The Hudson Part 22

=Barrytown= is just above "Daisy Island," on the east bank, 96 miles from New York. It is said when General Jackson was President, and this village wanted a postoffice, that he would not allow it under the name of Barrytown, from personal dislike to General Barry, and suggested another name; but the people were loyal to their old friend, and _went without_ a postoffice until a new administration. The name of Barrytown, therefore, stands as a monument to pluck. The place was once known as Lower Red Hook Landing. Pa.s.sing "Ma.s.sena," the Aspinwall property, we see--

=Montgomery Place=, residence of Carleton Hunt and sisters, about one-half mile north of Barrytown, formerly occupied by Mrs.

Montgomery, wife of General Montgomery and sister of Chancellor Livingston. The following dramatic incident connected with Montgomery Place is recorded in Stone's "History of New York City": "In 1818 the legislature of New York--DeWitt Clinton, Governor--ordered the remains of General Montgomery to be removed from Canada to New York. This was in accordance with the wishes of the Continental Congress, which, in 1776, had voted the beautiful cenotaph to his memory that now stands in the wall of St. Paul's Church, fronting Broadway. When the funeral cortege reached Whitehall, N. Y., the fleet stationed there received them with appropriate honors; and on the 4th of July they arrived in Albany. After lying in state in that city over Sunday, the remains were taken to New York, and on Wednesday deposited, with military honors, in their final resting place, at St. Paul's. Governor Clinton had informed Mrs. Montgomery of the hour when the steamer 'Richmond,'

conveying the body, would pa.s.s her home. At her own request, she stood alone on the portico. It was forty years since she had parted from her husband, to whom she had been wedded but two years when he fell on the heights of Quebec; yet she had remained faithful to the memory of her 'soldier,' as she always called him. The steamboat halted before the mansion; the band played the 'Dead March,' and a salute was fired; and the ashes of the venerated hero, and the departed husband, pa.s.sed on.

The attendants of the Spartan widow now appeared, but, overcome by the tender emotions of the moment, she had swooned and fallen to the floor."

The river that he loved so well Like a full heart is awed to calm, The winter air that wafts his knell Is fragrant with autumnal balm.

_Henry T. Tuckerman._

The Sawkill Creek flows through a beautiful ravine in Montgomery grounds and above this is the St. Stephen's College and Preparatory School of the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of New York. Beyond and above this are Mrs. E. Bartlett's home and Deveaux Park, afterwards Almonte, the property of Col. Charles Livingston. We are now approaching--

=Cruger's Island=, with its indented South Bay reaching up toward the bluff crowned by Montgomery Place. There is an old Indian tradition that no person ever died on this island, which a resident recently said still held true. It is remarkable, moreover, in possessing many antique carved stones from a city of Central America built into the walls of a temple modeled after the building from which the graven stones were brought. The "ruin" at the south end of the island is barely visible from the steamer, hidden as it is by foliage, but it is distinctly seen by _New York Central_ travelers in the winter season.

Colonel Cruger has spared no expense in the adornment of his grounds, and a beautiful drive is afforded the visitor. The island is connected by a roadway across a tongue of land which separates the North from the South Bay. Above this island east of the steamer's channel across the railway of the _New York Central_, we see a historic bit of water known as--

=The North Bay.= It was here that Robert Fulton developed his steamboat invention, receiving pecuniary aid from Chancellor Livingston, and it is fitting to give at this place a concise account of

=Steam Navigation=, which after many attempts and failures on both sides of the Atlantic was at last crowned with success on the Hudson.

=John Fitch= first entertained his idea of a steamboat in 1785, and sent to the general a.s.sembly of the State of Pennsylvania a model in 1786. New Jersey and Delaware in 1787, gave him exclusive right to navigate their waters for fourteen years, which, however, was never undertaken. His steamboat "Perseverance," on the Delaware in 1787, was eighteen feet in length and six feet beam. The name, however, was a misnomer, as it was abandoned. These facts appear by papers on file in the State Library at Albany. After his experiment on the Delaware, he traveled through France and England, but not meeting with the encouragement that he expected, became poor and returned home, working his pa.s.sage as a common sailor. In 1797 he constructed a little boat which was propelled by steam in the old Collect Pond, New York, below Ca.n.a.l Street, between Broadway and the East River.

