was considered impracticable. A society in Rotterdam had, several years before Fulton's return home, applied to the American Philosophical Society to be informed whether any and what improvements had been made in the construction of steam-engines in America. A reply to this inquiry was prepared, at the request of the Society, by Mr. Benjamin H. Latrobe, a distinguished engineer. The following extracts from this paper will show the reader how Fulton's scheme was regarded by one who was confessedly one of the most brilliant engineers of his day, and who has since accomplished so much for the improvement of steam travel:

During the general lassitude of mechanical exertion which succeeded the American Revolution, We utility of steam-engines appears to have been forgotten; but the subject afterward started into very general notice in a form in which it could not possibly be attended with success. A sort of mania began to prevail, which, indeed, has not yet entirely subsided, for impelling boats by steam-engines. Dr. Franklin proposed to force forward the boat by the immediate application of the steam upon the water. Many attempts to simplify the working of the engine, and more to employ a means of dispensing with the beam in converting the libratory into a rotatory motion, were made. For a short time, a passage-boat, rowed by a steam-engine, was established between Borden-town and Philadelphia, but it was soon laid aside. The best and most powerful steam-engine which has been employed for this purpose—excepting, perhaps, one constructed by Dr. Kinsey, with the performance of which I am not sufficiently acquainted—belonged to a gentleman of New York. It was made to act, by way of experiment, upon oars, upon paddles, and upon flutter-wheels. Nothing in the success of any of these experiments appeared to be sufficient compensation for the expense and the extreme inconvenience of the steam-engine in the vessel.

There are, indeed, general objections to the use of the steam-engine for impelling boats, from which no particular mode of application can be free. These are:

First. The weight of the engine and of the fuel.

Second. The large space it occupies.

Third. The tendency of its action to rack the vessel, and render it leaky.

Fourth. The expense of maintenance.

Fifth. The irregularity of its motion, and the motion of the water in the boiler and cistern, and of the fuel-vessel in rough water.

Sixth. The difficulty arising from the liability of the paddles and oars to break, if light, and from the weight, if made strong.

Nor have I ever heard of an instance, verified by other testimony than that of the inventor, of a speedy and agreeable voyage having been performed in a steamboat of any construction.

I am well aware that there are still many very respectable and ingenious men who consider the application of the steam-engine to the purpose of navigation as highly important, and as very practicable, especially on the rapid waters of the Mississippi, and who would feel themselves almost offended at the expression of an opposite opinion. And, perhaps, some of the objections against it may be avoided. That founded on the expense and weight of the fuel may not, for some years, exist on the Mississippi, where there is a redundance of wood on the banks; but the cutting and loading will be almost as great an evil.

Scientific men and amateurs all agreed in pronouncing Fulton's scheme impracticable; but he went on with his work, his boat attracting no less attention and exciting no less ridicule than the ark had received from the scoffers in the days of Noah. The steam-engine ordered from Boulton and Watt was received in the latter part of 1806; and in the following spring the boat was launched from the ship-yard of Charles Brown, on the East River. Fulton named her the "Clermont," after the country-seat of his friend and partner, Chancellor Livingston. She was one hundred and sixty tons burthen, one hundred and thirty feet long, eighteen feet wide, and seven feet deep. Her engine was made with a single cylinder, two feet in diameter, and of four feet stroke; and her boiler was twenty feet long, seven feet deep, and eight feet broad. The diameter of the paddle-wheels was fifteen feet, the boards four feet long, and dipping two feet in the water. The boat was completed about the last of August, and she was moved by her machinery from the East River into the Hudson, and over to the Jersey shore. This trial, brief as it was, satisfied Fulton of its success, and he announced that in a few days the steamer would sail from New York for Albany. A few friends, including several scientific men and mechanics, were invited to take passage in the boat, to witness her performance; and they accepted the invitation with a general conviction that they were to do but little more than witness another failure.

Monday, September 10, 1807, came at length, and a vast crowd assembled along the shore of the North River to witness the starting. As the hour for sailing drew near, the crowd increased, and jokes were passed on all sides at the expense of the inventor, who paid little attention to them, however, but busied himself in making a final and close inspection of the machinery. Says Fulton, "The morning I left New York, there were not, perhaps, thirty persons in the city who believed that the boat would ever move one mile per hour, or be of the least utility; and while we were putting off from the wharf, which was crowded with spectators, I heard a number of sarcastic remarks."

One o'clock, the hour for sailing, came, and expectation was at its highest. The friends of the inventor were in a state of feverish anxiety lest the enterprise should come to grief, and the scoffers on the wharf were all ready to give vent to their shouts of derision. Precisely as the hour struck, the moorings were thrown off, and the "Clermont" moved slowly out into the stream. Volumes of smoke and sparks from her furnaces, which were fed with pine wood, rushed forth from her chimney, and her wheels, which were uncovered, scattered the spray far behind her. The spectacle she presented as she moved out gradually from her dock was certainly novel to the people of those days, and the crowd on the wharf broke into shouts of ridicule. Soon, however, the jeers grew silent, for it was seen that the steamer was by degrees increasing her speed. In a little while she was fairly under weigh, and making a steady progress up the stream at the rate of five miles per hour. The incredulity of the spectators had been succeeded by astonishment, and now this feeling gave way to undisguised delight, and cheer after cheer went up from the vast throng. Many people followed the boat for some distance up the river shore. In a little while, however, the boat was observed to stop, and the enthusiasm of the people on the shore at once subsided. The scoffers were again in their glory, and unhesitatingly pronounced the boat a failure. Their chagrin may be imagined when, after a short delay, the steamer once more proceeded on her way, and this time even more rapidly than before. Fulton had discovered that the paddles were too long, and took too deep a hold on the water, and had stopped the boat for the purpose of shortening them.

Having remedied this defect, the "Clermont" continued her voyage during the rest of the day and all night, without stopping, and at one o'clock the next day ran alongside the landing at Clermont, the seat of Chancellor Livingston. She lay there until nine the next morning, when she continued her voyage toward Albany, reaching that city at five in the afternoon, having made the entire distance between New York and Albany (one hundred and fifty miles) in thirty-two hours of actual running time, an average speed of nearly five miles per hour. On her return trip, she reached New York in thirty hours running time—exactly five miles per hour. Fulton states that during both trips he encountered a head wind.

The river was at this time navigated entirely with sailing vessels, and large numbers of these were encountered by the "Clermont" during her up and down trips. The surprise and dismay excited among the crews of these vessels by the appearance of the steamer was extreme. These simple people, the majority of whom had heard nothing of Fulton's experiments, beheld what they supposed to be a huge monster, vomiting fire and smoke from its throat, lashing the water with its fins, and shaking the river with its roar, approaching rapidly in the very face of both wind and tide. Some threw themselves flat on the deck of their vessels, where they remained in an agony of terror until the monster had passed, while others took to their boats and made for the shore in dismay, leaving their vessels to drift helplessly down the stream. Nor was this terror confined to the sailors. The people dwelling along the shore crowded the banks to gaze upon the steamer as she passed by. A former resident of the neighborhood of Poughkeepsie thus describes the scene at that place, which will serve as a specimen of the conduct of the people along the entire river below Albany:

"It was in the early autumn of the year 1807 that a knot of villagers was gathered on a high bluff just opposite Poughkeepsie, on the west bank of the Hudson, attracted by the appearance of a strange, dark-looking craft, which was slowly making its way up the river. Some imagined it to be a sea-monster, while others did not hesitate to express their belief that it was a sign of the approaching judgment What seemed strange in the vessel was the substitution of lofty and straight black smoke-pipes, rising from the deck, instead of the gracefully tapered masts that commonly stood on the vessels navigating the stream, and, in place of the spars and rigging, the curious play of the working-beam and pistons, and the slow turning and splashing of the huge and naked paddle-wheels, met the astonished gaze. The dense clouds of smoke, as they rose wave upon wave, added still more to the wonderment of the rustics.

