USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York : its origin, rise, and progress Vol. III > Part 10
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This beautiful pond, occupying the site of the present great gloomy pile of prison buildings known as The Tombs, was the scene in the summer of 1796 of the first trial of a steamboat with a screw propeller. It was the invention of John Fitch. The boat was eighteen feet in length and six feet beam, with square stern, round bows, and seats. The boiler was a ten or twelve gallon iron pot.
The little craft passed round the pond several times, and was believed capable of making six miles an hour. The spectacle was watched with critical interest by Chancellor Livingston, Nicholas Roosevelt, John Stevens, and others, who had in common with philosophers and inventors in England and Europe been for some time engaged in the speculative study of the steam-engine and its prospective uses.1 Fitch belonged to
1 The statement that Robert Fulton was present at this trial of Fitch's steamboat on the Collect in 1796 is an error, he being in England at that date, thoroughly absorbed in the study of Watt's steam engine, and canals ; he that year published in London a treatise on the improvement of canal navigation, with numerous well-executed plates from designs
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"This beautiful pond, occupying the site of the present great gloomy pile of prison buildings known as The Tombs, was the scene in the summer of 1796 of the first trial of a steamboat with a screw propeller. It was the invention of John Fitch. " Page 424
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the prominent Connecticut family of that name, was born in the famous old town of Windsor, adjoining Hartford, and had been inventing and experimenting for a dozen or more years, hoping to succeed in the appli- cation of steam-power to navigation. His genius, idiosyncrasies, and im- pecuniosity were in perpetual conflict ; otherwise he might have achieved the triumph to which he aspired. He was a man of striking figure, six feet two inches in height, erect and full, his head slightly bald, but not gray although fifty-three years of age, and dignified and distant in his general behavior.
The belief that steam was destined to submit to the control of the human intellect for practical purposes was rapidly gaining strength, al- though the facile adaptations of its power were yet but visionary possi- bilities to the intelligence and observation of mankind; and it was by no means confined to any one nation. The ingenuity of almost every civilized country was in exercise over contrivances for the propulsion of boats by steam. A perfect system of communication existed between the countries of the world, notwithstanding that distances, measured in time, were vastly greater than now, and the learning of every center was promptly radiated to every other. James Watt was unquestionably the greatest of all the inventors of the steam-engine, but only one of the many men who aided in perfecting it. Slight knowledge of the proper- ties of steam is of unknown antiquity. A "steam-gun " is described by Leonardo da Vinci. In Spain, as early as 1543, Blasco da Garay, a Spanish naval officer under Charles V., is said to have moved a ship at the rate of two or three miles an hour with an apparatus of which a " vessel of boiling water " formed a part ; but the king shook his head and frowningly forbade its repetition, saying "he could not have his liege subjects scalded to death with hot water on his ships!" At Naples, in 1601, Porta describes a machine for raising water with steam pressure, in a work called Spiritali. England in 1648 was convulsed with laughter over a witty discourse from the learned Bishop of Chester, in which he recommended the application of the power of confined steam to the con- struction of a "flying castle in the air," to the chiming of bells, to the reeling of yarn, and to the rocking of the cradle. About the same period Edward Somerset, the second Marquis of Worcester, introduced an inven- tion into Raglan Castle for elevating water by steam, but failed to excite sympathy or appreciation. His life is one of the most romantic chap-
of his own. He also about the same time in England patented a mill for sawing marble, for which he received the thanks of the British Society for the Promotion of Arts and Com- merce, and an honorary medal. In 1797 he passed over to Paris with the intention of bring- ing to the notice of the French government a submarine torpedo and torpedo boats.
