steam engine were but little known. A few had seen the one for raising the Manhattan water, but to the people at large the thing was a hidden mystery. Curiosity was now greatly excited. When it was announced in New York that the boat would start from the foot of Courtlandt street at 6 o'clock on Friday morning, the 4th of September, and take passengers to Albany, there was a broad smile on every face as the inquiry was made if anybody would be fool-hardy enough to go. A friend of the writer of this article, hearing he intended to venture, accosted him in the street: "John, will thee risk thy life in such a concern? I tell thee she is the most fearful wild fowl living, and thy father ought to restrain thee.' "When Friday morning came the wharves, piers, house-tops, and every spot from which a sight could be obtained, were filled with spectators. There were twelve berths, aud every one was taken. The fare was $7. All the machinery of the boat was fully exposed to view; the water and balance wheels were entirely uncovered; the peripheries were of cast-iron, some four inches or more square, and ran just clear of the water. The weight of both the water and balance-wheels was sustained by the shafts, which projected over the sides of the vessel. There were no outside guards. The forward part of the boat was covered by a deck, which afforded shelter for the men employed in navigating the boat. The after part was fitted up in a rough manner for passengers; the entrance into the cabin was from the stern, in front of the steersman, who worked a tiller, the same as in an ordinary sloop. Thick, black smoke issued from the chimney-steam hissed from every ill-fitted valve and crevice of the engine. Fulton himself was there; his remarkably clear and sharp voice was heard above the hum of the multitude and the noise of the engine. All his actions were confident and decided, unheeding the fearfulness of some and the doubts and sarcasms of others. In the whole scene combined there was an individuality and an interest which, like 'love's young dream,' comes but once, and is remembered forever. The time for the departure of the boat arrived; some of the machinery still required to be adjusted; there was a delay. Some of the passengers said, in Fulton's hearing, they feared the voyage would prove a failure. He replied: "Gentlemen, you need not be uneasy; you shall be in Albany before twelve o'clock tomorrow.' "When everything was ready, the engine was started, and the boat moved steadily but slowly from the wharf. As she turned up the river and was fairly under way there arose such a huzza as ten thousand throats never gave before. The passengers returned the cheer, but Fulton stood erect upon the deck, his eye flashing with an unearthly brilliancy as he surveyed the crowd. He felt that the magic wand of success was waving over him, and he was silent. It was agreed that a kind of log-book should be kept. Gerrit H. Van Wagenen was designated to give the time, and the writer of this article to set it down. At the termination of the voyage, the following paper was drawn up and signed by all the passengers, and published in the Albany Register of Tuesday, September 8, 1807: "On Friday morning, at eighteen minutes before 7 o'clock, the North River steamboat left New York, landed one passenger at Tarrytown, (twenty-five miles,) and the machinery and the contrivances by which one wheel could be thrown out of geer when the mill was required to come about. After finishing the examination, said he, 'that will do; now show me the mill-stones.' 'O,' said the other, that is a secret which the master,' pointing to Fulton, has never told us yet; but when we come back from Albany with a load of corn, then if you come on board you will see the meal fly.' Dennis kept his countenance and the miller left. As we passed West Point the whole garrison was out and cheered us as we passed. At Newburgh it seemed as if all Orange County had collected there; the whole side-hill city seemed animated with life. Every sail-boat and water craft was out; the ferry-boat from Fishkill was filled with ladies. Fulton was engaged in seeing a passenger landed, and did not observe the boat until she bore up alongside. The flapping of the sail arrested his attention, and, as he turned, the waving of so many handkerchiefs and the smiles of bright and happy faces, struck him with surprise. He raised his hat and exclaimed, "That is the finest sight we have seen yet." The steam navigation commenced on the above day, and has been uninterruptedly conarrived at Newburgh (sixty-three miles) at 4 o'clock in tinued, with vastly wonderful increase, up to the afternoon; landed one passenger there, and arrived the present time-possibly, at some future at Clermont, (one hundred miles,) where two passengers, period, to be superseded by some other propelone of whom was Mr. Fulton, were landed at fifteen min-ling agent, which will be as far superior to it as utes before 2 o'clock in the morning, and arrived at Albany it was over its immediate predecessors. When at twenty-seven minutes past 11 o'clock, making the whole first built, the Clermont was 100 feet long, 12 time twenty-eight hours and forty-five minutes; distance, In 1808 she was one hundred and fifty miles. The wind was favorable, feet wide, and 7 feet deep. but light from Verplanck's Point to Wappinger's Creek, lengthened to 150 feet, widened, by having (forty miles.) The remainder of the way it was ahead, guards built on the sides, to 18 feet, and or there was a dead calm. The subscribers, passengers had her name changed to the North River. Her on board of this boat on her first passage as a packet, burden, after the improvements, was 165 tuns. How insignificant to