"This strange-looking craft was the 'Clermont,' on her trial trip to Albany; and of the little knot of villagers mentioned above, the writer, then a boy in his eighth year, with his parents, formed a part. I well remember the scene, one so well fitted to impress a lasting picture upon the mind of a child accustomed to watch the vessels that passed up and down the river.

"The forms of four persons were distinctly visible on the deck as she passed the bluff—one of whom, doubtless, was Robert Fulton, who had on board with him all the cherished hopes of years, the most precious cargo the wonderful boat could carry.

"On her return trip, the curiosity she excited was scarcely less intense. The whole country talked of nothing but the sea-monster, belching forth fire and smoke. The fishermen became terrified, and rowed homewards, and they saw nothing but destruction devastating their fishing-grounds; while the wreaths of black vapor, and rushing noise of the paddle-wheels, foaming with the stirred-up waters, produced great excitement among the boatmen, which continued without abatement, until the character of that curious boat, and the nature of the enterprise which she was pioneering, had been understood."

The alarm of the sailors and dwellers on the river shore disappeared as the character of the steamer became better known; but when it was found that the "Clermont" was to run regularly between New York and Albany, as a packet-boat, she became the object of the most intense hatred on the part of the boatmen on the river, who feared that she would entirely destroy their business. In many quarters Fulton and his invention were denounced as baneful to society, and frequent attempts were made by captains of sailing vessels to sink the "Clermont" by running into her. She was several times damaged in this way, and the hostility of the boatmen became so great that it was necessary for the Legislature of New York to pass a law declaring combinations to destroy her, or willful attempts to injure her, public offenses punishable by fine and imprisonment.

It had been supposed that Fulton's object was to produce a steamer capable of navigating the Mississippi River, and much surprise was occasioned by the announcement that the "Clermont" was to be permanently employed upon the Hudson. She continued to ply regularly between New York and Albany until the close of navigation for that season, always carrying a full complement of passengers, and more or less freight. During the winter she was overhauled and enlarged, and her speed improved. In the spring of 1808 she resumed her regular trips, and since then steam navigation on the Hudson has not ceased for a single day, except during the closing of the river by ice.

In 1811 and 1812, Fulton built two steam ferry-boats for the North River, and soon after added a third for the East River. These boats were the beginning of the magnificent steam ferry system which is to-day one of the chief wonders of New York. They were what are called twin-boats, each of them consisting of two complete hulls, united by a deck or bridge. They were sharp at both ends, and moved equally well with either end foremost, so that they could cross and re-cross without being turned around. These boats were given engines of sufficient power to enable them to overcome the force of strong ebb tides; and in order to facilitate their landing, Fulton contrived a species of floating dock, and a means of decreasing the shock caused by the striking of the boat against the dock. These boats could accommodate eight four-wheel carriages, twenty-nine horses, and four hundred passengers. Their average time across the North River, a mile and a half wide, was twenty minutes.

The introduction of the steamboat gave a powerful impetus to the internal commerce of the Union. It opened to navigation many important rivers (whose swift currents had closed them to sailing craft), and made rapid and easy communication between the most distant parts of the country practicable. The public soon began to appreciate this, and orders came in rapidly for steamboats for various parts of the country. Fulton executed these as fast as possible, and among the number several for boats for the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.

Early in 1814, the city of New York was seriously menaced with an attack from the British fleet, and Fulton was called on by a committee of citizens to furnish a plan for a means of defending the harbor. He exhibited to the committee his plans for a vessel of war to be propelled by steam, capable of carrying a strong battery, with furnaces for red-hot shot, and which, he represented, would move at the rate of four miles an hour. These plans were also submitted to a number of naval officials, among whom were Commodore Decatur, Captain Jones, Captain Evans, Captain Biddle, Commodore Perry, Captain Warrington, and Captain Lewis, all of whom warmly united in urging the Government to undertake the construction of the proposed steamer. The citizens of New York offered, if the Government would employ and pay for her after she was built, to advance the sum ($320,000) necessary for her construction. The subject was vigorously pressed, and in March, 1814, Congress authorized the building of one or more floating batteries after the plan presented by Fulton. Her keel was laid on the 20th of June, 1814, and on the 31st of October, of the same year, she was launched, amid great rejoicings, from the ship-yard of Adam and Noah Brown. In May, 1815, her engines were put on board, and on the 4th of July of that year she made a trial trip to Sandy Hook and back, accomplishing the round trip—a distance of fifty-three miles—in eight hours and twenty minutes, under steam alone. Before this, however, peace had been proclaimed, and Fulton had gone to rest from his labors.

The ship was a complete success, and was the first steam vessel of war ever built. She was called the "Fulton the First," and was for many years used as the receiving ship at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. She was an awkward and unwieldy mass, but was regarded as the most formidable vessel afloat; and as the pioneer of the splendid war steamers of to-day is still an object of great interest. The English regarded her with especial uneasiness, and put in circulation the most marvelous stories concerning her. One of these I take from a treatise on steam navigation published in Scotland at this period, the author of which assures his readers that he has taken the utmost pains to obtain full and accurate information respecting the American war steamer. His description is as follows:

"Length on deck three hundred feet, breadth two hundred feet, thickness of her sides, thirteen feet, of alternate oak plank and corkwood; carries forty-four guns, four of which are 100-pounders, quarter-deck and forcastle guns, 44-pounders; and further, to annoy an enemy attempting to board, can discharge one hundred gallons of boiling water in a minute, and by mechanism brandishes three hundred cutlasses, with the utmost regularity, over her gunwales; works also an equal number of heavy iron pikes of great length, darting them from her sides with prodigious force, and withdrawing them every quarter of a minute!"

Fulton followed up the "Clermont," in 1807, with a larger boat, called the "Car of Neptune," which was placed on the Albany route as soon as completed. The Legislature of New York had enacted a law, immediately upon his first success, giving to Livingston and himself the exclusive right to navigate the waters of the State by steam, for five years for every additional boat they should build in the State, provided the whole term should not exceed thirty years. "In the following year the Legislature passed another act, confirmatory of the prior grants, and giving new remedies to the grantees for any invasion of them, and subjecting to forfeiture any vessel propelled by steam which should enter the waters of the State without their license. In 1809 Fulton obtained his first patent from the United States; and in 1811 he took out a second patent for some improvement in his boats and machinery. His patents were limited to the simple means of adapting paddle wheels to the axle of the crank of Watt's engine.

"Meanwhile the power of the Legislature to grant the steamboat monopoly was denied, and a company was formed at Albany to establish another line of steam passage boats on the Hudson, between that city and New York. The State grantees filed a bill in equity, and prayed for an injunction, which was refused by Chancellor Lansing, on the ground that the act of the State Legislature was repugnant to the Constitution of the United States, and against common right. This decree was unanimously reversed by the Court of Errors, and a compromise was effected with the Albany company by an assignment to them of the right to employ steam on the waters of Lake Champlain.

"Legislative aid was again invoked, and an act was passed directing peremptorily the allowance of an injunction on the prayer of the State grantees, and the seizure of any hostile boat at the commencement of the suit. Litigation was thus effectually arrested in New York, though by an arbitrary and unconstitutional enactment, and the waters of the State remained in the exclusive possession of Fulton and his partner during the lifetime of the former. A similar controversy with Colonel Aaron Ogden, of New Jersey, was compromised by advantageous concessions, which converted the opponent of the monopoly into its firmest friend, and left him many years afterward the defeated party in the famous suit of Gibbons and Ogden, in the Supreme Court of the United States."

