USA > New York > Bronx County > The Bronx and its people; a history, 1609-1927, Volume II > Part 39
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Two years later, in 1765, there was born of humble parents at Fulton,
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Pennsylvania, near the scene of this experiment, a boy, Robert Fulton, who, combining and improving upon the efforts of all who had gone before him, invented the first successful steamboat, and inaugurated a new era of commercial development and prosperity. Fulton was, no doubt, familiar with the model built and tried by Henry near his home in 1763. In 1779, at the age of fourteen, he began his experiments with boats by affixing a paddle-wheel to his fishing boat, the latter being moved by man-power. At the age of seventeen, having exhibited fine powers as an artist, he removed to Philadelphia to study art, and there gained the friendship of Benjamin Franklin and other important per- sons, by whom he was encouraged to proceed to London and pursue his art studies under the patronage of Benjamin West, the famous American painter. By West he was introduced to two noblemen-the Duke of Bridgewater and the Earl of Stanhope; the former, owner of extensive coal mines at Worsley, to which he had constructed a canal from Manchester; the latter, inventor of the Stanhope printing-press and greatly interested in mechanics and engineering.
Stanhope had invented several improvements in canal-locks, and with the Duke of Bridgewater turned Fulton's attention at this time to the subject of canals and steam navigation. The latter published during this period a treatise on canals, and frequent reference is made in his manuscript to the subject of steam navigation. Copies of the treatise were sent to the President of the United States, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Governor of New York, with a letter calling the attention of those officials to the advantages that canals would confer on the United States. It was claimed by his biographer, Reigart, that Fulton first conceived the idea of a canal connecting the head waters of the Hudson with the Great Lakes and published it in a letter to the American government on the subject of a projected canal between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. In 1797 Fulton went to Paris and there meeting Joel Barlow, the American poet, philosopher, and diplomat, was invited by him to take up his residence in the latter's mansion. Barlow was as much interested in the development of the steamboat and the canal as Fulton. He had the acumen early to dis- cern how both, by facilitating speedy and cheap communication between distant ports, would prove of vital importance to the country, and en- tered heartily into Fulton's experiments with the steamboat, advancing the necessary funds. A model boat was constructed, and soon after Barlow, visiting the national depot of machines, saw there an exact model of this trial boat, as he wrote the latter, "in all its parts and prin- ciples, a very elegant model. It contains your wheel oars precisely as you have placed them except that it has four wheels on each side to guide round the endless chain instead of two. The two upper wheels seem to be only to support the chain; perhaps it is an improvement.
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The model of the steam-engine is in its place, with a wooden boiler, cylinder placed horizontal, everything complete. I never saw a neater model. It belongs to a company at Lyons who got out a patent about three months ago." Montgolfier, whom he encountered in the depot, told him that the company had issued stock to the amount of two mil- lion francs for building boats and navigating the Rhone, and had al- ready spent six hundred thousand francs in establishing their works at Lyons. The enterprise, however, proved a failure.
In one of the letters to Barlow, written about this time, Fulton pre- dicted a speed of sixteen miles an hour for his steamboat, to which Barlow replied, "I see without consulting Parker that you are mad." In 1805, Mr. Barlow returned to America and took up his residence at Kalorama, a beautiful country seat in Georgetown, on the outskirts of Washington. Here Fulton joined him early in 1807, and set himself to preparing a steamboat which should be successful commercially as well as mechanically. In preparing this there is little doubt that he made use of ideas and mistakes of other inventors who had been at work for years on the same idea. Rumsey, an American inventor, in 1874 had propelled a boat by a jet of water forced out of the stern by pumps worked by steam power. John Fitch, of Philadelphia, had con- structed a steamboat in 1787 which made several passages between Philadelphia and Burlington, at the rate of four miles an hour. But he could find no capitalists willing to furnish the necessary capital to build the pioneer boats, and the inventor died at last in the depths of penury. Nathan Read constructed in 1789 a steamboat with which he crossed an arm of the sea at Danvers, Massachusetts. Elijah Ormsbee, a native of Connecticut, constructed a rude steamboat in 1792, that plied on the Pawtucket River for several weeks, at a rate of three or four miles an hour. But he could secure no funds to construct a larger craft, and abandoning his idea went back to his carpenter's bench. Samuel Morey, of Connecticut, is said to have built a steamboat which made the voyage from Hartford to New York, and was examined there by Chancellor Livingston, Judge Livingston, John Stevens and others. In 1797 Morey built a steamboat at Bordentown, New Jersey, and ran it to Philadelphia. It had two wheels, one on each side, with a shaft running across the deck, turned by a crank in the centre. Morey, who died in 1843, never ceased to claim that Fulton stole the idea of the "Clermont's" propelling machinery from him. Nicholas J. Roose- velt, in a petition to the Legislature of New Jersey, claimed to be the true and original inventor and discoverer of steamboats with vertical wheels. He declared, supporting his statement with an affidavit, that about 1781 or 1782 he constructed a wooden model of a steamboat, the vertical wheels of which were propelled by springs of hickory or whale- bone acting upon the wheels by a band.
