USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > Annals of Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania in the olden time; being a collection of the memoirs, anecdotes, and incidents of the earliest settlements of the inland part of Pennsylvania, Vol. I > Part 68
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"Slow rises worth by poverty depressed !"
It was observed of Mr. Fitch, that frequently when engaged at his work in the shop aforesaid, he would suddenly let fall his tools, and sit in an inclined posture, meditating for two hours at a time. The " worthy Nathaniel Irwin," the Presbyterian minister at Neshamany, was a frequent visiter of Fitch while employed at Cobe Scout's, (i. e. Jacobus Scouter's,) and would often stay examining the mechani- cal operations, and holding conversations with the inventor, for half a day at a time. Fitch deemed his visiter a "worthy man," and would frequently attend his sermons at the Neshamany church. His friend Cobe Scout lived to the year 1829, and died at the age of ninety years.
I am indebted to Mary McDowell for the fact, that Fitch had a daughter by his wife, born not long after he left his home. She (Mary) says, that the cause of his leaving his wife was an unfounded jealousy, and coupled with the fact, that she united herself with the Methodists against his will and expressed desire. This last may seem a small offence in the eyes of those who now understand and respect that sect : but when they were " the sect every where spoken against," and who went about every where "turning the world up- side down" in their progress of proselyting, who can now appreciate the measure of offence to Fitch's hopes and wishes! Besides, he was, as I learned, a man of quick temper-easily provoked-not "slow to anger"-and in the case of his wife, hard to reconcile. We understood it to be a fact, that Mrs. Fitch, after the death of her father,-who left her a good estate-to herself and her two children,
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sent ner brother-in-law, Burnham, with a letter to her husband, urging his return again to Connecticut, and offering " to maintain him like a gentleman for life"-but he was inflexible, and peremptorily re fused the proffered benefit. His spirit was entirely unbroken, though the winds and the fates were adverse in so many other things. He sent a pair of silver shoe-buckles to his son, and a gold ring to his daughter ; but to his wife he refused to send any token of regard, or remembrance,-although he was much importuned thereto at the time, by Garrison's wife.
When I first became acquainted with the fact of John Fitch hav- ing left a son and a daughter to inherit his name and fame, and yet knew not that any could say who they were, or where they dwelt, I felt a strong desire to find out the facts in their cases. The result has been, that I have ascertained, after much inquiry, that his son was Shaler Fitch, a farmer of respectable character and circumstances, settled at Hartford, Trumbull county, Ohio; where he died in 1842, leaving six children ; and his eldest son, John B. Fitch, is a re- spectable and intelligent gentleman, in the same vicinity, and has a family.
The daughter of John Fitch, named Lucy, married Colonel James Kilbourne, of Worthington, Franklin county, Ohio ; he is a gentle- man of respectability and influence, and has a family of six children, all married, and having children. The wife of John Fitch is buried at Hartford, Ohio. I have other facts concerning other members of the other branches of the family, not needful to be mentioned here. Some of the original stock still remain about Windsor, Connecticut ; but the most of them have emigrated to Ohio. Colonel Luther Fitch, postmaster, at Sharon, Ohio, who died there in 1841, and left a family, was the son of John Fitch's brother Joseph.
The writer, in his boyhood, has himself seen the inventor, and feels prepared to endorse the personal description which he now gives from Mary McDowell's recollection. It agrees substantially with what I have understood from Miss E. Leslie's recollections of him as seen by her, when visiting her father's house in London; for it seems, though doubted by some, that in his wanderings for patrons, he actually visited that metropolis, and there published two of his pamphlets in 1793, now in the Philosophical Library, in Philadel- phia, numbered 330. He was in person upright and " straight as an arrow," and stood six feet two inches in his stocking feet ; was what was called, " thin and spare ;" face slim ; complexion tawny ; hair very black; and a dark eye, peculiarly piercing ; his temper was sensitive and quick, but soon over-the case of his wife to the con- trary notwithstanding. His general character in Bucks county, among his immediate friends was, that "he bore anger as the flint bears fire, which being much enforced, shows a hasty spark and quick is cold again." His countenance was pleasing and somewhat smiling. "In point of morals and conduct, he was perfectly up
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right ; sincere and honourable in all his dealings; and was never known to tell a wilful falsehood, or indeed to use any guile." This was certainly a good character, and makes us remember how Mr. Jefferson rested his reputation among his neighbours, by quoting from the Prophet Samuel, his challenge, and saying in effect, " let my re- ligion be appreciated by my life."
We avoid here, purposely, to say any thing of the peculiarities or merits of Fitch's invention, because the little we have to say on that subject will be told under the head and chapter of our notice of steam operations generally. We may, however, remark that it was at this place he received the first impulse to consider and investigate the subject. It was also here, in Southampton run, on Garrison's farm, that he first tried his model.
I ought to add in conclusion, that the first person who ever stimu- lated my mind to consider again, and to think better of the charac- ter and worth of " poor John Fitch," as he called himself, when seeing the oppositions he was called to encounter,-was himself a Christian man of the Society of Friends, of the same neighbourhood of War- minster, and that he told me feelingly, that he deemed it his Christian and civic duty, to endeavour to see some justice done to the name and character of the deceased. He became first concerned, as he assured me, in this matter, " when he first read the insinuations and sometimes open slanders of Colden and others." They had the effect to stimulate his inquiry and research, and the result was, at the end of several years, that the inventor was either a misunderstood, or a neglected, rejected and injured man. Whatever the mass of the public may have considered or believed, it was a fact, that John Fitch had, in Warminster and thereabout, a worthy band of warm admirers and enthusiastic friends; and the few of them who still survive, are at this moment heartily desirous to give reminiscences and anecdotes in confirmation of their steadfast attachment to the name and memory of the injured benefactor of his race. In all this,
" I tell the tale as I've been told !"
A second thought, inclines me to add a few supplemental facts, to wit :
The MSS. books of John Fitch, in the Philadelphia Library, con- sist of five volumes. Volumes 1 to 3 contain the memoirs of his life brought down to the 26th October, 1792; the other two, contain the history of his steam invention, with diagrams, &c. They occupy about 550 folio pages of cap, and are dedicated "to the worthy Na- thaniel Irwin, of Neshamany," the minister before named.
Mr. Fitch was a ready writer with his pen, although careless as a composuist. He wrote much as he would have talked, and seems to have resorted, on many occasions, to writing rather than speaking, as if preferring to present himself for consideration in that way, in
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his intercourse with men in his business concerns, rather than by conversation. He wrote his name thus:
John Fitch
In a power of attorney given by him to Jonathan Longstreth, in 1786, he speaks of his lands as lying in Jefferson, Lincoln and Fayette counties, Kentucky ; and mention is made, in a letter to J. Fitch, of Thomas Speed and John Rogers, on Salt river, Mercer county. In another letter, dated from Madison county, mention is made, that Wilson, who lived on Fitch's land, had a lawsuit, with one Kite, about it. I mention these facts to elicit, if possible, some future inquiry by others.
All things considered, it appears probable that Fitch must have died about the year 1798, at or near Bardstown, Nelson county, Kentucky. This inference is made, because he would be likely to be called there to prosecute his claims. These he was earnest to make good for his son, to whom he thus manifested parental fond- ness and regard.
At this crisis of his affairs, feeling "impatient of the law's delays," he is said to have said at the court, " I'll wait no longer," and feign- ing illness, he told a physician that he could not sleep, (very proba- bly, very truly,) and wished to take an anodyne. This he received from time to time, in the form of opium, without using it, till he had enough to take at once, and wrapt himself in eternal sleep! Thus perished the man, as the Longstreth family have been informed, whose sensitive and disappointed mind could not brook the cold apathy of the world, which was sneeringly looking upon his darling project as the impulse of a diseased and deranged mind. It has also been said by his host, one McCown, an innkeeper, at Bards- town, who managed to take to himself a parcel of Fitch's land after his death, that he had, in a fit of desperation, drunk to excess and died. The truth in these matters may be hereafter investigated ; in the mean time, it is ascertained that he made a will in June, 1798, in favour of some of his creditors, who had been before known as assisting him with funds for his steamboat experiments, &c. He
died in a few days after. * * He had often been heard to say, before this catastrophe, that if he failed to attain his legal rights, he should not choose to survive his disappointment.
We have been thus particular as to names and places, on purpose to awaken some inquiry, even yet, in the minds of others, who may have chances to elicit future facts for the benefit of his family. His patents of 1782, from Virginia, for 1600 acres, we have seen. If he, in mistaken faith, took a Roman's remedy for " the ills of life,'
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which a Christian may " keep beneath his feet," what must be " the recompense of reward," to those who " by covetousness," took the sin of his desperation, and their own injustice too, upon their own souls !
How mortifying to contemplate, that the man who should have had the whole civilized world as his willing admirers, and willing contributors to his due reward, should nevertheless have died, and have been so little inquired after in the time of his disappearance, as to have left me the frequent occasion of asking the American public where is his grave and where are his lands !
One published account says he died of the yellow fever at Phila- delphia, in 1793; another printed account says he drowned himself at Pittsburg, in the same year; both setting the time when he was actually in London, printing two of his publications! In truth, he was allowed to come and go, without notice and without observa- tion ! It was only after much search and much inquiry, that I lately found out his remains at Bardstown, interred there in June or July, 1798; and now I purpose to stimulate a few of the right kind of men, to have a suitable monument erected to his memory, and over his remains, somewhere on the banks of the Ohio, and within sight and sound of the steamers, which owe their existence to his in- vention.
I ought here to add, that I have been well assured, from those who knew the fact, that Fitch was wholly original in his conceptions; none of them in the beginning were deduced from books. The over boiling of a tea-kettle first suggested to his mind the power of vapour. It is known from his friend, the Rev. Mr. Irwin, that when he brought him some engraved specimens of a steam apparatus of some kind, found in some European work, that he showed much chagrin and mortification, to have found himself not so wholly unique as he had before presumed himself to be. It is known also, that his first idea, told at the time, of propelling land carriages by steam, was suggested to his mind in April, 1785, while walking from meeting with James Ogilbee, and was caused by his noticing the motion of a wheel in a passing chaise. This fact has been certified by James Ogilbee and James Scout, in 1788. The thought of steam carriages ne entertained for a few weeks, and then gave up that. for steam- boats. In June, 1785, after making the drafts of his boat scheme, he went to Philadelphia and showed them to Doctor Ewing, Profes- sor Patterson, and others. In August, he laid his models before Con- gress. John Fitch, in his MSS., makes this admission, to wit :- " Although I knew that the thought of applying steam to boats had been before known, yet I was the first that ever exhibited a plan to the public-when, therefore, I had shown it to General Washington, I felt all the elation of hope and expectation." He admits that William Henry, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in conversation with Andrew Ellicott, in 1775, had intimated the thought that steam might be applied to the navigation of boats. Fitch was an honest dealer to others, and admitted in his certificate to Henry Voight, of
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May 9th, 1789, that the said H. Voight " had invented a new boiler for creating steam in a cheap and expeditious manner," and in an- other paper of 23d December, 1789, he certifies, that " H. Voight is a great genius, and that except in a few instances, Fitch had given up his opinion to Voight." "Honour to whom honour is due !"
One account which I have seen, says, that his friends helped him to a fund to go to France, at the request of Mr. Vail, our consul, who wished to introduce the invention into France ; but the progress of the Revolution there prevented any sufficient attention to his schemes and his interest. It is added, that Mr. Vail afterwards sub- jected to the examination of Mr. Fulton, when in France, the papers and designs. It is certain that Mr. Vail is one of the lega- tees in Mr. Fitch's will. If Mr. Fitch was in France, it probably furnished the occasion and the cause of his also visiting England about the same time. Captain Wood, of East Windsor, says he went to France before the Revolution, (the French,) and came away so poor that he had to work his passage to Boston.
In June, 1792, Mr. Fitch addressed a letter to Mr. Rittenhouse, in which he said emphatically, " This, sir, will be the mode of cross- ing the Atlantic in time, whether I shall bring it to perfection or not." At the same time he urges Mr. R. to assist him, by buying his lands in Kentucky. To a smith, who had worked upon his boat, he said, "If I shall not live to see it, you may, when steamboats will be preferred to all other means of conveyance, and especially for pas- sengers ; and they will be particularly useful in the navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi." Jacob Graff was his smith; Boyer Brooks was his boat-builder.
When the project first presented to his mind of propelling by force of condensed vapour, "he had not, (as he himself affirmed) ever heard of such a thing as a steam engine in existence." The Hon. N. Boileau, then of Bucks county, remembers well, that Mr. Fitch had, besides his paddles, the conception of using wheels also, for he actually engaged him, as an ingenious boy, to cut out small ones from drafts, to serve as models, to direct in the construction of larger ones ; some of the models were made in brass.
Mr. Fitch did not admit that James Rumsey, though before him in his schemes of a boat without steam, had preceded him in any of his proper inventions for a boat with steam. This is tested by a publication of May, 1778, printed by Z. Poulson, Philadelphia, en- titled, " The original Steamboat supported, or a Reply to Mr. James Rumsey's pamphlet, showing the true priority of John Fitch, and the false datings, &c., of James Rumsey," in 34 pages, Svo. The particulars of this will be seen under the article, in this work, on steamboats.
John Fitch's pamphlet, which he published in London, in 1793, entitled " An Explanation for the keeping a ship's traverse at sea, by the Columbian Ready Reckoner," is another manifest
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proof of the inventive and ingenious faculties of his mind ; such as was never idle! In crossing the Atlantic, in his voyage to Europe, he had observed the navigators using a round board with the points of the compass cut on it, with holes in the points, into which they put a peg as often as they had run an hour, and thus marking the point they had run. Meditating upon this as his text, he, although no mariner, soon formed his idea of a plate to be made of paper, skin, wood or metal, to be so inscribed, " as might reduce the art of navigation to the comprehension of the smallest capacity, and greatly simplify it, so as to save much trouble in their reckon- ings." "I have (says he) endeavoured to bring the art of navigation into one focal point, and to make it unnecessary to tease themselves with logarithims, signs, tangents, and trigonometry. So that he believes that the use of the plate and the keeping of the ship's traverse can be resolved in much less time than in the common way now used." It might be learned, says he, in six hours' teaching, and the posses- sion of a moderate share of arithmetic; nay more, " a person who has not the use of a pen may cross the Atlantic, without the neces- sity of making a figure !"
To those who are curious in this matter, the pamphlet, in 20 pages, may be seen in the Library of the Philosophical Society, in Philadel- phia. It certainly manifests a very generous spirit in the inventor, to have thus offered his services gratis to the use of the mariner.
Mr. Fitch, while in Indian captivity, made himself a great favourite with the Buffalo chief, by making for him metal ornaments, and engraving his powder horn, &c. Before this adoption of him, he had to run the usual gauntlet, and received many blows. At one time, when he was descending the Ohio with flour for New Orleans, when it was bringing forty dollars per barrel, it was all captured by the Indians, and thus all his prospects were frustrated. When he exchanged Indian captivity, for the place of a prisoner of war, to the British at Detroit, he fell into money making, by making metal or- naments for the officers. After eight or ten months as a prisoner, he got from Quebec, round by sea, and arrived again in Bucks county, at the house of his old friend Cobe Scout; where they rushed into each other's arms, like warm-hearted brothers. Next day they went to meeting, and public thanks were offered there, by his reverend friend Irwin. At one time he was a lieutenant in the army at Val- ley Forge. At another time he was sutler to the army in the west, and made money. Often he was out on foot expeditions with arti- cles of silver made by him, and to be sold through the country. He was, in a word, essentially " a universal Yankee."
As soon as I had ascertained the place in Kentucky where rest the remains of John Fitch, I took measures to have them brought thence, to be deposited at the Laurel Hill Cemetery, where they might have a suitable monument erected to their memory. But it has been deferred from the interference of sundry gentlemen
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there, who have solicited to have them remain in that state, with a view to have them deposited under a monument, to be erected on the margin of the river Ohio, below Louisville; in sight of pas- sengers passing in the steamboats. This, in accordance with his known expressed wishes,-and therefore to be inscribed on the tab let, to wit :
" His darling wish (he said) was to be buried On the margin of the Ohio, Where the song of the boatmen might penetrate The stillness of his resting place ; And where the sound of the steam engine Might send its echoes abroad."
Nihil mihi optatius accidere poterat!
Another inscription, with equal fitness, might be inscribed on an other side of his monument, equally forcible, from his own pen, to wit :
While living, he declared,- " This will be the mode of crossing the Atlantic in time, Whether I shall bring it to perfection or not."
" Steamboats will be preferred to all other conveyance, And they will be particularly useful In the navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi."
" The day will come, when some more potent man Will get fame and riches for my invention."
Should the Kentuckians be faithful to themselves, they will of course see to the execution of this monument ; but if not, we know of another disposal of his remains, which will give them perpetuity of honour at Laurel Hill,-where they will be equally near the scenes of his early operations and associations.
In fine, from what we have gleaned of John Fitch, and his perils, adventures, and adversities of life, we feel satisfied, that he has left enough of his written facts to make a lively work of romance and tale; even if none should be found "to do him reverence," by making a true book of his memoirs and biography. Will any take the hint ?
VOL. 1-3 Z
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Persons and Characters.
William Logan.
William Logan, eldest son of James Logan, was born at the family seat at Stenton. His education was conducted under the eye of his father, and completed in England. Commerce was selected as his profession, and after the death of his father he moved to Stenton, and devoted himself chiefly to agriculture.
He occupied a seat at the Provincial Council, and took a part in the passing public affairs. Like his father, he became at same time a warm friend of the proprietary interests, and a decided protector of the Indian race. He received the Indians cordially at his place,- gave the aged a settlement (called the Indian field) on his land, and educated their young at his own expense. When the fierce and in- flamed spirits from Paxton, sought the blood of the unoffending In- dians, even to Philadelphia,-he, notwithstanding his union with Friends, joined others in taking measures to defend their lives by force.
He travelled extensively in this country, and his Journal from Philadelphia to Georgia is still preserved, and might, if published, show a different state of society and country from what is now seen. During the revolutionary war he was in England. With the same spirit of his father he executed the conveyance of the Loganian Library to the city of Philadelphia, as well as the estates, which have since served to augment the catalogue and the income.
James Hamilton.
The Hamilton family, the owners and occupants of the elegant seat near the city, called Bush Hill, always moved in a style of ele- gance and distinction.
The first of the name settled among us was Andrew Hamilton, from Scotland,-he was an eminent lawyer-was made attorney general, and was for many years speaker of the provincial assembly.
His city residence was the large house on Chesnut street near Third street, called Clarke's Hall, and in that house was born his son James Hamilton, the subject of the present short notice.
The education of James Hamilton was begun in Philadelphia and completed in England. At the death of his father, in 1741, he was left in possession of a handsome estate, and in the appointment of prothonotary, then the most lucrative office in the province.
In 1747 he was appointed lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, and being the first native governor, and having much of that inte- grity, wisdom and dignity which best fitted his station, he became a very popular officer. It was against the wishes of all parties that he resigned his commission in 1754, and still more against his own in- clinations that, when in England in 1759, he was prevailed upon again to accept the office. In 1763 he yielded his place to John
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Penn, retaining, however, his place at the council board, but other- wise retiring from public life.
He was always a liberal supporter of all public and useful mea. sures and improvements. He gave a strong impulse to the college- assisted Benjamin West in his early efforts, and had his own full length portrait executed by him. He had inherited from his father a strong attachment to the Penn family and their interests, strengthened also by the marriage of his neice to John Penn, the governor. H had also loyal feelings to the crown. It consequently followed that he was unfriendly to the Revolution, but quietly submitted for a sea- son to what he could not control. He died soon after the peace, an aged gentleman.
James Pemberton.
This gentleman, born, educated, and reared in Philadelphia, in the bosom of Friends, possesses in his personal characteristics the beau ideal of a genuine Quaker of the old school, and it is because that we have had a favourable opportunity of sketching the individual from the life, that we here annex a portrait of himself in propria persona-such as it once was, as a walking figure in the streets of Philadelphia. His whole figure, garb and air are primitive, and serve to show and perpetuate the Quaker characteristics, as shown down to the year 1800. When shall we look upon his like again ? I have spoken a little about the dress of Friends, under the head of "Friends," and this portrait may serve to exemplify more fully what was in- tended to be there described.
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