Exactly one hundred years separate the first paddle-boat of Papin from the first steamboat of Fulton.

_Victor Hugo._

According to records in the State Library, the steam was sufficiently high to propel the boat once, twice, or thrice around the pond. "When more water being introduced into the boiler or pot and steam was generated, she was again ready to start on another expedition." The boat was a yawl about eighteen feet in length and six feet beam. She was started at the buoy with a small oar when the propeller was used.

The boiler was a ten or twelve gallon iron pot. This boat with a portion of the machinery was abandoned by Fitch, and left to decay on the muddy sh.o.r.e. Shortly after this he died in Kentucky in 1798. Had he lived, or, had the fortune like Fulton, to find such a patron as Livingston, his success might have been a.s.sured. His visit to Europe may have inspired Symington's experiment on Dalswinton Loch in 1788, which made five miles an hour, and another steamboat on the Forth of Clyde which made seven miles an hour in 1789, and the "Charlotte Dundas" in 1802, which drew a load of seventy tons over three miles against a strong gale. Something, however, was wanting and the idea of successful navigation was abandoned in Britain till after the invention of Robert Fulton which made steam navigation an a.s.sured fact.

"How necessary it is to succeed," said Kosciusko, at the grave of Was.h.i.+ngton, and this is also as true in the story of invention as in the struggle for freedom: "That they never fail who die in a great cause though years elapse, and others share as dark a doom. They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts which overpower all others and conduct the world at last to fortune."

It was the writer's privilege in 1891, to deliver the unveiling address of a monument to Symington at his birthplace, Lead Hills, Scotland. In the tribute then paid to the genius of the great Scotchman who had done so much for invention in many directions, he said the difference between Symington and Fulton was this: "Each worked diligently at the same idea, but it was the good fortune of Fulton, so far as the steamboat was considered, to make his 'invention' 'go.'"

I see the traditions of my fathers are true; I see far, far away the big bird again floating upon the waters, so far my warriors that you cannot see it, but ere two autumns have scattered the leaves upon my grave, the pale face will claim our hunting grounds.

_Aepgin, King of the Mahicans._

To quote from a British writer, the "Comet" of Henry Bell on the Clyde in 1812, was the first example of a steamboat brought into serviceable use within European waters, and the writer incidentally added that steam navigation in Britain took practical form almost on the spot where James Watt, the ill.u.s.trious improver of the steam engine was born. The word "improver" is well put. It has much to do with the story of many inventions. The labor of Fitch was far-reaching in many directions, and it detracts nothing from Fulton's fame that the experiments of Fitch and Symington preceded his final triumph.

Rumsey's claim to the idea of application of steam in 1785 does not seem to hold good. General Was.h.i.+ngton, to whom he referred as to a conversation in 1785, replied to a correspondent that the idea of Rumsey, as he remembered and understood it, was simply the propelling of a boat by a machine, the power of which was to be merely manual labor.

=Robert Fulton= was born in 1765, and at the time of Symington's experiment in Scotland, was twenty-three years of age. He was then an artist student of Benjamin West, in London, but, after several years of study, felt that he was better adapted for engineering, and soon thereafter wrote a work on ca.n.a.l navigation. In 1797 he went to Paris.

He resided there seven years and built a small steamboat on the Seine, which worked well, but made very slow progress.

It is remarkable that the two most practical achievements of our century have been consummated by artists,--the telegraph by Morse after a score of "invented" failures, and the successful application of steam to navigation by Fulton.

I was glad to think that among the last memorable beauties which have glided past us were pictures traced by no common hand, not easily to grow old or fade beneath the dust of time--the Kaatskill Mountains, Sleepy Hollow and the Tappan Zee.

_Charles d.i.c.kens._

Soon after his return to New York he brought his idea to successful completion. His reputation was now a.s.sured, and his invention of "torpedoes" gave him additional fame. Congress not only purchased these instruments of warfare, but also set apart $320,000 for a steam frigate to be constructed under his supervision.

Through Livingston's influence the legislature pa.s.sed an act granting to Fulton the exclusive privilege of navigating the waters of the State by means of steam power. The only conditions imposed were that he should, within a year, construct a boat of not less than "twenty tons burthen," which should navigate the Hudson at a speed not less than four miles an hour, and that one such boat should not fail of running regularly between New York and Albany for the s.p.a.ce of one year.

="The Clermont,"= named after the ancestral home of the Livingstons, was built for "Livingston and Fulton," by Charles Brownne in New York.

The machinery came from the works of Watt and Bolton, England. She left the wharf of Corlear's Hook and the newspapers published with pride that she made in speed from four to five miles an hour. She was 100 feet in length and boasted of "three elegant cabins, one for the ladies and two for the gentlemen, with kitchen, library, and every convenience." She averaged 100 pa.s.sengers up or down the river. Every pa.s.senger paid $7, for which he had dinner, tea and bed, breakfast and dinner, with the liberty to carry 200 pounds of baggage.

The stars are on the running stream, And fling, as its ripples gently flow, A burnished length of wavy-beam In an eel-like, spiral line below.

_Joseph Rodman Drake._

An original letter from Robert Fulton to the minister of Bavaria at the court of France, written in 1809, upon the question of putting steamboats on the Danube, is of interest at the present day: "The distance from New York to Albany is 160 miles; the tide rises as far as Albany; its velocity is on an average 1 miles an hour.

"We thus have the tide half the time in favor of the boat and half the time against her. The boat is 100 feet long, 16 feet wide and 7 feet deep; the steam engine is of the power of 20 horses; she runs 4 miles an hour in still water. Consequently when the tide is 1 miles an hour in her favor she runs 5 miles an hour. When the tide is against her she runs 2 miles an hour. Thus in theory her average velocity is 4 miles an hour, but in practice we take advantage of the currents. When they are against us we keep near sh.o.r.e in the eddies, where the current is weak or the eddy in our favor; when the tide is in our favor we take the centre of the stream and draw every advantage from it. In this way our average speed is 5 miles an hour, and we run to Albany, 160 miles, in about 32 hours." Previous to the invention of the steamboat there were two modes of conveyance.

One was by the common sloops; they charged 42 francs, and were on the average four days in making the pa.s.sage--they have sometimes been as long as eight days. The dread of such tedious voyages prevented great numbers of persons from going in sloops. The second mode of conveyance was the mail, or stage. They charged $8, or 44 francs, and the expenses on the road were about $5, or 30 francs, so that expenses amounted to $13. The time required was 48 hours. The steamboat has rendered the communication between New York and Albany so cheap and certain that the number of pa.s.sengers are rapidly increasing. Persons who live 150 miles beyond Albany know the hour she will leave that city, and making their calculations to arrive at York, stay two days to transact business, return with the boat, and are with their families in one week. The facility has rendered the boat a great favorite with the public.

Through many a blooming wild and woodland green The Hudson's sleeping waters winding stray.

_Margaretta V. Faugeres._

A telegram from Exeter, N. H., in 1886, recorded the death of Dr.

William Perry, the oldest person in Exeter and the oldest graduate of Harvard College, at the age of ninety-eight years. He was the sole survivor of the pa.s.sengers on Fulton's first steamboat on its first trip down the Hudson, and the connecting link of three generations of progress. He was born in 1788, was a member of 1811 in Harvard, and grandfather of Sarah Orne Jewett, the auth.o.r.ess.

The writer remembers his grandfather telling him of going to Hudson as a boy to see the "steamboat" make its first trip, and how it had been talked of for a long time as "Fulton's Folly." One thing is sure it was a small cradle wherein to rock the "baby-giant" of a great century. How Fulton would wonder if he could visit to-day the great steams.h.i.+ps born of his invention--successors of the "Clermont" of "Twenty tons burthen." How he would marvel, standing on the deck of the "Hendrick Hudson," to see the water fall away from the prow cut by a rainbow scimitar of spray! at the great engines of polished steel, working almost noiselessly, and wonder at the way the pilot lands at the docks, even as a driver brings his buggy to a horse-block; for in his day, and long afterwards, pa.s.sengers were "slued" ash.o.r.e in little boats, as it was not regarded feasible to land a steamboat against a wharf. It would surely be an "experience" for us to see the pa.s.sengers at West Point, Newburgh, or Poughkeepsie "slued ash.o.r.e" to-day in little rowboats.