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One other inventor preceding Fulton is to be noted from the cir- cumstance that he proposed to drive his boat by twin screws propelled by a high pressure engine; thus inventing the screw forty years be- fore it came into general use and before the principle of the paddle had been demonstrated to be successful. This inventor was Captain John Stevens, of Hoboken; his boat was fourteen feet wide by sixty- eight feet long; its machinery is still preserved in the Stevens In- stitute at Hoboken, where the curious reader may study it at leisure. Many experiments were also made, as we have seen, in England and on the Continent. That Fulton was familiar with all these devices is doubtful. How much he borrowed from others is a vexed question; but this much is certain; he built the first steamboat to make regular trips, carrying passengers and freight, and proving commercially so profitable to her owners that fleets of successors and rivals soon sprang into being. He is therefore fairly entitled to be considered, as he has been called, the father of the steamboat.
An eye witness of the progress of the "Clermont" up the Hudson has given this account of it:
In the early autumn of the year 1807, a knot of villagers was gathered on the high bluff just opposite Poughkeepsie on the west bank of the Hudson, attracted by the appearance of a strange dark-looking craft which was slowing making its way up the river. Some imagined it to be a sea-monster, while others did not hesitate to express their opinion that it was a sign of the approaching judgment. What seemed strange in the vessel was the substitution of lofty and strange 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 walking-beam and pistons, and the slow turn- ing 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 wonder of the rustics.
This strange-looking craft was the "Clermont" on her trial trip to Albany; and of the little knot of villagers above mentioned, 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 terri- fied and walked homewards; for 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 until the character of that curious boat and the nature of the enter- prise she was pioneering had been ascertained.
Other boats were soon built-the "Car of Neptune," a boat of two hundred and ninety-five tons measurement, in 1808; the "Paragon" in
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1811; and others the dates of construction of which have not been pre- served. Up to 1812 the only means of ferriage across the North and East rivers were "horse-boats," small crafts moved by paddle-wheels which were turned by four horses walking round a shaft on board the boat. The fare, we read, was four cents. Fulton, in 1811, began the construction of two steam ferry-boats for the North River, and com- pleted both in 1812. Others soon followed for the East River. Cad- wallader D. Colden, in his life of Fulton, describes them as having been twin boats, each being two complete hulls united by a deck or bridge, sharp at both ends, so that they could move with equal facility back- ward or forward, or retrace their course without turning. Fulton also invented for them the floating or movable deck, and the methods by which the boats were brought to them without shock.
In the "American Medical and Philosophical Register," Fulton gave a description of these boats, from which we cite the following :
The boat which I am now constructing will have some important improve- ments, particularly in the power of the engine to overcome strong ebb tides; from which again other improvements will be made as in all new inventions. The present boat crosses the river, which is a mile and a half broad, when it is calm, in fifteen minutes. The average time is twenty minutes. She has had in her, at one time, eight four-wheel carriages, twenty-nine horses, and one hundred pas- sengers, and could have taken three hundred persons more.
Except in the increased power of her engines, the modern ferry-boat shows little improvement over the pioneers of 1812.
