*^"-. <. •'TV.* .0 r ' ^^'\ ', f o i°V • ' • / .•^•.-%.^<.'-, V ■>' --i-.- --- Z/;.^ ^^ *. v"^^^ 4V S*. * V ^,^ ' • - » A 21-23 West 44th Street CITY HISTORY LEAFLETS PRICE, 10 CENTS Copyright, 1909, by the City History Club of New York Gift Fnbliskgf^- CITY HISTORY LEAFLETS FIRST SERIES NUMBER 2 HENRY HUDSON'S THIRD VOYAGE In the Third Volume of Purchas his Pilgrimes, (London, 1625) THE Sixteenth Chapter is Headed as Follows : The Third voyage of MASTER HENRIE HUDSON toward Noua Zembla and at his retoume his pafsing from Farre Hand to New found Land and along to fortie foure degrees and ten minutes and then to Cape Cod and fo to thirtie three degrees and along the Coaft to the northward in fortie two degrees _ _^ and an halfe and up the River neere f\S p^rT utch successors did, for the lalter applied it to New York Island, 20 south-east by east. At noone I observed and found our height to bee 39 degrees, 30 minutes. Our compasse varied sixe degrees to the west. We continued our course toward England, without see- ing any land by the way, all the rest of this moneth of October, and on the seventh day of November, stilo novo, being Saturday, by the grace of God we safely arrived in the range of Dartmouth, in Devonshire, in the yeere '^- E. H. 21 THE BUILDING OF THE "CLERMONT." Robert Fulton was born in 1765, on a small Pennsylvania farm in what is now Fulton Township. As .a child he displayed a taste for mathematics and a decided talent for drawing; and at seventeen he set out for Philadelphia, determined to become an artist. At twenty he was a miniature painter, mentioned in the Philadelphia directory; at twenty-one, having established his mother in a home bought with his savings, he was on his way to England to study under Benjamin West; and at twenty-eight, he had turned his attention from painting to civil engineer- ing and invention, and was already endeavoring to work out a plan by which he could apply to navigation the motive power of steam. In 1797, when peace was proposed between France and England, Fulton published a pamphlet entitled, A Uni- versal Betterment of Humanity through a Constructive System of Canals and a Destructive System of Torpedoes; and went to France to try to secure patents for his in- ventions. Friendship with the United States ministers to France, Joel Barlow and Robert E. Livingston, encouraged the young American to attempt to gain governmental sup- port. A small paddle-wheeled boat was built and success- fully operated on the Seine, and another device, the tor- pedo-destroyer, was put before an English- commission ; but both the French and English governments declined to adopt the inventions. Accordingly, with the advice of Chancellor Livingston, who had been associated with Nicholas Roosevelt and John Stevens in experimentations of a similar character, the inventor decided to try his fortune in America. He formed a partnership with Livingston, and made a model for a larger boat than he had hitherto constructed, send- ing to the English firm of Watt and Bolton for an engine with which to propel her. In 1798, the New York State Legislature transferred to Livingston the exclusive priv- ilege (enjoyed since 1787 by John Fitch) of navigating by steam the waters of the State, and on August 17, 1807, the Clermont made her trial trip. A small flat-bottomed boat, one hundred and fifty feet long by thirteen feet wide, she drew two feet of water, 22 and was propelled by paddle-wheels attached to the axle of the engine crank. She had two cabins, between which the engine was placed, a tiller and two masts. Steadily proceeding up the stream, indifferent to wind and tide, the new wonder kept her course from a starting point in the North River to her goal at Albany, covering one hundred and fifty miles in thirty-two hours, an un- rivalled speed. The success of the experiment was unques- tioned. Boat after boat followed in rapid succession. A pas- senger line was established between New York and Albany, ferry-boats began to ply from New York to New Jersey, and between Brooklyn and New York, and still the genius of the inventor was busy with schemes to bet- ter his devices. Canal improvements, submarine boats, the floating-dock and other inventions were completed ; until, soon after the launching of the great war vessel which was to lead the navies of the world, devotion to his work brought on an illness from which Fulton was not to recover. He died in New York, at his home in Battery Place, in the winter of 1815. His ashes lie in the I^ivingston vault at the southern end of Trinity Churchyard, where his wife, Harriet Liv- ingston, was buried beside him. A monument to his mem- ory, erected by the American Society of Mechanical Engi- neers, stands near by. The bronze medallion shows a man in early middle age, whose finely cut, strongly modelled features wear an expression of dignified calm. It is the face of an idealist who was also a man of affairs, and in whom patient industry in pursuing an ambition was inspired by imagination, enthusiasm and high cour- age, — a combination of qualities which place Robert Ful- ton among the foremost inventors of modern times. OGT ^ 1912 a^.* 4.V % ^VW* V •^<^ v » •» o ■^^.-i c°'. Ao^ -.1 •^v.^*'^ . .-'J.L- V •HO* C°\' .*> ^^-n^. V c^ \ c\ #