In January, 1815, Fulton was summoned to Trenton, New Jersey, as a witness in one of the numerous suits which grew out of the efforts to break down his monopoly. During his examination he was very much exposed, as the hall of the Legislature was uncommonly cold. In returning home, he crossed the Hudson in an open boat, and was detained on the river several hours. This severe exposure brought on an attack of sickness, which for a short time confined him to his bed. The steam frigate, then almost ready for her engines, occasioned him great anxiety at the time, and before he had fairly recovered his strength he went to the ship-yard to give some directions to the workmen employed on her, and thus exposed himself again to the inclemency of the weather. In a few days his indisposition prostrated him again, and, growing rapidly worse, he died on the 24th of February, 1815, at the age of fifty years. His death was universally regarded as a national calamity, and appropriate honors were paid to his memory by the General Government and by many of the State and municipal governments of the Union. He was buried from his residence, No. 1 State Street, on the 25th of February, and his body was placed in the vault of the Livingston family, in Trinity church-yard.

He left a widow and four children. By the terms of his will he bequeathed to his wife an income of nine thousand dollars a year, and five hundred dollars to each of his children until they were twelve years old, after which they were each to receive one thousand dollars a year until they should attain the age of twenty-one years.

In person, Fulton was tall and handsome. His manner was polished, cordial, and winning. He made friends rapidly, and never failed in his efforts to enlist capital and influence in support of his schemes. He was manly, fearless, and independent in character, and joined to a perfect integrity a patience and indomitable resolution which enabled him to bear up under every disappointment, and which won him in the end a glorious success. His name and fame will always be dear to his countrymen, for while we can not claim that he was (nor did he ever assume to be) the inventor of steam navigation, or even the inventor of the means of such navigation, we do claim for him the honor of being the first man to cross the gulf which lies between experiment and achievement, the man whose skill and perseverance first conquered the difficulties which had baffled so many others, and made steam navigation both practicable and profitable. The Committee of the London Exhibition of 1851 gave utterance in their report to a declaration which places his fame beyond assault, as follows:

"Many persons, in various countries, claim the honor of having first invented small boats propelled by steam, but it is to the undaunted perseverance and exertions of the American Fulton that is due the everlasting honor of having produced this revolution, both in naval architecture and navigation."



CHAPTER XIV.

CHARLES GOODYEAR.

In the year 1735, a party of astronomers, sent by the French Government to Peru for purposes of scientific investigation, discovered a curious tree growing in that country, the like of which no European had ever seen before. It grew to a considerable size, and yielded a peculiar sap or gum. It was the custom of the natives to make several incisions in each tree with an ax, in the morning, and to place under each incision a cup or jar made of soft clay. Late in the afternoon, the fluid thus obtained was collected in a large clay vessel, each incision yielding about a gill of sap per day. This process was repeated for several days in succession, until the tree had been thoroughly drained. This sap was simply a species of liquid gum, which, though clear and colorless in its native state, had the property of becoming hard and tough when exposed to the sun or artificial heat. It was used by the natives for the manufacture of a few rude and simple articles, by a process similar to that by which the old-fashioned "tallow-dip" candles were made. It was poured over a pattern of clay or a wooden mold or last covered with clay, and successive coatings were applied as fast as the former ones dried, until the article had attained the desired thickness, the whole taking the shape of the mold over which the gum was poured. As the layers were applied, their drying was hastened by exposure to the heat and smoke of a fire, the latter giving to the gum a dark-black hue. Dried without exposure to the smoke, or by the sun alone, the gum became white within and yellowish-brown without. The drying process required several days, and during its progress the gum was ornamented with characters or lines made with a stick. When it was completed, the clay mold was broken to pieces and shaken out of the opening. The natives in this manner made a species of rough, clumsy shoe, and an equally rough bottle. In some parts of South America, the natives make it a rule to present their guests with one of these bottles, furnished with a hollow stern, which serves as a syringe for squirting water into the mouth in order to cleanse it after eating. The articles thus made were liable to become stiff and unmanageable in cold weather, and soft and sticky in warm. The French astronomers, upon their return to their own country, were quick to call attention to this remarkable gum, which was afterward discovered in Cayenne by Trismau, in 1751. At present it is found in large quantities in various parts of South America, but the chief supplies used in commerce are produced in the province of Para, which lies south of the equator, in Brazil. It is also grown largely in the East Indies, vast and inexhaustible forests of the trees which yield it being found in Assam, beyond the Ganges, although the quality can not compare with that of the South American article.

This substance, variously known as cachuchu, caoutchouc, gum elastic, and India-rubber, was first introduced into Europe in 1730, where it was regarded merely as a curiosity, useful for erasing pencil marks, but valueless for any practical use. Ships from South America brought it over as ballast, but it was not until ninety years after its first appearance in Europe that any effort was made to utilize it. About the year 1820 it began to be used in France in the manufacture of suspenders and garters, India-rubber threads being mixed with the materials used in weaving those articles. It was also used in blacking and varnish, and some years later, Mackintosh brought it into prominent notice by using it in his famous water-proof coats, which were made by spreading a layer of the gum between two pieces of cloth. The gum was thus protected from the air, and preserved from injury.

Up to this time, it was almost an unknown article in the United States, but in 1820 a pair of India-rubber shoes were exhibited in Boston. Even then they were regarded as merely a curiosity, and were covered with gilt foil to hide their natural ugliness. In 1823, a merchant, engaged in the South American trade, imported five hundred pairs from the Para district. He had no difficulty in disposing of them; and so great was the favor with which they were received, that in a few years the annual importation of India-rubber shoes amounted to five hundred thousand pairs. It had become a matter of fashion to wear these shoes, and no person's toilet was complete in wet weather unless the feet were incased in them; yet they were terribly rough and clumsy. They had scarcely any shape to them, and were not to be depended on in winter or summer. In the cold season they froze so hard that they could be used only after being thawed by the fire, and in summer they could be preserved only by keeping them on ice; and if, during the thawing process, they were placed too near the fire, there was danger that they would melt into a shapeless and useless mass. They cost from three to five dollars per pair, which was very high for an article so perishable in its nature.

The great popularity of India-rubber induced Mr. E.M. Chaflee, of Boston, the foreman of a patent leather factory in that city, to attempt to apply the new substance to some of the uses to which patent leather was then put. His hope was that, by spreading the liquid gum upon cloth, he could produce an article which, while possessing the durability and flexibility of patent leather, would also be water-proof. His experiments extended over a period of several months, during which time he kept his plan a secret. He dissolved a pound of the gum in three quarts of spirits of turpentine, and added to the mixture enough lamp-black to produce a bright black color, and was so well satisfied with his compound, that he felt sure that the only thing necessary to his entire success was a machine for spreading it properly on the cloth. Like a true son of New England, he soon overcame this difficulty by inventing the desired machine. His compound was spread on the cloth, and dried in the sun, producing a hard, smooth surface, and one sufficiently flexible to be twisted into any shape without cracking. Mr. Chaffee was now sure that he had mastered the difficulty. Taking a few capitalists into his confidence, he succeeded so well in convincing them of the excellence of his invention, that in February, 1833, a company, called the "Roxbury India-rubber Company," was organized, with a capital of thirty thousand dollars. In three years this sum was increased to four hundred thousand dollars. The new company manufactured India-rubber cloth according to Mr. Chaffee's process, and from it made wagon-covers, piano-covers, caps, coats, and a few other articles, and, in a little while, added to their list of products shoes without fiber. They had no difficulty in disposing of their stock. Every body had taken the "India-rubber fever," as the excitement caused by Mr. Chaffee's discovery was called; and so high were the hopes of the public raised by it, that buyers were found in abundance whenever the bonds of the numerous India-rubber companies were offered for sale. The extraordinary success of the Roxbury Company led to the establishment of similar enterprises at Boston, Framingham, Salem, Lynn, Chelsea, Troy, and Staten Island. The Roxbury Company could not supply the demand for its articles, and the others appeared to have as much business as they could attend to. Apparently, they were all on the high road to wealth.