Fulton's "Clermont" had left her dock on the Greenwich Village waterfront and started on her first voyage to Albany in August, 1807. In June, 1819, the "Savannah," a three hundred and fifty ton sailing ship, with fully equipped steam auxiliary gear and side-wheels, crossed from New York via Savannah to Liverpool in twenty-two days. This was the first successful crossing of the Atlantic by steamer, and marked the beginning of the end of the packet ship, up to that time the recognized liner of distinction. The transformation was, however, very gradual. Within five years after the "Clermont's" memorable voyage the American steamboat had attained a leading place amongst the coast- wise and inland shipping, but more than twenty-five years time was required for the evolution from sails to steam in trans-Atlantic service. In 1840 the advertisement for bids by the British Admiralty for a fort- nightly steam service from Liverpool to the United States (Boston) via Halifax resulted in the inauguration of the Cunard service, its first ship, the "Britannia," sailing on July 4, 1840, under the flag of the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company. This name was changed, for obvious reasons, at a later date to the Cunard Steamship Company, Limited. It is uncertain in what year the Cunard Company first began operations in New York, but the directories of
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the nineteenth century show that Edward Cunard, Jr., was located at No. 38 Broadway as agent for the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, first in 1848 and again in 1849, 1850 and 1851. The North American Royal Mail steamers were scheduled to dock in Jersey City with weekly sailing's in 1851. It is very probable that the Cunard service was-established in New York soon after the "Britannia" opened the Liverpool-Boston route, perhaps by the sister ships, the "Britannia," the "Arcadia," the "Columbia," and the "Caledonia."
The Black Bull Line, which was the pioneer line between New York and Liverpool and had twenty-five sailing ships in 1850, was in 1863 merged into the Union Line and put on its first steamers in 1866. The American Pacific Mail Line provided connection through Panama with the Pacific Coast of both North and South America. The Cunard Line also had connections to Bermuda and the West Indies. In 1850.E. K. Collins, who had been running a line of clipper ships between New York and Liverpool, replaced them with a fleet of four paddle-wheel steamers. This line maintained a strictly express service which, while of value to American shipping prestige, was costly. After the loss of two of its vessels the Government subsidy was withdrawn and the line made its final crossing in 1858. Following the failure of the Collins Line service, the Inman Line, which had been operating between Liver- pool and Philadelphia since 1850, abandoned the Philadelphia route and fell into the Collins New York schedule of bi-weekly sailings. In 1860 the service was changed to weekly, in 1863 to two in three weeks, and in 1866 to semi-weekly sailings. In 1855 Commodore Vanderbilt, after vainly endeavoring to secure subsidy aid, attempted lone-handed the operation of service between New York and Southampton. In 1856 he extended the service to Bremen and in 1858 secured the contract for carrying mails, although that paid him only the face value of stamps cancelled. In 1861 Vanderbilt disposed of his steamers and retired from the Atlantic trade. In 1856 the Anchor Line from Glasgow to New York was founded. This was a notable venture inasmuch as it was the first attempt in the substitution of steam for sail in the operation of freight lines. For nearly a decade, however, the New York service was a secondary interest to its service in the Mediterranean trade.
In the meantime, following the depression of the Civil War, the steamships of other nations had practically driven the American flag from the seas. The American marine found itself unable to adjust its operations to new economic conditions and its history continued un- eventful until the United States Shipping Board developed the Emer- gency Fleet in 1918. The Red Star Line inaugurated its service in 1873 with the sailing of the Dutch "Vaterland" from Antwerp for Philadel- phia. In 1874 it began sailings from New York. At New York today it shares the piers of the International Mercantile Marine Company with
Bronx-50
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the White Star Line, the American Line, and the Atlantic Transport Line. The "Belgenland," its most modern vessel, registers 27,000 tons. The German-built "Bismark," completed after the close of the war and allocated by the Allies to the White Star Line, who renamed her the "Majestic," is a close counterpart in size and speed to the 54,000-ton German "Vaterland," renamed the "Leviathan," of the United States Line. The International Mercantile Marine, a Morgan combination, went into operation in 1902, as an effort at rate control and economic management. Every effort was made to make the consolidation world- wide, but the Cunard successfully resisted absorption and has continued to carry on its independent course until the present time. Fourteen steamship lines were in operation between New York and Europe im- mediately preceding the World War.