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ters of English history. In 1720, some years before Watt was born, Joseph Hornblower was conspicuous in the superintendence and con- struction of steam-engines, then called fire-engines, after the model of Newcomen, being simply atmospheric engines with a single cylinder. He had several sons: Jonathan, born in 1717, and Josiah, born in 1729, became eminent engineers. The Hornblowers, father and sons, subse- quently removed to Cornwall to pursue their business, where they were engaged in putting up engines from their first introduction into the mines in 1740. The success of these engines in the mines of Cornwall in- duced Colonel John Schuyler to import one for pumping water from his copper-mine on the Passaic River, near Newark, New Jersey - a mine rich in ore, but which had been worked as deep as hand and horse power could clear it of water. His correspondents in London purchased one of Hornblower's engines, and persuaded Josiah Hornblower, then only twenty-four years of age, to proceed to America and superintend its erection. He arrived in New York in September, 1753, and occupied the best part of a year in building an engine-house and getting it into successful operation. This was the first steam-engine ever erected on the continent of America ; and it was when Watt was but seventeen, and his inventions simply marvels of the future.1
Young Hornblower expected to return to England as soon as his work was accomplished. But in the neighborhood of the Schuylers lived Colonel William Kingsland, grandson of Isaac Kingsland, the founder of the Kingsland family in America - whose wife was Mary, daughter of Judge William Pinhorne, of the reader's acquaintance in the early pages of this work. Hornblower became a frequent visitor at the Kingslands'. It is the old, old story of romantic love. In two years his destiny was sealed. He married the beautiful Elizabeth Kingsland, then twenty-one, and became an American.2 He afterwards not only superintended the engine whenever his skilled services were needed, but after 1760 for
1 Letter of Hon. Joseph P. Bradley, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
2 Josiah Hornblower soon rose to eminence, was a judge of the county courts, Speaker of the New Jersey Assembly, and member of the Continental Congress. He lived until 1809, and among his large family of children were Joseph, born 1756, died 1777 ; Margaret, born 1758, married James Kip, a wealthy New York merchant - of whose daughters Eliza married John Schuyler, and Helen married Abel Anderson ; James, born 1760, whose only daughter married William Stevens ; Dr. Josiah, born 1767, who left a son, Dr. William Hornblower, of Bergen, and two daughters, one of whom became Mrs. Dr. De Witt, the other, Mrs. Dr. Gautier and the mother of Dr. Josiah Hornblower Gautier of New York City ; and Joseph C. Hornblower, late Chief Justice of New Jersey, born 1777, died 1864.
Chief-Justice Hornblower married Mary Burnet, daughter of Dr. William Burnet of Belle- velle, and granddaughter of Dr. William Burnet of Newark, a famous patriot of the Revolu- tion. Mrs. Hornblower's sister Caroline married Governor William Pennington of New
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several years worked the mines, and people came from all the country round to see the wonderful machine.
Meanwhile his brother Jonathan remained at Cornwall, where he died in 1780, several of whose sons were educated as engineers, and produced many useful and notable inventions. Jabez and Jonathan were the most conspicuous among them. Jabez was employed to superintend the erec- tion of steam-engines in Holland and in Sweden. Jonathan, inventor of a double-cylinder high-pressure engine, was one of the most active and formidable of the rivals of James Watt; and his engine is the one now principally used by ocean steamers, as, requiring only about half the coal of the Watt engine, it is better suited for long voyages. A litigation ensued, Hornblower's invention being pronounced an infringement of Watt's patent, which also had two cylinders, though one of them was only used as a condenser; and while nothing was ever alleged to the dishonor of the Hornblowers in this controversy, public favor clamored in behalf of Watt, and they were defeated.
At the same time in localities far remote from each other on this side of the water enterprising mechanics were trying at intervals to construct steam-engines. William Henry returned from England in 1760, imbued with the idea of utilizing the power of steam for propelling boats, and within three years constructed a machine which he placed in a little craft and tried on a river near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It went to the bottom, and he made a second model, adding improvements. Benjamin West was a friend and protégé of Henry, and John Fitch was a frequent visitor at Henry's house. Thither went Robert Fulton, when a boy of twelve years, to study the paintings of West; and while visiting an aunt in the neighborhood he experimented with miniature paddle-wheels on the Conestoga. John Fitch is thought to have invented the first double- acting condensing engine, transmitting power by means of cranks, ever produced in any country. His experiments on the Delaware, as early as 1785 and 1786, brought him into a bitter controversy, respecting the priority of their inventions, with James Rumsey, who died in 1793 while explaining some of his schemes before a London Society. Fitch, like Rumsey, tried to introduce his methods into Great Britain, and confidently asserted his belief that the ocean would be crossed by Jersey, and her sister Abigail married Caleb S. Riggs, whose daughter Helen married Judge William Kent. The children of Chief-Justice and Mary Burnet Hornblower : 1. Joanna, married Thomas Bell, of Philadelphia ; 2. Eliza, married Rev. Mortimer R. Talbot ; 3. Emily, married Colonel Alexander M. Cummings, of Princeton ; 4. Harriet, married Hon. Lewis B. Woodruff, late U. S. Circuit Judge of New York ; 5. Charles ; 6. Caroline ; 7. Mary, mar- ried Hon. Joseph P. Bradley, one of the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States ; 8. Rev. Dr. William H. Hornblower, professor in the Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
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steam vessels. He went to France, hoping to obtain the privilege of building steamboats there, but was disappointed in all his efforts. Oliver Evans, during the same year, said : "The time will come when people will travel in stages moved by steam-engines from one city to another almost as fast as birds can fly - fifteen or twenty miles an hour," and his associates smiled incredulously. The boat with which Fitch experimented on the Collect in New York, and of which a model exists in the New York Historical Society, together with a portion of its machinery was abandoned and left to decay on the shore of the pond, and was carried away piece by piece by the poor children of the neighborhood for fuel. He had made his last effort in steam navigation, and the same autumn removed to Kentucky, where he died in 1798.
Two years after Fitch experimented with his screw-propeller on the Collect in New York, Nicholas Roosevelt launched a little steamboat on the Passaic River, and made a trial trip with a party of invited guests, among whom was the Spanish Minister. Roosevelt was of the old New York family of that name, and a gentleman of education and inventive talent. He had become interested with others in the Schuyler copper- mines, and from the model of Hornblower's atmospheric engine con- structed one of a similar character; and also built similar engines for various purposes. Colonel John Stevens, who exhibited far better knowl- edge of the science and art of engineering, besides urging more advanced opinions and statesman-like views in relation to the economical impor- tance of the practical development of the new invention, than any man of his time, was frequently in conference with Roosevelt. In December, 1797, Chancellor Livingston wrote to Roosevelt, saying : "Mr. Stevens has mentioned to me your desire to apply the steam machine to a boat; every attempt of this kind having failed, I have constructed a boat on perfectly new principles, which, both in the model and on a large scale, has ex- ceeded my expectations. I was about writing to England for a steam machine; but hearing of your wish, I was willing to treat with you, on terms which I believe you will find advantageous, for the use of my in- vention." The result was an agreement between Livingston, Stevens, and Roosevelt to build a boat on joint account, for which the engines were to be constructed by Roosevelt at his shop on the Passaic; and the propelling agency was to be planned by the Chancellor. So prom- ising were the signs, that in March, 1798, the Legislature of New York passed a bill giving Livingston the exclusive right to steam navigation in the waters of the State for a period of twenty years, provided that he should within a year from date produce a boat that could steam four miles an hour. During the progress of the enterprise the correspond-
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ence teemed with speculative suggestions. The trial trip to which reference has been made occurred on the 21st of October, 1798. It was recognized as a failure. Roosevelt had invented a vertical wheel which he earnestly recommended to the Chancellor, without success.1 Stevens, a few months later, persuaded the Chancellor to try a set of paddles in the stern, which unfortunately shook the boat to pieces and rendered it unfit for further use. The inventive instinct of America appears to have been abreast with that of any other country. But no individual as yet had succeeded in taking the final step in the progression which was to make steam navigation an every-day commercial success.
New York in the spring of 1796 again furnished a Minister to Great Britain. Thomas Pinckney had returned from Spain to the court 1796. of London, but wishing to sail for South Carolina, Rufus King, who had previously declined the office of Secretary of the State Depart- ment, received the nomination, May 20, as his successor, and was immediately confirmed by the Senate. Hamilton in a letter to Washing- ton specially recommended King for the post as a gentleman of ability, integrity, fortune, agreeable address, good judgment, and sound morals, and "one whose situation as well as character afforded just ground of confidence." King shortly embarked for London, where he remained through the remainder of the administration of Washington, through the whole of that of Adams, and a part of that of Jefferson - until 1804. He placed his sons, John Alsop King and Charles King, at Harrow School, and in 1805 at a preparatory school in Paris.2 His successor
1 Roosevelt to Livingston, September 6, 1798 ; Livingston to Roosevelt, October 28, 1798 ; A Lost Chapter in the History of the Steamboat, by J. H. B. Latrobe, President of the Md. Hist. Soc. ; History of the Growth of the Steam-Engine, by Robert H. Thurston, A. M. ; Renwick on Steam-Engines ; Whittlesey's Life of John Fitch ; Columbian Magazine, Decem- ber, 1786 ; Encyclopedia Americana ; Doc. Hist. New York, Vol. II. Roosevelt, when asked why he did not anticipate Fulton in the first successful application of the steam-engine to naval purposes, replied, " At the time Chancellor Livingston's horizontal-wheel experiment failed, I was under a contract with the corporation for supplying the city of Philadelphia with water by means of two steam-engines ; and, besides, I was under a contract with the United States to erect rolling works and supply government with copper rolled and drawn, for six seventy-four-gun ships that were then to be built. But by a change of men in the ad- ministration, after I had been led into heavy expense, the seventy-fours were abandoned with- out appropriations, and embarrassment to me was the natural consequence."
