The Life of John Marshall Volume IV Part 50

[1108] d.i.c.kinson: _Robert Fulton, Engineer and Artist_, 156-57; also see Thurston: _Robert Fulton_, 113.

[1109] See d.i.c.kinson, 126-32; also Knox: _Life of Robert Fulton_, 72-86; and Fletcher: _Steam-s.h.i.+ps_, 19-24.

[1110] d.i.c.kinson, 134-35; Knox, 90-93.

[1111] Act of March 27, 1798, _Laws of New York, 1798_, 382-83.

This act, however, was merely the transfer of similar privileges granted to John Fitch on March 19, 1787, to whom, rather than to Robert Fulton, belongs the honor of having invented the steamboat. It was printed in the _Laws of New York_ edited by Thomas Greenleaf, published in 1792, I, 411; and also appears as Appendix A to "A Letter, addressed to Cadwallader D. Colden, Esquire," by William Alexander Duer, the first biographer of Fulton. (Albany, 1817.) Duer's pamphlet is uncommonly valuable because it contains all the pet.i.tions to, and the acts of, the New York Legislature concerning the steamboat monopoly.

[1112] Reigart: _Life of Robert Fulton_, 163. n.o.body but Livingston was willing to invest in what all bankers and business men considered a crazy enterprise. (_Ib._ 100-01.)

[1113] Knox, 93. It should be remembered, however, that the granting of monopolies was a very common practice everywhere during this period.

(See Prentice: _Federal Power over Carriers and Corporations_, 60-65.)

[1114] Compare with his brother's persistence in the Batture controversy, _supra_, 100-15.

[1115] d.i.c.kinson, 64-123; Knox, 35-44.

[1116] Knox, 93; see also d.i.c.kinson, 136.

[1117] Act of April 5, 1803, _Laws of New York, 1802-04_, 323-24.

[1118] Act of April 6, 1807, _Laws of New York, 1807-09_, 213-14.

[1119] The North River was afterward named the Clermont, which was the name of Livingston's county seat. (d.i.c.kinson, 230.)

[1120] The country people along the Hudson thought the steamboat a sea monster or else a sign of the end of the world. (Knox, 110-11.)

[1121] Act of April 11, 1808, _Laws of New York, 1807-09_, 407-08.

(Italics the author's.)

[1122] d.i.c.kinson, 233-34.

[1123] _Ib._ 234-36. The thoroughfare in New York, at the foot of which these boats landed, was thereafter named Fulton Street. (_Ib._ 236.)

[1124] See _infra_, 414.

[1125] d.i.c.kinson, 230. From the first Roosevelt had been a.s.sociated with Livingston in steamboat experiments. He had constructed the engine for the craft with which Livingston tried to fulfill the conditions of the first New York grant to him in 1798. Roosevelt was himself an inventor, and to him belongs the idea of the vertical wheel for propelling steamboats which Fulton afterward adopted with success. (See J. H. B.

Latrobe, in _Maryland Historical Society Fund-Publication_, No. 5, 13-14.)

Roosevelt was also a manufacturer and made contracts with the Government for rolled and drawn copper to be used in war-vessels. The Government failed to carry out its agreement, and Roosevelt became badly embarra.s.sed financially. In this situation he entered into an arrangement with Livingston and Fulton that if the report he was to make to them should be favorable, he was to have one third interest in the steamboat enterprise on the Western waters, while Livingston and Fulton were to supply the funds.

The story of his investigations and experiments on the Ohio and Mississippi glows with romance. Although forty-six years old, he had but recently married and took his bride with him on this memorable journey.

At Pittsburgh he built a flatboat and on this the newly wedded couple floated to New Orleans; the trip, with the long and numerous stops to gather information concerning trade, transportation, the volume and velocity of various streams, requiring six months' time.

Before proceeding far Roosevelt became certain of success. Discovering coal on the banks of the Ohio, he bought mines, set men at work in them, and stored coal for the steamer he felt sure would be built. His expectation was justified and, returning to New York from New Orleans, he readily convinced Livingston and Fulton of the practicability of the enterprise and was authorized to go back to Pittsburgh to construct a steamboat, the design of which was made by Fulton. By the summer of 1811 the vessel was finished. It cost $38,000 and was named the New Orleans.

