A HISTORY OF CHAPTER XIX FULTON AND THE CLERMONT PUBLIC ACCEPTANCE OF THE PRINCIPLE THAT STEAM COULD BE USED IN TRANSPORTATION THE SIXTEEN AMERICAN STEAMBOATS OPERATED PRIOR TO THE CLERMONT RELATION OF EARLY STEAMBOATS TO THE CLERMONT AND INCIDENTS CONNECTED WITH HER EVOLUTION HE appearance of the steamboat Clermont, on which Schultz proceeded from New York to Albany in 1807, marked the final acceptance, by the people, of the principle that steam could be made of practical use in travel and transportation. By that time the new generation with its progressive ideas and enterprise was better able to estimate the probable value of any innovation which presaged greater material welfare to the country, and perchance more eager to accept every device giving promise of practical utility. The collective mind of the Americans, emancipated at last from a belief that future progress of every sort must be along existent and visible lines of effort, was impatiently calling for the uninterrupted procession of wonders thenceforward to appear in response to its demand. The generality of men did not know what was to be done, or how, but they did realize another age had begun and that the strange new problems it presented would in some way be solved, and by themselves. So when Robert Fulton turned his snub-nosed little steamboat out into the Hudson River and started her toward Albany, wheezing and coughing along at the rate of five miles an hour, the watching populace comprehended. A throng had gathered at the wharf and in its immediate neighborhood, drawn by a knowledge of what was to be attempted. There were some skeptics in it, and during the preliminary preparations and embarkation of the passengers an occasional jest and disparaging remark was heard. But the bulk of the crowd was of open mind. Its members did not believe travel was impossible in a boat propelled by steam simply because such a thing, so far as they knew, had never been seen or heard of before. Doubtless they wanted it to be possible; hoped it would be. Then the machinery started and the Clermont' moved away from the dock under her own power. The uncertainty and hope of a moment before were changed to an instant appreciation of what it meant. Even before she had disappeared from their physical vision the minds of the spectators had gone on ahead of her, over all the rivers of the land, and peopled them with like contrivances. It was an actuality with a visible meaning; a meaning so plain that those who beheld the sight might have marvelled had they known of the similar drama enacted years before to the jeers of them that saw it. The boat moved slowly-but what of that. Improvements could be made. Everything could be improved, no matter what its use was. The thing had been done; that 1 She was as at first built-133 feet long, 18 feet wide and 7 feet in depth of hold, with two masts and sails. |