Their prosperity was only fictitious, however, and a day of fearful disaster was pending over them. The bulk of the goods produced in 1833 and 1834 had been manufactured in the cold weather, and the greater part of them had succumbed to the heat of the ensuing summer. The shoes had melted to a soft mass, and the caps, wagon-covers, and coats had become sticky and useless in summer, and rigid in the cold of winter. In some cases the articles had borne the test of one year's use, but the second summer had ruined them. To make the matter worse, they emitted an odor so offensive that it was necessary to bury them in the ground to get rid of the smell. Twenty thousand dollars' worth were thrown back on the hands of the Roxbury Company alone, and the directors were appalled by the ruin which threatened them. It was useless for them to go on manufacturing goods which might prove worthless at any moment; and, as their capital was already taxed to its utmost, it was plain that unless a better process should be speedily discovered, they must become involved in irretrievable disaster. Their efforts were unavailing, however. No better process was found, and the disgust of the public with their goods was soon general and unmitigable. India-rubber stock fell rapidly, and by the end of the year 1836 there was not a solvent company in the Union. The loss of the stockholders was complete, and amounted in the aggregate to two millions of dollars. People came to detest the very name of India-rubber, since it reminded them only of blighted hopes and heavy losses.

Before the final disaster, however, it chanced that a bankrupt merchant of Philadelphia, being one day in New York on business, was led by curiosity to visit the salesroom of the agency of the Roxbury Company in that city. His visit resulted in the purchase of a life-preserver, which he took home with him for the purpose of examining it. Subjecting it to a careful investigation, he discovered a defect in the valve used for inflating it, and promptly devised a simpler and better apparatus.

This man, afterward so famous in the history of India-rubber manufacture, was CHARLES GOODYEAR. He was born at New Haven, Connecticut, on the 29th of December, 1800. He attended a public school during his boyhood, thus acquiring a limited education. When quite a youth, he removed with his family to Philadelphia, where his father entered into the hardware business. Upon coming of age, he was admitted to partnership with his father and one of his brothers, the style of the firm being A. Goodyear & Sons. The house was extensively engaged in the manufacture of hardware, and among the other articles which they introduced was a light hay-fork, made of spring steel, which gradually took the place of the heavy wrought iron implement formerly in general use among the farmers. It required a large outlay and a great deal of time to introduce this fork, but, once in use, it rapidly drove the old one out of the market, and proved a source of considerable profit to its inventor. The prosperity of the house, however, soon began to wane, and it was brought to bankruptcy by the crisis of 1836.

Mr. Goodyear's attention had for some time been attracted to the wonderful apparent success of the India-rubber companies of the country, and he was hopeful that his improvement in the inflating apparatus of the life-preserver would bring him the means of partially extricating himself from his difficulties. Repairing to New York, he called on the agent of the Roxbury Company, and explaining his invention to him, offered to sell it to the company. The agent was struck with the skill displayed in the improvement of Mr. Goodyear, but, instead of offering to buy it, astounded the inventor by informing him of the real state of the India-rubber trade of the country. He urged Mr. Goodyear to exert his inventive skill to discover some means of imparting durability to India-rubber goods, and assured him that if he could discover a process which would secure that end, the various companies of the United States would eagerly buy it at his own price. He explained to him the process then in use, and pointed out its imperfections. Mr. Goodyear listened carefully to his statements, forgot all about his disappointment in failing to sell his improved inflating apparatus, and went home firmly convinced that he had found his true mission in life. In after years, when success had crowned his labors, he modestly referred to this period of his career in language the substance of which is thus recorded:

"From the time that his attention was first given to the subject, a strong and abiding impression was made upon his mind that an object so desirable and important, and so necessary to man's comfort, as the making of gum elastic available to his use was most certainly placed within his reach. Having this presentiment, of which he could not divest himself under the most trying adversity, he was stimulated with the hope, of ultimately attaining this object. Beyond this, he would refer the whole to the great Creator, who directs the operations of the mind to the development of properties of matter, in his own way, at the time when they are specially needed, influencing some mind for every work or calling."

There was something sublime in the attitude of this one man, now feeble in health, the only dependence of a young family, a bankrupt in business, starting out to seek success in a field in which so many had found only ruin. He was convinced in his own mind that he would master the secret, while his friends were equally sure that he would but increase his difficulties. The firm of which he had been a member had surrendered all their property to their creditors; but they still owed thirty thousand dollars, and immediately upon his return from New York, after his visit to the agent of the Roxbury Company, he was arrested for debt, and though not actually thrown in jail, was compelled to take up his residence within prison limits.

Strong in the conviction before named, that he was the man of all others to discover the secret of controlling India-rubber, he at once began his experiments. This was in the winter of 1834-35. The gum had fallen in price to five cents per pound, and, poor as he was, he had no difficulty in procuring a sufficient quantity to begin with. By melting and working the gum thoroughly, and by rolling it upon a stone table with a rolling-pin, he succeeded in producing sheets of India-rubber which seemed to him to possess the properties which those of Mr. Chaffee had lacked. He explained his process to a friend, who, becoming interested in it, loaned him the money to manufacture a number of shoes, which at first seemed all that could be desired. Fearful, however, of meeting the fate which had befallen the Roxbury Company, Mr. Goodyear put his shoes away until the next summer, to ascertain whether they would bear the heat. His doubts were more than realized. The warm weather completely ruined them, reducing them to a mass of so offensive an odor that he was glad to throw them away.

The friend of the inventor was thoroughly disheartened by this failure, and refused to have any thing more to do with Goodyear's schemes; but the latter, though much disappointed, did not despair. He set to work to discover the cause of his failure, and traced it, as he supposed, to the mixing of the gum with the turpentine and lamp-black. Having procured some barrels of the gum in its native liquid state, he spread it on cloth without smoking it or mixing it with any thing else. He succeeded in producing a very handsome white rubber cloth, but it was one that became soft and sticky as quickly as the other had done.

It now occurred to him that there must be some mineral substance which, mixed with the gum, would render it durable, and he began to experiment with almost every substance that he could lay his hands on. All these proved total failures, with the exception of magnesia. By mixing half a pound of magnesia with a pound of the gum, he produced a compound much whiter than the pure gum, and one which was at first as firm and flexible as leather. He made book-covers and piano-covers out of it, and for a time it seemed that he had discovered the longed-for secret; but in a month his pretty product was ruined. The heat caused it to soften; then fermentation set in, and, finally, it became as hard and brittle as thin glass.

His friends, who had aided him at first, now turned from him coldly, regarding him as a dreamer; and his own stock of money was exhausted. In his extremity he was forced to pawn all his own valuables, and even some of the trinkets of his wife. In spite of this, he felt sure that he was on the road to success, and that he would very soon be enabled to rise above his present difficulties, and win both fame and fortune. He was obliged for the time, however, to remove his family to the country, depositing with his landlord, as security for the payment of the first quarter's rent, some linen which had been spun by his wife, and which he was never able to redeem. Having settled his family in the country, he set out for New York, where he hoped to find some one willing to aid him in extending his researches still further.