2 John Alsop King, eldest son of Rufus King, was born in New York City, January 3, 1788 ; Charles King, second son, was born March 16, 1789 ; James Gore King, third son, was born May 8, 1791. They were all remarkable and accomplished men. John Alsop King was governor of New York from 1857 to 1859. Charles King was a journalist and scholar, the President of Columbia College from 1849 to 1864, and author of many valuable works. James Gore King, also educated in the best schools in England and France, was of the great banking-house of James G. King and Sons, member of Congress from 1849 to 1851, and President of the Chamber of Commerce.
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from New York, in the United States Senate, was Judge John Lawrence, who served until 1800, and was at one time president pro tem of that body. The year following King's departure on his mission, General Philip Schuyler was again elected to the Senate, in place of Aaron Burr.
Several changes occurred in 1796 among the ambassadors to foreign courts. Colonel Humphreys was transferred to the Court of Madrid, John Quincy Adams succeeded Humphreys at Lisbon, and William V. Murray took the place of Adams at The Hague. Disagreeable complica- tions ensued with France immediately upon the ratification of the Jay treaty. The profligate Directory, turning to account the dissensions in America, pretended to consider the alliance between France and the United States at an end. The seizure of American vessels and the evasive conduct of the French Minister at Philadelphia, M. Adet, led to the recall of Monroe in August, who, it was thought, had been too much opposed to the Jay treaty himself to represent the friendly dispo- sition of Washington and his Cabinet towards France. Monroe's suc- cessor was Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, who had successively declined three important offices, that of chief justice, and of the two secretary- ships of war and state. "He will very shortly be in Philadelphia to embark, and this circumstance will furnish new subject for envenomed pens," wrote the President from Mount Vernon to the Secretary of the Treasury, on the 10th of August. Before Pinckney arrived in France, the Directory, as an act of resentment against our Government, suspended the functions of M. Adet in the United States; the American Minister was treated with marked disrespect when he reached Paris, and was finally ordered to leave the country. In the chapter of complaints sent to Pickering, the United States was accused of deceiving France. Secre- tary Wolcott wrote : "The Executive and Mr. Jay are both treated with personal indignity. On the whole, this is by far the boldest attempt to govern this country which has been made."
The new Spanish Minister, Don Carlos Martinez, Marquis of Yrujo, ar- rived in June and paid a short visit to the President at Mount 1796. Vernon. He was a young and fascinating man, who, like the British Minister Hammond, soon after married a Philadelphia belle, Sally McKean, daughter of the chief justice of Pennsylvania. His son, the Duke of Sotomayer, born in Philadelphia, became in due course of events Prime Minister of Spain.1
1 America furnished wives for the Ministers of England, France, and Spain during the administration of Washington. Many other foreign gentlemen of distinction married Ameri- can ladies. Of the two daughters of Mrs. Bingham, Anne married Alexander Baring, Lord Ashburton, and was the mother of the present peer, and Maria married (1) Comte de Tilly, (2) Henry Baring, (3) Marquis de Blaisel.
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POLITICAL AFFAIRS.
Hamilton regarded the situation as exceptionally critical. Although at- tending to his own affairs in New York, he was consulted on almost every question of importance that came before the Cabinet. He was not well pleased with the Secretary of State's reply to M. Adet's letter - "there was something of hardness and epigrammatic sharpness in it" to his mind - and said that, since the minister had declared his functions sus- pended, it should have been addressed to the Directory and communi- cated through Pinckney. He thought the position true that France had a right to inquire respecting the affairs of seamen, and that the complaints of the minister should be met with candid explanations, and his mis- statement of facts corrected. "My opinion is," he continued, "that our communications should be calm, reasoning, and serious, showing steady resolution more than feeling, having force in the idea rather than the expression."