the noble structures of the present! We appreciated this disparity when, a few days since, during a conversation with Capt. Robert Crittenden, who is now the oldest living North River steamboat skipper, he said: think it but justice to state that the accommodations and conveniences on board exceeded their most sanguine expectations. SELAH STRONG, G. H. VAN WAGENEN, J. BOWMAN, JAMES BRADEN, "Albany, September 5, 1807.' "When coming up Haverstraw Bay a man in a skiff lay waiting for us. His appearance indicated a miller; the paddle-wheels had very naturally attracted his attention; he asked permission to come on board. Fulton ordered a line to be thrown to him, and he was drawn alongside. He said he did not know about a mill going up stream, and came to inquire about it.' One of the passengers, an Irishman, seeing through the simple-minded miller at a glance, became his cicerone; showed him all "Why, Sir, the boats of them days would be insufficient to carry the passengers' baggage at the present time." But, ere we drop them, a few words from the biography of the great successful inventor: Robert Fulton, the son of an Irish emigrant, was born in Little Brittain, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1765. In his infancy he was put to school in Lancaster, where he acquired the rudiments of a common English education. His peculiar genius manifested itself at a very early age. In his childhood all his hours of recreation were passed in the shops of mechanics, or in the employment of his pencil. At the age of seventeen years he painted portraits | ish Society for the Promotion of Arts and Comand landscapes in Philadelphia, where he remained until he was about twenty-one. In his twenty-second year he went to England, where he was received with great kindness by his distinguished countryman, Benjamin West, who was so pleased with his promising genius and amiable qualities that he took him into his house, where he continued an inmate for several years. After leaving the family of West, he appears for some time to have made painting his chief employment. He spent two years in Devonshire, where he formed an acquaintance with the Duke of Bridgewater, so famous for his canals, and Lord Stanhope, a nobleman celebrated for his love of science, and particularly for his attachment to the mechanical arts. In 1793 we find Fulton actively engaged in a project to improve inland navigation. Even at that early period he had conceived the idea of propelling vessels by steam, and he speaks in some of his manuscripts with great confidence of its practicability. In May, 1794, he obtained from the British Government a patent for a double inclined plane, to be used for transportation; and in the same year he submitted to the Brit merce an improvement of his invention on mills for sawing marble, for which he received the thanks of the society and an honorary medal. He also obtained patents for machines for spinning flax and making ropes, and invented a mechanical contrivance for scooping out the earth, in certain situations, to form the channels for canals and aqueducts. The subject of canals appears chiefly to have engaged his attention at this time. He now, and probably for some time previously, professed himself a civil engineer. Under this title he published his work on canals. Throughout his course as a machinist and civil engineer, he derived great advantage from his talent for drawing and painting, he being an elegant and accurate draughtsman. After his attention was directed to mechanics, he seemed not to have used his pencil as a painter till a short time before his death, when he painted some portraits of his own family. In 1797 he went to Paris, where he lived seven years in the family of Joel Barlow, during which time he studied the higher mathematics, physics, chemistry, and perspective. While there he projected the first pano Stevenses of Hoboken, the Hearts of Troy, Captain Jenkins and others. They built a number of new boats of increased speed and accommodations, and for the next twenty years enjoyed an almost exclusive monopoly of the passenger traffic on the Hudson. In 1835 among their fleet were the De Witt Clinton, the Albany, the Ohio and the North America,* of the night line; and the Erie and the Champlain of the day line. These boats averaged five hundred tuns burden, and were well arranged for pas and aft, were tiers of berths, the remainder being occupied with the supper tables, etc. The main cabin aft was, as is now the case, the ladies' saloon, in which were berths and other conveniences. On one or two of these boats the experiment of having state-rooms on the upper or promenade deck had already been tried with success. They had also reduced the time of passage to about twelve or fourteen hours. rama that was exhibited in Paris. He also made an experiment on the Seine, in 1797, with a machine designed to propel carcasses of gunpowder under water to a given point, and there explode them. Although this project failed, he continued to employ his attention on the subject until he had perfected the plan for his "sub-marine boat" as it was afterward executed. He left Paris in 1806, and, after a short stay in England, returned to the United States and effected his wonderful mission, the practical establishment of navigation by steam, for which he re-sengers. On each side of the lower cabin, fore ceived his first patent February 11, 1809; and in the same month of the year 1811 obtained protection for other improvements in boats and machinery. From this time forward he was mostly employed in the construction of boats; among which were the first steam ferry-boats, two of these he built for the Jersey City Ferry. Fulton displayed his usual skill and ingenuity in fitting up the floating bridges and other appurtenances, most of which were the results of his own genius. Our space will not permit a detailed account of his connection with the project for the great Erie Canal; of his new plans and experiments in sub-marine warfare; of the construction of the steam-frigate which bore his name; of his vexatious and ruinous law suits and controversies with those who interfered with his patent rights and exclusive grants. Fulton died February 24, 1815, after a short illness. occasioned by exposure in superintending the construction of a steam-frigate, in the fifty-first year of his age, and was buried with military and civic honors, amid the most marked expressions of regret and respect. For some time previous to the last mentioned date great complaint had been made by the traveling public of the exorbitant rates and other abuses practised by the association, all of which called strenuously for an opposition; and during that season Daniel Drew, Captain St. John and their copartners brought forward the steamboats Westchester and the Emerald, and under the popular cognomen of the "People's Line," established them, at reduced rates, as a regular passenger line between New York and Albany. This at once became a powerful competition to the old asssociation, who then, and for a number of years after, used every exertion to maintain their supremacy. At times the spirit of rivalry was so much elevated that whole loads of passengers were carried from New York to Albany, and vice versa, for twelve-and-a-half cents; but the efforts, in the main, were fruitless. The conductors of the People's Line were men of capacity and Before Fulton's demise the Hudson River steamboat fleet had augmented to the number of seven boats, viz: the North River, the Car of Neptune, the Hope, the Perseverance, the Paragon, the Richmond, and the Fulton. There was a gradual but marked improvement in each successive effort. The Fulton measured 327 tuns burden, and was capable of attaining discrimination; they had carefully measured a speed of nine miles an hour. When the exclusive grant of the State of New York to Livingston and Fulton was set aside, the younger Stevens entered the field of competition. He constructed a boat that in speed excelled all its predecessors. Her usual time was to leave New York at four o'clock in the afternoon and arrive at Albany at from seven to eight o'clock the next morning. In that day this was considered a most wonderful performance. Soon after this period the long celebrated" Hudson River Steamboat Association" was formed. Prominent among its stockholders were the stroyed by the ice in 1839. In the distance before commencing operations ; In 1840 Isaac Newton and his associates joined the People's Line, bringing into the common stock the new North America and the This was the first boat of that name. She was de South America, two of the largest and most elegant boats that had as yet been constructed. In regard to speed, we think the acme was attained by the latter, her time of twenty-two miles per hour never having been beaten. This, however, was an important era in the affairs of the People's Line, it being that of the introduction into its superintendence of a man of mark, and one who, though we trust his career of usefulness is no more than fairly begun, has already had no little influence in the advancement of steam navigation. It is aptly claimed that he has been the "head and front" of the system of safety, ease and luxury now enjoyed. To aid the youth of our country in an honorable spirit of emulation, as also to connect the thread of our narrative, we shall here digress for a few moments to give a brief sketch of his biography. Isaac Newton, the son or a soldier of the Revolution, was born in the town of Scohdack, Rensselaer County, New York, on the 16th of January, 1794. About the commencement of the present century his family removed to Albany, where, from the death of his father, they became much reduced in circumstances; therefore young Isaac had no advantages of early education, and his first recollections were of toiling to earn his living. He worked at various trades, the last of which, printing, he would have been pleased to continue had his health permitted; but, it having been supposed he was in a decline, the physician ordered a change of occupation, and young Isaac was installed clerk in the grain and provision store of late William Chapman. Although rather odd and rustic in his personal appearance, he was studious and regular in his habits, avoiding convivial associates and doing his utmost to advance his social position. By regularly attending evening schools, and close application to study when not engaged in his regular duties, he at this time acquired the elements of a common English education. During the last war between this country and Great Britain, at the call for volunteers, he enrolled himself and shouldered his musket in defense of his native land. He was stationed at Fort Gansevoort, in the regiment of Colonel Cadwalader D. Colden.* He was not fortunate enough to see actual service, but remained on camp duty until peace was declared. On his return to Albany, finding that an outdoor active employment was necessary to his health, he went as a hand on board of a sloop plying between that city and New York. He readily gained a knowledge of the business, and soon took command; and having, by economy, accumulated something, he purchased a share of the vessel, and entered into a copartnership, in the freighting and provision business, with Mr. Bentley. His connection with the transportation business, commenced at this time, has uninterruptedly con*The biographer of Robert Fulton |