Arrived in the great city, he found two old acquaintances, to whom he stated his plans and his hopes. One of them offered him the use of a room in Gold Street, as a laboratory, and the other, who was a druggist, agreed to let him have such chemicals as he needed on credit. He now proceeded to boil the gum, mixed with magnesia, in quicklime and water, and, as the result, obtained sheets of his compound whose firmness and smoothness of surface won them a medal at the fair of the American Institute in 1835. He seemed now on the point of success, and readily disposed of all the sheets he could manufacture. The newspapers spoke highly of his invention, for which he obtained a patent; and he was about to endeavor to enlist some persons of means in its manufacture on a large scale, when, to his dismay, he discovered that a single drop of the weakest acid, such as the juice of an apple, or diluted vinegar, would utterly destroy the influence of the lime in the compound, and reduce it to the old sticky substance that had baffled him so often.

His next step was to mix quicklime with the gum. In order to work the compound thoroughly, he used to carry the vessel containing it, on his shoulder, to a place three miles distant from his laboratory, where he had the use of horse power. The lime, however, utterly destroyed the gum, and nothing came of this experiment.

The discovery which followed was the result of accident, and brought him on the very threshold of success, yet did not entirely conquer his difficulties. He was an ardent lover of the beautiful, and it was a constant effort with him to render his productions as attractive to the eye as possible. Upon one occasion, while bronzing a piece of rubber cloth, he applied aqua fortis to it for the purpose of removing the bronze from a certain part. It took away the bronze as he had designed, but it also discolored the cloth to such a degree that he supposed it ruined, and threw it away. A day or two later, he chanced to remember that he had not examined very closely into the effect of the aqua fortis upon the rubber, and thereupon instituted a search for it. He was fortunate enough to find it, and was overjoyed to discover that the rubber had undergone a remarkable change, and that the effect of the acid was to harden it to such an extent that it would now stand a degree of heat which would have melted it before. When the reader remembers that aqua fortis is a compound two-fifths of which is sulphuric acid, he will understand that Mr. Goodyear had almost mastered the secret of vulcanizing rubber. He does not appear, however, to have known the true nature of aqua fortis, and called his process the "curing" of India-rubber by the use of that acid.

The "cured" India-rubber was subjected to many tests, and passed through them successfully, thus demonstrating its adaptability to many important uses. Mr. Goodyear readily obtained a patent for his process, and a partner with a large capital was found ready to aid him. He hired the old India-rubber works on Staten Island, and opened a salesroom in Broadway. He was thrown back for six weeks at this important time by an accident, which happened to him while experimenting with his fabrics, and which came near causing his death. Just as he was recovering and preparing to commence the manufacture of his goods on a large scale, the terrible commercial crisis of 1836 swept over the country, and, by destroying his partner's fortune at one blow, reduced Goodyear to absolute beggary. His family had joined him in New York, and he was entirely without the means of supporting them. As the only resource at hand, he decided to pawn an article of value, one of the few which he possessed, in order to raise money enough to procure one day's supply of provisions. At the very door of the pawnbroker's shop he met one of his creditors, who kindly asked if he could be of any further assistance to him. Weak with hunger, and overcome by the generosity of his friend, the poor man burst into tears, and replied that, as his family was on the point of starvation, a loan of fifteen dollars would greatly oblige him. The money was given him on the spot, and the necessity for visiting the pawnbroker averted for several days longer. Still he was a frequent visitor to that individual during the year; and thus, one by one, the relics of his better days disappeared. Another friend loaned him one hundred dollars, which enabled him to remove his family to Staten Island, in the neighborhood of the abandoned rubber works, which the owners gave him permission to use as far as he could. He contrived in this way to manufacture enough of his "cured" cloth, which sold readily, to enable him to keep his family from starvation. He made repeated efforts to induce capitalists to come to the factory and see his samples and the process by which they were made, but no one would venture near him. There had been money enough lost in such experiments, they said, and they were determined to risk no more.

Indeed, in all the broad land there was but one man who had the slightest hope of accomplishing any thing with India-rubber, and that one was Charles Goodyear. His friends regarded him as a monomaniac. He not only manufactured his cloth, but even dressed in clothes made of it, wearing it for the purpose of testing its durability, as well as of advertising it. He was certainly an odd figure, and in his appearance justified the remark of one of his friends, who, upon being asked how Mr. Goodyear could be recognized, replied: "If you see a man with an India-rubber coat on, India-rubber shoes, an India-rubber cap, and in his pocket an India-rubber purse, with not a cent in it, that is Goodyear."

In September, 1836, a new gleam of hope lit up his pathway. A friend having loaned him a small sum of money, he went to Roxbury, taking with him some of his best specimens. Although the Roxbury Company had gone down with such a fearful crash, Mr. Chaffee, the inventor of the process in this country, was still firm in his faith that India-rubber would at some future time justify the expectations of its earliest friends. He welcomed Mr. Goodyear cordially, and allowed him to use the abandoned works of the company for his experiments. The result was that Goodyear succeeded in making slides and cloths of India-rubber of a quality so much better than any that had yet been seen in America, that the hopes of the friends of India-rubber were raised to a high point. Offers to purchase rights for certain portions of the country came in rapidly, and by the sale of them Goodyear realized between four and five thousand dollars. He was now able to bring his family to Roxbury, and for the time fortune seemed to smile upon him.

His success was but temporary, however. He obtained an order from the General Government for one hundred and fifty India-rubber mail-bags, which he succeeded in producing, and as they came out smooth, highly polished, hard, well shaped, and entirely impervious to moisture, he was delighted, and summoned his friends to inspect and admire them. All who saw them pronounced them a perfect success; but, alas! in a single month they began to soften and ferment, and finally became useless. Poor Goodyear's hopes were dashed to the ground. It was found that the aqua fortis merely "cured" the surface of the material, and that only very thin cloth made in this way was durable. His other goods began to prove worthless, and his promising business came to a sudden and disastrous end. All his possessions were seized and sold for debt, and once more he was reduced to poverty. His position was even worse than before, for his family had increased in size, and his aged father also had become dependent upon him for support.

Friends, relatives, and even his wife, all demanded that he should abandon his empty dreams, and turn his attention to something that would yield a support to his family. Four years of constant failure, added to the unfortunate experience of those who had preceded him, ought to convince him, they said, that he was hoping against hope. Hitherto his conduct, they said, had been absurd, though they admitted that he was to some extent excused for it by his partial success; but to persist in it would now be criminal. The inventor was driven to despair, and being a man of tender feelings and ardently devoted to his family, might have yielded to them had he not felt that lie was nearer than ever to the discovery of the secret that had eluded him so long.

Just before the failure of his mail-bags had brought ruin upon him, he had taken into his employ a man named Nathaniel Hayward, who had been the foreman of the old Roxbury works, and who was still in charge of them when Goodyear came to Roxbury, making a few rubber articles on his own account. He hardened his compound by mixing a little powdered sulphur with the gum, or by sprinkling sulphur on the rubber cloth, and drying it in the sun. He declared that the process had been revealed to him in a dream, but could give no further account of it. Goodyear was astonished to find that the sulphur cured the India-rubber as thoroughly as the aqua fortis, the principal objection being that the sulphurous odor of the goods was frightful in hot weather. Hayward's process was really the same as that employed by Goodyear, the "curing" of the India-rubber being due in each case to the agency of sulphur, the principal difference between them being that Hayward's goods were dried by the sun, and Goodyear's with nitric acid. Hay ward set so small a value upon his discovery that he had readily sold it to his new employer.