Canal Traffic and Ferries-In the earliest days of the Dutch settle- ment a ferry was established between the Manhattan shore in the vi- cinity of Peck Slip and a point below the present Fulton Ferry landing in Brooklyn. Would-be passengers blew a horn which hung against a tree to summon the ferryman, Cornelius Dircksen, who left his farm work to ferry them over in his little skiff at a charge of three stivers in wampum. In 1634, in response to demands made by the municipal authorities, a company leased the ferry between New Amsterdam and Breukelen, and the system was regulated under license to carry pas- sengers. Proper boats, waiting rooms, and attendants were required of the ferryman, who, on the other hand, was not compelled to ferry anything without prepayment, or to cross the river in a tempest. Offi- cials were not charged toll. During the same year an ordinance passed by the city authorities regulated the fares at three stivers each for foot passengers, except Indians, who paid six each, unless there were two or more. In 1658 the ferry franchise was put up at auction and leased to Hermanus van Bossom for three years.
Under the administration of Governor Fletcher late in the seven- teenth century the Brooklyn Ferry lease was mortgaged for fifteen years to raise funds to build a new City Hall. In 1699 under the mayor- alty of Provoost this ferry was farmed out for a term of seven years at an annual rental of one hundred and sixty-five pounds sterling. The lessee was required to keep two large boats for corn and cattle, and two smaller boats for passengers. The fare was fixed at eight stivers in wampum or a silver two pence for a single person or half that sum for each of a company ; a shilling for a horse, two pence for a hog, and a penny for a sheep. The City agreed to build a substantial ferry house on Nassau or Long Island, which the ferryman was to keep in repair. When the ferry lease of 1699 expired, a new lease on similar conditions was made with James Harding at a yearly rental of 180 pounds sterling.
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The rates of ferriage remained as before. The lessee was required to keep a house of entertainment at the new brick ferry house, built by the corporation on Long Island, and to receive and discharge passengers and freight at the various points on the Manhattan side designated, now represented by the foot of Maiden Lane, Hanover Square, and the dock of Coenties Slip. By the amended City Charter of 1730, under Governor Montgomerie, the sole power of establishing ferries about New York, with all the profits accruing therefrom, was granted to the corporation, the rates of ferriage to be fixed by the Governor and coun- cil, or by an Act of the Assembly. A grant and confirmation was also given to the corporation of the lands they held on every island, includ- ing the ferry, ferry house, and equipment. In 1660, in order to encour- age settlements in the region of Harlem and The Bronx, the offer of Governor Stuyvesant to give the villagers a ferry to Long Island as soon as they numbered twenty-five families was carried out.
Governor Lovelace during his administration established a ferry be- tween the region of the Harlem and Goodwin's Island, the annexed dis- trict above Spuyten Duyvil Creek entering into a solemn agreement with Johannes Verveelen, as before mentioned, for the purpose. Com- plaint was made by the passengers of the high charges of this ferry- man, whose fare of three pence was compared with the half-penny charge of the Brooklyn ferriage. "The resources of the City were in- creased in 1728 by a lease, on better terms, of the ferry privilege be- tween the City and Long Island, the term being for five years and the rental 258 pounds sterling yearly. The City of New York claimed the right of ferriage exclusively, and the Legislature backed that view of the matter, though the little Dutch village of Breukelen, a mile inland, asked for the right to establish a ferry of its own, which was not granted."
