Smyrna times., 1882-08-16
For The Smyrna Times
Letter from New York.

day, Robert Fulton of this city, pre-
sented to the world what has been
fitly called the grandest invention of
modern times-the steamboat.
1t was on the morning of the 7th Of
August, 1907, that the ship ClermOnt,
fitted up with paddle-wheels and car
rying an engine-one of the few so
history says, that was in this country
at that time-lay in the North river,
nearly opposite what is now Fulton
street, waiting, amid the jeering of the |
crowds on the shore, the signal to show
the nineteenth century the wonderful
invention that this master-mind had
conceived.
1t is now a familiar story in this
city, as it to-day takes the place of the
war that is going ON over the ocean,
how few minutes after the boat got
under way, some arrangement of the
machinery caused her to stop, how the
shouts of the multitude, which had
begun to subside into exclamations of
amazement, broke forth with redoubled
vigOr; how even the most faithful and
sanguine friends of the great inventor,
then lost heart and begged him to give
up the enterprise, and how he, know
ing every nut and bolt in the whole
machinery, saw that the trouble was in
significant, and, with pale face and
trembling hands, repaired the derange-
ment in a few minutes and started on
his wondrous journey.
) He arrived at Livingston manor at
one o'clock that same night, and start
ing thence early in the morning, reach
ed Albany, about five o'clock that
: afternoon, accomplishing the whole
distance, SO history says, at an average
speed of fre miles per hour.
: In size, this wonderful little curiosity
: that moved so mysteriously ON the
e bosom of the Hudson, was about equal
;, to the steam yacht of to-day, and as il
n steamed up the river with its unlocked
!
n every direction, and the burning pine
s brands being belched forth from it:
d smoke stack to a height Of twenty feet
/ or more and then falling kissing intC
the river, filled the inhabitants of thu
II shores with awe and amaZement, simi
e lar, doubtless, to "Mark Twains'
st Uncle Gabriel's first look at the steam
IS boat as it sailed up the Mississippi, tn,
8, night he was out in the woods witt
1t his children.
Ot Never was there greater turning c
is public feeling in single day. Befor
W this little wonder carried its invento
n with flushed cheeks away from tn
n surprised crowds that were standing o
k, the shores, he was looked upon as
q lunatic, jeered at in the streets an
a derided by the newspapers; but whe
re he started bach from Albany, whiC
ar took him thirty hours, the news fle'
IS. like lightning before him and when h
It. reached the spot on which tO-da
IT, stands one of the grandest wire bridge
at that mans hands have ever erected
In the Brooklyn Bridge-he was met
i'll the same people and given an OvatiC
ly which we would be proud of to-day.
'ut To-day scores of steamboats, we
'Ot steaming on the same river with fla
hit. flying in the Summer breeZes in hon
vas of the Seventy-fifth Anniversary of t
lrd OermOnt, and if Fulton could ha'
wo stood on the deck of the Plymouth Roc
on that floating palace which runs
'pe Coney Island, and looked at the sta
lot and stripes as they waved over
Mr.. silvery locks, his old heart would ha
end sent stream after stream of blood to
The noble old face, which only seventy-f
mad years before was made to color by t
Ids, sneers of his own fellow-citizens, a
ubt could have said, let me die, my life
lale not been in vain,
ew To-day the remains of Robert Fult
ton humbly repOse in the Southwest corr
ilti- of Trinity church cemetery, on Bro;
,tte, way, where for generations to col
ond Americas sons and daughters can
ical and with pride look down upon the pl
hole marble slab that marks his last rest
lies place. t. S. 5
has New YORK, Aug. Z, 1882.