OCR Text |
Show win Immmm&m&m 2) m il nil lA1ijjjig IV'C n 5 " ".' fffAi" I jmztA TfOD&tOfFirc!fI'5STA?lBQ&r f'T? ' o I"Sfl . J.iiu v,. tfy HQ "invented" the UQy- - Zjna&&T(3rrr (AfJZXjWG&JXmT) V-T7 stenmbont? J " J f.- Ask ten Americans ll4- "J I l thnt !uestion and tlie I iHw'h I r3 V i clinnces nre tbat nine hitifi V"" - I v I PJ J out of the ten, remem- UrJ ' St k ; I I Vr bering a few outstand- '", S T" I ing names in their If, f ' K I school histories, will vLL - J' I answer "Robert Fulton," thereby prov- I iA H f?V'i$ I i i V I Ing once more what a strange Jumble j' V f-X f y ' 'JjJ , of fact and fiction is the average '!L r Jvt'-"' 'iS''sl'' I American's conception of the history !TvAV"v J i i - -'S'SiJk I of his country. For the question of Mi)l ) , v who deserves credit for "inventing" Y nffiltfi '- Ji ZTT1'" the steamboat has recently started an- I ri ' J Uj TT other of those controversies over his- J iV 1 trtj' t-V y torical matters, which sometimes re- f 4 j, '"w 't. - suits In clearing up certain disputed ?5 1 H itvJrr roints In the annals of our nation. J' , , tfvu. V I Wore often it does not, principally be- llW i rfigrt I cause the partisans never seem able -l.Iu V"6&vrV f-J t r ! to agree upon a strict definition of j t- l -fJS-H.l , J terms, without which it Is virtually p jrtfg CJZfO?" Off Zffi ' msSLS3IPPI '" ' 1 ' J impossible to settle such disputes con- 7 " "S V'Jy "Invented" the IV'Tl steamboat? i ;A Ask ten Americans 2 7 llnt luestion anti tue Cf 'J chances are tbat nine nj " J out of the ten, remem-J remem-J bering a few outstand- ing names in their school histories, will answer "Robert Fulton," thereby proving prov-ing once more what a strange Jumble of fact and fiction is the average American's conception of the history of his country. For the question of who deserves credit for "inventing" the steamboat has recently started another an-other of those controversies over historical his-torical matters, which sometimes results re-sults In clearing up certain disputed roints In the annals of our nation. Wore often it does not, principally because be-cause the partisans never seem able to agree upon a strict definition of terms, without which it Is virtually impossible to settle such disputes con clusively. In this particular case the word "inventor" is the crux of the situation. AVhile popular opinion accords thnt distinction to Robert Fulton, and in 1900 he was elected to the Hall of Fame at New York university as "the inventor of the steamboat," being the first Inventor and the ninth American chosen to membership among "America's "Amer-ica's Immortals," his right to that title has been challenged on behalf of no less than eight other Americans. Outstanding Out-standing among these claims is that In behalf of Lieut. John Fitch, who, it is asserted, made a successful trip on the Delaware river In a steamboat which he had deslgued more than 20 years before Fulton's historic voyage up the Hudson in the Clermont. ' Fitch's right to the title of "Inventor" "Inven-tor" Is supported by his descendants who are members of the Fitch Family association. They have nominated his name for inclusion In the Hall of Fame nt New York university with the demand de-mand that either the name and bust of Fulton be removed or that those of Fitch be added. They are planning a nation-wide celebration In 1935 to mark the one hundredth and fiftieth anniversary of "the invention of the steamboat by Fitch in 1TS5," and they ask that this celebration be given recognition rec-ognition by the government and that public agencies and national patriotic societies co-operate in It as they did in the Hudson-Fulton celebration of 3907. They base their contention that Fitch rather than Fulton was the "in-entor" "in-entor" of the steamboat upon certain official acts of the government, the chief one being that both houses of congress by a unanimous vote, approved ap-proved on February 12, 192C, an appropriation ap-propriation of SIS.OOO for a suitable monument to Fitch as "the first in the world's history to successfully apply ap-ply steam propulsion of vessels through water." This memorial was unveiled May 27, 1927, in the public fquare In Bardstown, Ky., where Fitch died July 2, 179S, In poverty and despair of proving to an unbelieving world the practical value of a steamboat. steam-boat. They point out, too, that the labels on the models of steamboats in the Smithsonian institution bears out their contention thnt he was the "inventor." These labels read as follows: JOHN FITCH'S STEAMBOAT "Designed by John Fitch, built in Philadelphia Phil-adelphia in 17SG, and first tested on the Delaware river July 27 of that year, when a successful public trial was made. Equipped with a ste;im engine which, connected by geared ma chinery, sprocket wheel and chain, operated op-erated six oars placed vertically in a frame on each side of the boat. "In 17S8 