Late in September, 1811, the long voyage to New Orleans was begun, the only pa.s.sengers being Roosevelt and his wife. A great crowd cheered them as the boat set out from Pittsburgh. At Cincinnati the whole population greeted the arrival of this extraordinary craft. Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt were given a dinner at Louisville, where, however, all declared that while the boat could go down the river, it never could ascend. Roosevelt invited the banqueters to dine with him on the New Orleans the next night and while toasts were being drunk and hilarity prevailed, the vessel was got under way and swiftly proceeded upstream, thus convincing the doubters of the power of the steamboat.

From Louisville onward the voyage was thrilling. The earthquake of 1811 came just after the New Orleans pa.s.sed Louisville and this changed the river channels. At another time the boat took fire and was saved with difficulty. Along the sh.o.r.e the inhabitants were torn between terror of the earthquake and fright at this monster of the waters. The crew had to contend with snags, shoals, sandbars, and other obstructions. Finally Natchez was reached and here thousands of people gathered on the bluffs to witness this triumph of science.

At last the vessel arrived at New Orleans and the first steamboat voyage on the Ohio and Mississippi was an accomplished fact. The experiment, which began two years before with the flatboat voyage of a bride and groom, ended at the metropolis of the Southwest in the marriage of the steamboat captain to Mrs. Roosevelt's maid, with whom he had fallen in love during this thrilling and historic voyage. (See Latrobe, in _Md.

Hist. Soc. Fund-Pub_. No. 6. A good summary of Latrobe's narrative is given in Preble: _Chronological History of the Origin and Development of Steam Navigation_, 77-81.)

[1126] Act of Jan. 25, 1811, _Acts of New Jersey, 1811_, 298-99.

[1127] Act of April 9, 1811, _Laws of New York, 1811_, 368-70.

[1128] _Laws of Connecticut_, May Sess. 1822, chap. XXVIII.

[1129] d.i.c.kinson, 244.

[1130] Livingston _et al._ _vs._ Van Ingen _et al._, 1 Paine, 45-46.

Brockholst Livingston, a.s.sociate Justice of the Supreme Court, sat in this case with William P. Van Ness (the friend and partisan of Burr), and delivered the opinion.

[1131] The full t.i.tle of this tribunal was the "Court for the Trial of Impeachments and the Correction of Errors." It was the court of last resort, appeals lying to it from the Supreme Court of Judicature and from the Court of Chancery. It consisted of the Justices of the Supreme Court of Judicature and a number of State Senators. A more absurdly const.i.tuted court cannot well be imagined.

[1132] 9 Johnson, 558, 563.

[1133] The State Senate, House, Council of Revision, and Governor.

[1134] 9 Johnson, 572.

[1135] Those enacted in 1798, 1803, 1807, 1808, and 1811.

[1136] 9 Johnson, 573. Jay as Governor was Chairman of the Council of Revision, of which Kent was a member.

[1137] _lb._ 572.

[1138] _Ib._ 573. (Italics the author's.)

[1139] 9 Johnson, 574.

[1140] _Ib._ 575-76.

[1141] _Ib._ 577-78.

[1142] 9 Johnson, 578, 580.

[1143] _Ib._ 582-88.

[1144] All the Senators concurred except two, Lewis and Townsend, who declined giving opinions because of relations.h.i.+p with the parties to the action. (_Ib._ 589.)

[1145] Ogden protested against the Livingston-Fulton steamboat monopoly in a Memorial to the New York Legislature. (See Duer, 94-97.) A committee was appointed and reported the facts as Ogden stated them; but concluded that, since New York had granted exclusive steamboat privileges to Livingston, "the honor of the State requires that its faith should be preserved." However, said the committee, the Livingston-Fulton boats "are in substance the invention of John Fitch,"

to whom the original monopoly was granted, after the expiration of which "the right to use" steamboats "became common to all the citizens of the United States." Moreover, the statements upon which rested the Livingston monopoly of 1798 "were not true in fact," Fitch having forestalled the claims of the Livingston pretensions. (_Ib._ 103-04.)

[1146] 4 Johnson's _Chancery Reports_, 50-51. The reader must not confuse the two series of Reports by Johnson; one contains the decisions of the Court of Errors; the other, those of the Court of Chancery.