In 1755 the first ferry was established between New York and Staten Island. After the War of 1812 the original Vanderbilt ran his market boat back and forth on this route from Staten Island to the south- eastern corner of Battery Park. In 1764 ferry boats began to run be- tween Paulus Hook, now Jersey City, and Miesiers Dock, just opposite on the New York shore, a long awaited convenience to New Jersey set- tlers. About this time too a ferry was established between Staten Island and Bergen. A ferry over the Harlem River at 126th Street shortened the route to Boston. The old ferry house at the foot of Church Lane, Harlem, stood until 1867. Fulton's steam ferry-boats began to run between New York and Brooklyn in 1812. Previously the propelling force had been sail or horse power. The steam ferry- boats produced by Fulton were far ahead of the old horse operated ferries in both speed and convenience. The old boats were propelled by driving two or four horses round and round in the hold of the boat.
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.
The horses were attached to a pole connected with a gear movement that rotated the paddle-wheel. In 1812 Fulton also invented the float- ing bridge dock, which rose and fell with the tide, a device which facili- tated the driving of vehicles on and off the boats. A chain system was used in some of the early steam ferries, but that has long since been discarded. On July 31, 1871, the New York and Staten Island ferry- boat "Westfield" was destroyed by a boiler explosion when nearby the New York terminal. One hundred persons were killed and two hundred injured.
Besides the ferries to Brooklyn and Long Island City lines connect The Bronx through New York with Jersey City, Hoboken, Weehawken, Fort Lee, Staten Island, and other points. At the end of 1922 there were twenty privately-owned and operated ferry lines serving the City of New York in addition to the nine municipal ferries and the three United States Government ferries. The average daily traffic on the ferries of New York City in 1922 was 361,913 passengers, and 36,262 vehicles, according to a report of the Department of Plants and Struc- tures. The annual report of the Transit Commission for 1923 states that ferry traffic into and out of New York during the past year fell 663,385 passengers below the 1922 figures. The St. George-Battery Ferry, the most important of the municipal lines, however, carried a total of 23,374,970 passengers in 1923, an increase of more than a million over the preceding year. The same ferry carried 814,154 vehicles in 1923. The introduction of steam early in the nineteenth century was a revolution. Fulton's experiment with the "Clermont," as a means of travel in 1807, was applied to the ferries as early as 1811, when his rival, Stevens, completed his first steam ferry-boat, and within the next year Fulton himself had two steam ferry-boats plying between New York and Brooklyn, a mode of locomotion which, while it was primarily for passenger traffic, did much to speed up the transportation of goods.
In 1822 the yellow fever epidemic brought another setback to pros- perity, but the danger was soon over, and once again New York and Westchester County manifested their wonderful powers of recuperation. Trade and commerce continued to increase ; but the communities at the mouth of the Hudson were hampered by inefficient means of communi- cation with the interior, for which as the frontier receded the Hudson no longer sufficed. At this juncture the Erie Canal, which had been in process of construction since 1817, was finished, and immediately gave an enormous stimulus to trade. It provided a channel for water- borne commerce with the regions about the Great Lakes, and opened as well the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. It also brought within reach the district about Lake Champlain, for which the Champlain Canal pro- vided an outlet to the larger water way.
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Cooperation with the Port of New York Authority-The Bronx has important responsibilities under and in conjunction with the Port of New York Authority. The New York Harbor is perhaps the best natural harbor in the world, and where nature has permitted a trifling danger to navigation, the port authorities by means of a little dynamite and a few dredges have greatly improved on nature. Rocks have been either blown away or marked with lights; shoals have been dug out and forts placed to command the entrance to the Narrows and from Long Island Sound. The steamer track from the ocean has been il- luminated so that it may be traveled at night as safely and as speedily as is possible during the daylight hours. Vessels formerly left for open seas by way of the Gedney and Main Ship channels which, sweeping round Sandy Hook, described a horseshoe course. At low tide the depth of water was thirty feet, ample for the big ships of yester year. As the ocean greyhounds grew in size, New York, with the aid of Uncle Sam, rose to the emergency and provision was made so that the biggest liners could enter and leave the port without hazard. A ditch of 2,000 feet wide, seven miles long, and forty feet deep, at low tide, was cut in a straight line from the inner harbor to the ocean. Millions of dol- lars were spent on this task, but the largest ships afloat can now reach a safe harbor in the Port of New York by way of the Ambrose Channel, a route which shortened the distance from the ocean by five miles and expedited the handling of important mail by several hours.
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