Goodyear felt that he had now all but conquered his difficulties. It was plain that sulphur was the great controller of India-rubber, for he had proved that when applied to thin cloth it would render it available for most purposes. The problem that now remained was how to mix sulphur and the gum in a mass, so that every part of the rubber should be subjected to the agency of the sulphur. He experimented for weeks and months with the most intense eagerness, but the mystery completely baffled him. His friends urged him to go to work to do something for his family, but he could not turn back. The goal was almost in sight, and he felt that he would be false to his mission were he to abandon his labors now. To the world he seemed a crack-brained dreamer, and some there were who, seeing the distress of his family, did not hesitate to apply still harsher names to him; but to the Great Eye that reads all hearts, how different did this man appear! It saw the anguish that wrung the heart of Charles Goodyear, and knew the more than heroic firmness with which, in the midst of his poverty and suffering, he agonized for the great discovery. Had it been merely wealth that he was working for, doubtless he would have turned back and sought some other means of obtaining it; but he sought more. He was striving for the good of his fellow-men, and ambitious of becoming a benefactor of the race. He felt that he had a mission to fulfill, and no one else could perform it.

He was right. A still greater success was about to crown his labors, but in a manner far different from his expectations. His experiments had developed nothing; chance was to make the revelation. It was in the spring of 1839 that this revelation came to him, and in the following manner: Standing before a stove in a store at Woburn, Massachusetts, he was explaining to some acquaintances the properties of a piece of sulphur-cured India-rubber which he held in his hand. They listened to him good-naturedly, but with evident incredulity, when suddenly he dropped the rubber on the stove, which was red hot. His old cloths would have melted instantly from contact with such heat; but, to his surprise, this piece underwent no such change. In amazement, he examined it, and found that while it had charred or shriveled, like leather, it had not softened at all. The bystanders attached no importance to this phenomenon, but to him it was a revelation. He renewed his experiments with enthusiasm, and in a little while established the facts that India-rubber, when mixed with sulphur and exposed to a certain degree of heat for a certain time, would not melt or even soften at any degree of heat, that it would only char at two hundred and eighty degrees, and that it would not stiffen from exposure to any degree of cold. The difficulty now consisted in finding out the exact degree of heat necessary for the perfection of the rubber, and the exact length of time required for the heating.

He made this discovery in his darkest days; when, in fact, he was in constant danger of arrest for debt, having already been a frequent inmate of the debtor's prison. He was in the depths of bitter poverty, and in such feeble health that he was constantly haunted by the fear of dying before he had perfected his discovery—before he had fulfilled his mission. His poverty was a greater drawback to him than ever before. He needed an apparatus for producing a high and uniform heat for his experiments, and he was unable to obtain it. He used to bake his compound in his wife's bread oven, and steam it over the spout of her tea-kettle, and to press the kitchen fire into his service as far as it would go. When this failed, he would go to the shops in the vicinity of Woburn, and beg to be allowed to use the ovens and boilers after working hours were over. The workmen regarded him as a lunatic, but were too good-natured to deny him the request. Finally, he induced a bricklayer to make him an oven, and paid him in mason's aprons of India-rubber. The oven was a failure. Sometimes it would turn out pieces of perfectly vulcanized cloth, and again the goods would be charred and ruined. Goodyear was in despair.

All this time he lived on the charity of his friends. His neighbors pretended to lend him money, but in reality gave him the means of keeping his family from starvation. He has declared that all the while he felt sure he would, before long, be able to pay them back, but they declared with equal emphasis that, at that time, they never expected to witness his success. He was yellow and shriveled in face, with a gaunt, lean figure, and his habit of wearing an India-rubber coat, which was charred and blackened from his frequent experiments with it, gave him a wild and singular appearance. People shook their heads solemnly when they saw him, and said that the mad-house was the proper place for him.

The winter of 1839-40 was long and severe. At the opening of the season, Mr. Goodyear received a letter from a house in Paris, making him a handsome offer for the use of his process of curing India-rubber with aqua fortis. Here was a chance for him to rise out of his misery. A year before he would have closed with the offer, but since then he had discovered the effects of sulphur and heat on his compound, and had passed far beyond the aqua fortis stage. Disappointment and want had not warped his honesty, and he at once declined to enter into any arrangements with the French house, informing them that although the process they desired to purchase was a valuable one, it was about to be entirely replaced by another which he was then on the point of perfecting, and which he would gladly sell them as soon as he had completed it. His friends declared that he was mad to refuse such an offer; but he replied that nothing would induce him to sell a process which he knew was about to be rendered worthless by still greater discoveries.

A few weeks later, a terrible snow-storm passed over the land, one of the worst that New England has ever known, and in the midst of it Goodyear made the appalling discovery that he had not a particle of fuel or a mouthful of food in the house. He was ill enough to be in bed himself, and his purse was entirely empty. It was a terrible position, made worse, too, by the fact that his friends who had formerly aided him had turned from him, vexed with his pertinacity, and abandoned him to his fate. In his despair, he bethought him of a mere acquaintance who lived several miles from his cottage, and who but a few days before had spoken to him with more of kindness than he had received of late. This gentleman, he thought, would aid him in his distress, if he could but reach his house, but in such a snow the journey seemed hopeless to a man in his feeble health. Still the effort must be made. Nerved by despair, he set out, and pushed his way resolutely through the heavy drifts. The way was long, and it seemed to him that he would never accomplish it. Often he fell prostrate on the snow, almost fainting with fatigue and hunger, and again he would sit down wearily in the road, feeling that he would gladly die if his discovery were but completed. At length, however, he reached the end of his journey, and fortunately found his acquaintance at home. To this gentleman he told the story of his discovery, his hopes, his struggles, and his present sufferings, and implored him to aid him. Mr. Coolidge[A]—for such was the gentleman's name—listened to him kindly, and after expressing the warmest sympathy for him, loaned him money enough to support his family during the severe weather, and to enable him to continue his experiments.

[Footnote A: O.B. Coolidge, of Woburn.]

"Seeing no prospect of success in Massachusetts, he now resolved to make a desperate effort to get to New York, feeling confident that the specimens he could take with him would convince some one of the superiority of his new method. He was beginning to understand the causes of his many failures, but he saw clearly that his compound could not be worked with certainty without expensive apparatus. It was a very delicate operation, requiring exactness and promptitude. The conditions upon which success depended were numerous, and the failure of one spoiled all.... It cost him thousands of failures to learn that a little acid in his sulphur caused the blistering; that his compound must be heated almost immediately after being mixed, or it would never vulcanize; that a portion of white lead in the compound greatly facilitated the operation and improved the result; and when he had learned these facts, it still required costly and laborious experiments to devise the best methods of compounding his ingredients, the best proportions, the best mode of heating, the proper duration of the heating, and the various useful effects that could be produced by varying the proportions and the degree of heat. He tells us that many times when, by exhausting every resource, he had prepared a quantity of his compound for heating, it was spoiled because he could not, with his inadequate apparatus, apply the heat soon enough.

