THE JEFFERSONIAN. PAGE THREE SOME PAGES PROM MlSCRAP BOOK THE REAL INVENTOR OF THE STEAM- with a flutter wheel at the stern. A crude lit- exclusive right to the propulsion of vessels BOAT. tle steam engine was put in, and the craft, was by “fire and steam.” He was one day ahead It is a surprise to many to learn that Rob- taken for trial t oa meadow stream on Joseph of Donaldson with his petition, and secured ert Fulton was not the original inventor of the Longstreth’s farm. To the inventor’s delight, his rights. The state document bears date steamboat. The honor of this achievement his tiny boat moved up and down the stream March 18, 1786, and secured to John Fitch really belongs to John Fitch, who successful- obedient to the force of steam. for fourteen years, “the sole and exclusive ly navigated a packet, passenger and freight Fired with the enthusiasm of success, Fitch right of constructing, making, using and em- steamboat on the Delaware river seventeen resolved to appeal to Congress for help to fur- ploying or navigating all and every species of years before Fulton’s Clermont made its ap- ther his invention, and make it a benefit to boats or water craft which might be impelled pearance on the Hudson. Yet the world has mankind. Armed with letters of commenda- by the force of fire and steam, in all the united in giving the glory of this invention to tion from the provosts of the University of (‘reeks, rivers, etc., within the jurisdiction of Robert Fulton, while the name of John Fitch Pennsylvania and Princeton College, and Wil- Pennsylvania.” is unhonored and almost unknown. liam C. Houston, he made his appeal by let- Fitch now succeeded in organizing a com- John Fitch was born in 1743, at Windsor, ter to the President of the United States. pany with forty shares at twenty dollars a Connecticut. His father was a hard-working Congress was then in session at New York. share. farmer, and when John had reached the age The matter was referred to a committee, who So far as history shows, the simple little of nine, he was taken from school and put to made no report, greatly to the inventor’s dis- engine used in Fitch’s model steamboat was work at swingling flax and threshing grain. appointment. the first made in this country. There were, But he did not give up studying. He finished After this failure Fitch applied to the min- in 1785, but three steam engines in America, his arithmetic by himself. He heard of a ister of the king of Spain, then at New York. and they were imported from England. book, Salmon’s Geography, which he was told This Spaniard grasped the idea and perceived The crudities and difficulties to be overcome would give a description of the whole world; the vast benefit involved. He promised the in the making of a steam engine seemed well and he became possessed of an insatiable de- inventor help if Spain could have the exclus- nigh insurmountable. Fitch secured the ser- sire to secure this book. He ventured to ask ive control of the invention. “No,” cried vices of Henry Voight, a watchmaker, pos- his father to buy the book, promising to work Fitch, “I cannot give it to Spain alone. My sessed of much ingenuity and mechanical hard enough to pay for it; but was met with invention must be first for my own country, skill, to assist him. Work was at once begun; a sharp refusal. Then the lad petitioned for and then for all the world.” Had he accept- a skiff-with suitable apparatus was made; an the use of some waste land on which to plant ed the offer of the Spanish minister, his ef- endless chain, a screw of paddles, and several potatoes. This his father granted. While forts might have been crowned with success, other gearings were tided; and finally the en- his father and brothers went to a muster and and riches and honor, instead of poverty and gine with a three-inch cylinder was put in its kept holiday the little farmer dug up his land ignominy, been his share. i 1 The strange ideas place. It proved a complete failure; and and planted his seed. He attended to his I had at that time,” wrote the disappointed Fitch and Voight were laughed at and jeered crop during the noon hour and after regu- man in 1792, when, disheartened over repeated by the spectators on the shore. Fitch was a lar work at night. He raised ten shillings failures, he was meditating suicide, “of serv- good deal chagrined at this ill success. He worth of potatoes, with which he bought the ing my country without the least suspicion did not lose heart, however, but began at once coveted “Salmon,” but was two shillings that my only reward would be contempt and to plan to remedy the imperfections; and in in debt—and, moreover, his father demanded opproprious names! To refuse the offer of a few days the skiff was again tried success- remuneration for the seed potatoes. the Spanish nation was the act of a blockhead, fully. The new book was a source of much delight; of which I would not be guilty again.” The funds had all been used up in this ex- he pored over its pages eagerly and soon Fitch went to the American Philosophical periment; but it was resolved to build a larger made them his own. Society at Philadelphia with drawings of his boat with an engine having a twelve-inch cyl- When John was thirteen his father allowed model and explanations of his ideas. He inder. Delaware, New Jersey and New York him six weeks more at school where he learned called upon Washington, but found him luke- followed the lead of Pennsylvania, and gave all the mathematics within the master’s scope warm, because of a previous interest in a to John Fitch the exclusive right to navigation and the method of surveying as then practiced “mechanical boat” of James Rumsey. An by fire and steam; but these rights did not in- in New England. That closed his school life. interview with Benjamin Franklin, in which clude any of the much needed funds to further One day in April, 1785, while Fitch was he .fully explained his scheme, gained him the invention. Work on the steamboat pro- limping with rheumatism along the Nesha- nothing. The inventor accused Dr. Franklin gressed slowly; contributions were few; the mony road, in Pennsylvania, a horse and car- of appropriating his ideas. expense was more than the company antici- riage passed by. “Would that I had a horse!” Fitch had hopes of assistance from a Phil- pated, and some withdrew from the enterprise, he exclaimed to the friend with him. “There adelphian, Arthur Donaldson, a machinist of and, when all was complete, the engine ought to be away for a poor fellow to ride some note, who seemed enamored with the worked so badly it had to be taken to pieces without a horse; and,” he added, “I’mgoing project, and to whom he offered a partner- and put together again, a long and tedious to find it!” He lapsed at once into a ship. Donaldson, who received the idea of process. As soon as one defect was remedied thoughtful- mood, so that his friend could steam navigation as something entirely new, another became apparent. Fitch himself be- scarcely get a word from him during the rest would not give Fitch a decisive answer until came so disheartened at the opposition and of the walk. For a week afterward he busied he had talked the matter over with a friend. ridicule to which he was subjected that he wT as himself in making drafts of a land carriage, Fitch heard with dismay, soon after this in- on the point of giving up the attempt. But and considering what motive power could be terview, from an old nurse who had been in lie was too ardent an enthusiast to really lose applied. The roughness of the roads seemed the Donaldson family, that there was much confidence in his project, and would again an insuperable obstacle to this mode of con- talk over Arthur Donaldson’s invention of a enter into his work with fresh zeal. veyance ; and in this dilemma his mind revert- steamboat. Fitch went at once to the man This boat was completed and had a success- ed to the water and vessels. For three weeks he and demanded an explanation. ful trial, on the 22d of August, 1787. The worked on this idea and first thought of “Well,” Donaldson coolly answered, “I Convention to frame a Federal Constitution steam power; then he submitted his plan and have invented such an improvement in naviga- was then in session at Philadelphia and was drawing to Rev. Mr. Irmin, of Neshamony. tion; and I intend to apply for the exclusive invited to be present. In his journal Fitch The next step was to build a model vessel, privilege of using it.” mentions that all were present save General propelled by steam power. He constructed a Fitch immediately prepared a petition to Washington. Gov. Randolph of Virginia little boat four feet long, a foot in breadth, the legislature of Pennsylvania, asking for an (Continued on Page Fourteen.)