As the time approached to elect a President for the coming four years, Washington published an address of farewell to the people of the United States, which has been pronounced "the most dignified exhibi- tion of political wisdom that ever emanated from the mind of a states- man." To Jefferson he wrote expressing his astonishment at the possi- bility, that, as he remarked, " While I was using my utmost exertions to establish a national character of our own, independent, as far as our obligations and justice and truth would permit, of every nation of the earth, and wished by steering a steady course to preserve this country from the horrors of a desolating war, I should be accused of being the enemy of one nation and subject to the influence of another."
The two parties were quickly provided with candidates, and the politi- cal newspapers went rabid, foaming personalities and falsehoods. The real leader of the Federalists was Hamilton. But Jay and Adams were older, and had served the country longer. No personal aspirations seem for a moment to have clouded Hamilton's vision. He greatly preferred Jay to Adams, because he believed him to possess more coolness, judg- ment, and consistency, and less tendency to prejudice. But Adams, through his office of vice-president, stood in the line of promotion ; and, what was of still greater weight, he was the representative of New Eng- land, which had furnished all along a steady support to the Federal government. It was also politic to select a vice-president from the South; hence Thomas Pinckney received the nomination.
The Republicans chose Jefferson unanimously for the highest office, and Aaron. Burr for Vice-President, although the support of the latter was far from being uniform. One of the public characters of Virginia wrote about that time : " The two most efficient actors on the political theater
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of our country are Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Burr; and, as a friend to the interests of the Southern States, I sincerely wish that they had both ap- peared on the Federal side, that they might essentially have acted in concert, as but little more time and labor would have been necessary to subvert the popularity of both than we have found necessary to employ against Hamilton alone. I have watched the movements of Mr. Burr with attention, and have discovered traits of character which sooner or later will give us much trouble. He has unequaled talent of at- taching men to his views, and forming combinations of which he is always the center. He is determined to play a first part ; he acts strenuously with us in public, but it is remarkable that in all private consultations he more frequently agrees with us in principles than in the mode of giving them effect."
There were other indications that Burr had already become an object of suspicion at the South, as likely to be a danger- ous competitor for the leader- ship of the Republican party. He had eclipsed George Clinton Aaron Burr. to a certain degree, was un- rivaled in the arts of personal influence and intrigue, and was never idle. No means were too trivial for him to employ if he thought they would help him to gain a point. He used to say that he once saved a man from being hanged by a certain arrangement of the candles in a court- room.
The result of the election was not known when Congress assembled in 1797. December. The votes were announced on the 8th of February ; Feb. 8. John Adams had received seventy-one, Thomas Jefferson sixty- eight, Thomas Pinckney fifty-nine, and Aaron Burr thirty. 'The two former would thus fill the first two offices in the government, as at that time the second highest candidate for President became Vice- President. "The die is cast," wrote John Adams to his wife the next morning, "and you must prepare yourself for honorable trials."
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CHAPTER XLI.
1797 - 1801.
NEW YORK CITY AT THE CLOSE OF THE CENTURY.
CONTEMPORANEOUS DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY. - THE STREETS AND BUILDINGS. - THE BROADWAY. - THE GOVERNMENT HOUSE. - THE PARK THEATER. - THE DRAMA. - COMMERCE OF NEW YORK. - THE CITY OF HUDSON AND ITS FOUNDERS. - SOCIETY. - INTELLECTUAL PURSUITS. - MARRIAGES IN HIGH LIFE. - THE BARCLAY FAMILY. - A LOVE ROMANCE. - GENERAL JACOB MORTON. - THE LUDLOWS. - PRINCES AND NO- BLEMEN IN NEW YORK. - RE-ELECTION OF GOVERNOR JAY. - LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR VAN RENSSELAER. - THE FRENCH DIRECTORY. - MONEY OR WAR. - THE ALIEN AND SEDITION LAWS. - WAR MEASURES. - DUELS. - AARON BURR'S BANK. - THE COM- MERCIAL ADVERTISER. - BURR AND HAMILTON. - DEATH OF WASHINGTON. - PER- SONAL SKETCHES. - RICHARD VARICK. - EDWARD LIVINGSTON.
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