"To New York, then, he directed his thoughts. Merely to get there cost him a severer and a longer effort than men in general are capable of making. First he walked to Boston, ten miles distant, where he hoped to borrow from an old acquaintance fifty dollars, with which to provide for his family and pay his fare to New York. He not only failed in this, but he was arrested for debt and thrown into prison. Even in prison, while his father was negotiating to procure his release, he labored to interest men of capital in his discovery, and made proposals for founding a factory in Boston. Having obtained his liberty, he went to a hotel, and spent a week in vain efforts to effect a small loan. Saturday night came, and with it his hotel bill, which he had no means of discharging. In an agony of shame and anxiety, he went to a friend and entreated the sum of five dollars to enable him to return home. He was met with a point blank refusal. In the deepest dejection, he walked the streets till late in the night, and strayed at length, almost beside himself, to Cambridge, where he ventured to call upon a friend and ask shelter for the night. He was hospitably entertained, and the next morning walked wearily home, penniless and despairing. At the door of his house a member of his family met him with the news that his youngest child, two years old, whom he had left in perfect health, was dying. In a few hours he had in his house a dead child, but not the means of burying it, and five living dependents without a morsel of food to give them. A storekeeper near by had promised to supply the family, but, discouraged by the unforeseen length of the father's absence, he had that day refused to trust them further. In these terrible circumstances, he applied to a friend upon whose generosity he knew he could rely, one who never failed him. He received in reply a letter of severe and cutting reproach, inclosing seven dollars, which his friend explained was given only out of pity for his innocent and suffering family. A stranger who chanced to be present when this letter arrived sent them a barrel of flour—a timely and blessed relief. The next day the family followed on foot the remains of the little child to the grave."

He had now reached the lowest ebb of his misery, and a brighter day was in store for him. Obtaining fifty dollars from a relative, he went to New York, where he succeeded in interesting in his discovery two brothers, William and Emory Rider. They agreed to advance him a certain sum to support his family and continue his experiments. By means of this aid he was enabled to keep his family from want in the future, and from that time his experiments never flagged. Before entire success crowned his efforts, the brothers Rider failed; but he had advanced his experiments so greatly that his brother-in-law, William De Forrest, a rich woolen manufacturer, came to his support, and supplied him with the means to go on with his labors. Mr. De Forrest's total advances amounted to forty-six thousand dollars, from which fact the reader may gain some idea of the obstacles overcome by Goodyear in this last stage of his invention.

The prize for which he had labored so long and so heroically was secured at last, and in 1844, ten years after the commencement of his experiments, he was able to produce perfectly vulcanized India-rubber with expedition and economy, and, above all, with certainty. He had won a success which added a new material to art and commerce, and one which could be applied in a thousand different ways, and all of them useful to man. But great as his success was, he was not satisfied with it. To the end of his life his constant effort was to improve his invention, and apply it to new uses. He had an unlimited faith in its adaptability, believing that there was scarcely any article of general use that could not be made of it. Upon one occasion he read in a newspaper that twenty persons perished every hour by drowning. The statement impressed him deeply, and his wife noticed that for several nights he scarcely slept at all. "Try to compose yourself, and sleep," she said to him. "Sleep!" he exclaimed, "how can I sleep when twenty human beings are drowning every hour, and I am the man that can save them?" And at this time it was his constant endeavor to invent some article of India-rubber which could be easily carried by travelers, and which would render it impossible for them to sink in water.

Having brought his process to a successful completion in this country, and obtained patents for it, he went to Europe to secure similar protections in the principal countries of the Old World. "The French laws require that the patentee shall put and keep his invention in public use in France within two years from its date. Goodyear had, at great inconvenience and expense, endeavored to comply with this and with all other requirements of the French laws, and thought he had effectually done so; but the courts of France decided that he had not in every particular complied with the strict requisitions of the law, and that, therefore, his patent in France had become void. In England he was still more unfortunate. Having sent specimens of vulcanized fabrics to Charles Mackintosh & Co., in 1842, and having opened with them a negotiation for the sale of the secret of the invention or discovery, one of the partners of that firm, named Thomas Hancock, availing himself, as he admits, of the hints and opportunities thus presented to him, rediscovered, as he affirms, the process of vulcanization, and described it in a patent for England, which was enrolled on May 21, 1844, about five weeks after the specification and publication of the discovery to the world by Goodyear's patent for vulcanization in France. And the patent of Hancock, held good according to a peculiarity of English law, thus superseded Goodyear's English patent for vulcanization, which bore date a few days later. Goodyear, however, obtained the great council medal of the exhibition of all nations at London, the grand medal of the world's exhibition at Paris, and the ribbon of the Legion of Honor, presented by Napoleon III."

In his own country, Mr. Goodyear was scarcely less unfortunate. His patents were infringed and violated by others, even after the decision of the courts seemed to place his rights beyond question. He was too thoroughly the inventor and too little the man of business to protect himself from the robberies of the wretches who plundered him of the profits of his invention. It is said that his inability to manage sharp transactions made him the victim of many who held nominally fair business relations with him. The United States Commissioner of Patents, in 1858, thus spoke of his losses:

"No inventor, probably, has ever been so harassed, so trampled upon, so plundered by that sordid and licentious class of infringers known in the parlance of the world, with no exaggeration of phrase, as 'pirates.' The spoliation of their incessant guerrilla warfare upon his defenseless rights have, unquestionably, amounted to millions."

Failing to accomplish any thing in Europe, Mr. Goodyear returned to this country, and continued his labors. His health, never strong, gave way under the continued strain, and he died in New York in July, 1860, in the sixtieth year of his age, completely worn out. Notwithstanding his great invention—an invention which has made millions for those engaged in its manufacture—he died insolvent, and left his family heavily in debt. A few years after his death an effort was made to procure from Congress a further seven years' extension of his patent for vulcanization, for the benefit of his family and his creditors. The men who had trampled his rights under foot while living were resolved, however, that he should not have justice done him in death; and, through their influence, that august body, in strange contrast with its usual lavish generosity in the matter of land grants and the like, coldly declined to do any thing for the family of the man to whom civilization owes so much, and the effort proved abortive.

But, though unfortunate in a pecuniary sense, though he died without freeing himself from the embarrassments which haunted him through life, there can be no question that Charles Goodyear richly merits the place which we have given him in this gallery of "Our Self-made Men;" not only on account of the great merit and usefulness of his discovery or invention, but because that invention has been the source of many a "great fortune" to others, as it might, indeed, have been to him, had his rights been respected, or properly protected when infringed. It is sad to reflect that he died poor who has given wealth to so many, and accomplished results so beneficent to mankind. Yet he did not fail entirely of his reward in life; he lived to see his invention give rise to large factories in the United States, and in England, France, and Germany, which employ sixty thousand operatives, and produce over five hundred different kinds of articles, to the amount of eight millions of dollars annually. He lived to see boots and shoes, clothing, caps, hats, articles of commerce and of pleasure, mechanical, scientific, and surgical instruments, toys, belting for machinery, packing for the steam-engine, and many other articles now in common use, made of the material, the discovery and perfection of which cost him long and sorrowful years of toil. He lived to hear his name mentioned by millions as one of their greatest benefactors; to know that he had conferred upon the world benefits of which those who had robbed him could not deprive his fellow-men; and to feel that he had at length accomplished his mission—a mission which has been productive of good alone.



CHAPTER XV.

ELI WHITNEY.

At the close of the Revolution the States of South Carolina and Georgia presented large tracts of land to the gallant General Nathaniel Greene, to whose genius they were indebted for their relief from British tyranny. Soon after this grant was made, General Greene removed his family to Mulberry Grove, a fine plantation on the Georgia side of the Savannah River. Here he died in 1786, from sunstroke, but his family continued to reside on the place. The mansion of Mrs. Greene was noted for its hospitality, and was frequently filled with guests who came to pay their respects to the widow of the most brilliant and best trusted subordinate of the immortal Washington.