Fitch completed his first commercial boat for carrying passengers, passen-gers, and it was driven in a similar manner. This boat was 60 feet long and 8 feet wide. She made a trip from Philadelphia to Burlington, about 20 miles, In July, 1788, the longest long-est ever made by any steamboat up to that date. October 12, .1788, the boat took 30 passengers from Philadelphia to Burlington in 3 hours and 10 minutes, min-utes, a speed of over six miles an hour. In 1790 Fitch built another boat which attained a speed of eight miles an hour and continued to run on the Delaware river, carrying passengers passen-gers and freight, for three or four months." RDMSEY'S STEAMBOAT "Propelled "Pro-pelled by Jets of water forced out through the stern. Tested on the Potomac Po-tomac river at Shepherdstown, Va., 17S7." STEAMBOAT CLERMONT, 1S07 "Designed by Robert Fulton, built in the city of New York, and made Its first trip from that city to Albany in August, 1S07." Of these labels, the one on Fitch's model is the only one which uses words "successful public trial." If, then, a "successful public trial" is proof of "invention," it would seem that there is no doubt as to the right of Fitch to be given the title of "inventor "in-ventor of the steamboat." However, there are those whose definition of "invention" Is a vastly different one and they assert thnt no one person can claim the credit for the Invention of the steamboat. Of the other "inventors" of the steamboat, the volume "The March of Commerce" by Malcom Keir in the Yale University Press, "Pageant of America," has this to say : "Samuel Morey of New Hampshire, who began experimenting with a steamboat in 1790, built a paddle-wheel steamer which in 1794 ran from Hartford Hart-ford to New York at a speed of about 15 miles an hour. This boat had the paddle wheel at the stern. A later bout of Morey's, built at Bordentown on the Delaware, was operated with two side paddle wheels. Others who were seized with the 'steam mania,' as it was derisively called at the time, were William Longstreet of New Jersey, Jer-sey, whose boat made five miles an hour against the current of the Savannah Sa-vannah river in 1790, and Elijah Orms-bee Orms-bee of Connecticut, who made paddles to imitate ducks' feet and operated them by steam in a boat that he nav igated from Cranston to Providence and Pawtueket and return. "Oliver Evans, who invented the high-pressure steam engine and tubular tubu-lar boiler, applied it to moving boats as well as highway wagons and mills. Steam dredges built by him, such as the Oruktor Amphibolos, opented in 1S04 through the water under their own power. Robert R. Livingston, afterward associated with Fulton, built a steamboat and ran it on the Hudson. John Evans of Hoboken, N. J., experimented with a half-dozen different steamboats after 1791, and eventually hit upon the Idea of the screw propeller in place of the more usual setting poles, paddles, oars, or paddle wheels. Stevens himself, however, how-ever, soon discarded the screw propeller pro-peller in favor of paddle wheels, and it was not until years later In 1839 that the screw propeller received further fur-ther attention. "Benjamin Franklin, who had a finger fin-ger in nearly every pie that was cooking cook-ing during his lifetime, was a member mem-ber of an association headed by James Rumsey, a native of Maryland, that proposed to try Franklin's idea of propelling pro-pelling a boat by sucking in water at the bow and ejecting it at the stern. A boat was built and run on this principle prin-ciple by Rumsey in 17S7, a steam pump being the means of ejecting the water. Rumsey had in 17S4 exhibited a steamboat before General Washington Washing-ton at Bath, Va. In this earlier boat the power had been steam applied by cranks to a series of setting poles. Fitch, who had applied for state monopolies mo-nopolies over steamboats, contested Rumsey's invention, so Rumsey took his Ideas to London but died there in 1792, before they became practical." In mentioning the men who contributed contrib-uted to the success of the steamboat there is one name which cannot justly be omitted. Fitch, Fulton and the others oth-ers had built steamboats which would operate on gently-flowing bodies of water wa-ter In the East, but it remained for another man to tame the swift waters of the West. Fulton and Livingston tried It and failed. But Henry M. Shreve, whose name Is perpetuated in the city of Shreveport, La., succeeded. Shreve called his boat the Washington Wash-ington and In it he made two round trips between Louisville, Ky., and New Orleans, making the return trip in the then unbelievably fast time of 25 days or less than a fourth of the time it took the bargemen and keelboat pole men to make the same distance. From that time on steamboats went everywhere, every-where, no matter how swift the current cur-rent they had to buck. by Wslvrn Nwspaper Union.) |