Ebook Robert Fulton

PREFACE

On board the fine passenger boat, Robert Fulton, one of the several queen steamers of the Hudson River Day Line, on a May morning when the beauty of the incomparable river spread in calm perfection before contented eyes, a great-granddaughter of Robert Fulton began to write, for young readers, this story of the steamboat inventor’s life.

No “Hero of America” may lay more just claim to the title than Robert Fulton, the fearless, persistent lad of Pennsylvania. His boyhood of stern self-denial, his struggle for culture and advanced education, and his constant industry place him in “the rank and file” of all students who may read this book with the desire to learn his secret of success.

Fulton’s story reveals it. He solved problems locked from the knowledge of man by a faithful use of the key of hard work. Born on a lonely farm in the country, deprived in early childhood of his father’s loving care, he earned his own living and carved his path to fame and fortune. Therefore his progress is typical of possible similar achievements for all young Americans who wish to render good service to their country and to their fellow-men.

In writing the story of a man whose work for the world has won fame, the seeker for historic fact must patiently piece together the threads gathered from many sources to weave the fabric of connected truth.

For these facts concerning Robert Fulton’s life I have searched during a period extending over several years. In presenting this volume I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness to the several biographers who, during the century since his death, have traced his eventful career: Cadwallader D. Colden (1817); J. Franklin Reigart (1856); Thomas W. Knox (1886); Robert H. Thurston (1891); Peyton F. Miller (1908); and, most valuable because most recent and therefore most comprehensive, H. W. Dickinson in “Robert Fulton, Engineer & Artist” (1913). Also am I indebted to the Historical Societies of Chicago, New York, and Pennsylvania; the Library of Congress; the Estate of Cornelia Livingston Crary; the Hon. Peter T. Barlow; Messrs. Louis S. Clark, Newbold Edgar, Charles Henry Hart, John Henry Livingston, Robert Fulton Ludlow, Mrs. Frank Semple, and Mrs. George Montgomery, individual owners of the inventor’s original manuscripts and letters shown at the Robert Fulton Relic Exhibit, during the Hudson-Fulton Celebration of 1909, gathered jointly by the New York Historical Society and the Colonial Dames of America, of which latter organization the writer served as chairman of the Hudson-Fulton Committee.

From this vast mass of data is the present modest volume built,—a tale retold for the boys and girls of America, whose lives, through the inspiration of famous men and women, may in future years provide records of equal worth for historians.