To this mansion there came one day, in the year 1792, ELI WHITNEY, then a young man recently from New England. He was a native of Westborough, Massachusetts, where he was born on the 8th of December, 1765. Of his youth but little is known, save that he was gifted with unusual mechanical genius, the employment of which enabled him to overcome some of the difficulties incident to his poverty, and to acquire the means of obtaining a good common school education. Adding to this the labors of a teacher, he earned a sum sufficient to carry him through Yale College, where he was graduated in the summer of 1702, a few months before his arrival in Georgia. He had come South to accept the offer of a situation as teacher, but the place had been filled before his arrival, and, being without friends in that section, he sought employment from Mrs. Greene. Though pleased with his modesty and intelligence, that lady could not avail herself of his services as a tutor, but invited him to make her house his home as long as he should desire to remain in Georgia. He was sick in body and disheartened by his first failure, and gladly accepted her invitation. While her guest he made her a tambour frame of an improved pattern, and a number of ingenious toys for her children, which so delighted the good lady that she enthusiastically declared him capable of doing any thing.

Not long after Mr. Whitney's arrival at the plantation, Mrs. Greene was entertaining a number of visitors from the surrounding country, several planters of considerable wealth being among the number, when one of the guests turned the conversation upon the subject of cotton-raising, by declaring that he had met with such poor success that he was ready to abandon the undertaking. His trouble was not, he said, that cotton would not grow in his land, for it yielded an abundant return, but that the labor of clearing it from the seed was so enormous that he could not do more than pay expenses after selling it.

His case was simply one among a thousand. The far Southern States were admitted by every one to be admirably adapted to the cultivation of cotton, but, after it was grown and picked, the expense of cleaning it destroyed nearly all the profits of the transaction. The cleaning process was performed by hand, and it was as much as an able-bodied negro could do to clean one pound per day in this manner. Disheartened by this difficulty, which no one had yet been able to remove, the planters of the South were seriously contemplating the entire abandonment of this portion of their industry, since it only involved them in debt. Their lands were heavily mortgaged, and general ruin seemed to threaten them. All felt that the invention of a machine for cleaning or ginning the cotton would not only remove their difficulties, but enable them to plant the green cotton-seed, from the use of which they were then almost entirely debarred, because, although more productive and of a better quality than the black, and adapted by nature to a much greater variety of climate, it was much more difficult to clean, and therefore less profitable to cultivate.

These facts were discussed in the conversation at Mrs. Greene's table, and it was suggested by one of the company that perhaps the very urgency of the case would induce some ingenious man to invent a machine which should solve the problem, and remove all the difficulties in the way.

"Is it a machine you want?" said Mrs. Greene, eagerly. "Then, gentlemen, you should apply to my young friend, Mr. Whitney; he can make any thing."

She at once sent for Whitney, and introduced him to her guests, who repeated to him the substance of their conversation, and urged him to undertake the invention of what was so much needed. The young man protested that he had never seen either a pod of cotton or a cotton-seed in his life, and was utterly incompetent for the task they proposed. In spite of this, however, his new acquaintances urged him to attempt it, and assured him that if successful his invention would make his fortune. Whitney would promise nothing more than to think of the matter, and the planters departed in the belief that nothing would come of their entreaties, and that the culture of cotton would languish until it should finally die out.

Whitney did think of the matter, and the result was that he decided to attempt the production of a machine which should clean cotton both expeditiously and cheaply. It was late in the season, and unginned cotton, or cotton from which the seeds had not been removed, was hard to procure. With considerable difficulty he succeeded in finding a few pounds on the wharf at Savannah, and at once securing his prize, he carried it home in his hands.



Mrs. Greene being confidentially informed of his plans, provided him with a room in the cellar of her house, where he could carry on his work in secret. All that winter he worked at it, with a patience and energy which could not fail of success. Many difficulties confronted him. To carry on his work successfully, he needed tools of a certain description, which were not to be had in Savannah, or even in Charleston, upon any terms. But when was the genius of a Yankee ever baffled by difficulties? Whitney's mechanical skill came to his aid, and he conquered this obstacle by manufacturing all the implements he needed. He wanted wire, but none was to be found, and he was compelled to make all that he used. A score or more of drawbacks presented themselves, and were overcome in this way, and all through the winter the young inventor applied himself with diligence to his task. The children and servants regarded him with the greatest curiosity. They heard him hammering and sawing in his room, the doors of which were always kept locked, and into which they were never allowed to enter. Mrs. Greene was kept fully informed of his progress. When sure of success, Whitney revealed the secret to a Mr. Miller, a gentleman of means, who consented to enter into a copartnership with him for the manufacture of the machines, after the completion of the model should have enabled Whitney to secure a patent for his invention.

Whitney had hoped to keep his work secret from all others, but this proved to be impossible. It became rumored about the country that the young man from New England, who was living at Mrs. Greene's, was engaged in inventing a machine which would clean cotton with the rapidity of thought, and the most intense eagerness was manifested to see the wonderful production, which every one felt would entirely revolutionize cotton culture in the South. Whitney endeavored to guard his invention from the public curiosity, but without success. Before he had completed his model, some scoundrels broke into the place containing it, and carried it off by night. He succeeded in recovering it, but the principle upon which it depended was made public, and before the model was completed and a patent secured, a number of machines based on his invention had been surreptitiously made, and were in operation.

In spite of this discouraging circumstance, Whitney brought his invention to perfection, and in the spring of 1793 set up his first cotton gin, under a shed on Mrs. Greene's plantation, and invited a number of the neighboring planters to witness its operation.

His machine was very simple, but none the less ingenious on that account. The cotton was placed in a trough, the bottom of which consisted of parallel rows of wire, placed like the bars in a grating, but so close together that the seed could not pass through them. Underneath this trough revolved an iron roller, armed with teeth formed of strong wires projecting from the roller, which passed between the wire bars, and, seizing the cotton, drew it through the bars and passed it behind the roller, where it was brushed off the wire teeth by means of a cylindrical brush. The seed, unable to pass through the bars, were left behind, and, completely stripped of the fiber, ran out in a stream through a spout at one end of the trough. It was found that the cotton thus ginned was cleaned thoroughly,[A] and far better than it could be done by hand, and that a single man, by this process, could clean as much as three hundred pounds in a day.

[Footnote A: The cotton for which Whitney's machine accomplished so much, was the short staple, which is the principal product of the South. The Sea Island cotton could not be cleaned by it, on account of the length and delicacy of its fiber; and this species, for the want of some cheap and expeditious method of preparing it, has seldom been grown to a greater quantity than fifty thousand bags of three hundred pounds each. Consequently, it has always commanded a high price.]

The spectators were delighted with Whitney's machine, and urged him to lose no time in putting it in the market. They predicted an unlimited success for it, and assured the inventor that it would not only make his own fortune, but also render cotton culture the source of wealth to the South. They did not exaggerate. As soon as it was made known to the public, Whitney's machine came into general use. Planters had no longer any thing to fear from the labor and expense of preparing their great staple for market. Whitney's genius had swept away all their difficulties, and they reaped a golden harvest from it. They were enabled to send their cotton promptly and cheaply to market, where it brought good prices. With the money thus obtained they paid their debts, and increased their capacity for cultivation. Every year the area devoted to cotton-growing became more extended, and the prosperity of the South became greater and more durable. In 1793, the total export of cotton from the United States was ten thousand bales; in 1860, it was over four millions of bales. Hundreds of millions of dollars were brought into the South by this invention—so that it is no exaggeration to say that the remarkable prosperity enjoyed by the South at the commencement of our late civil war was due entirely to the genius of Eli Whitney. This opinion is fortified by the following remarks of Judge Johnson, uttered in a charge to the jury in a suit brought by Whitney, in Savannah, in 1807, to sustain the validity of his patent: