Norwich bulletin., 1922-04-29
IN THE DAYS WHEN THEY RACED STEAMSHIPS.

If sailing ships have q good grievance against the steamboat, for driving them from their old mastery of the sea, the steamship has also a cause for complaint oh it's own account. Steam may have carried off most of the business, but the sail has kept most of the glory. The sailing ship has more histories written amout her in year than the steamboat in a decade, writes James E. King in The Boston Transcript. She needs only to f1utter a bit of canvas or shake the end of a spar at the authors of fiction to set them all off on hundred new novels ex- tolling her. Even from beneath the glass cases which entomb the models and the memory of her in the dead-calm of many a musty museum, the sailing ship still holds first place in the living imagina- tions of men.
 The interest displayed during the last years of the eighteenth century in the possibilities of navigation by steam is a striking phenomenon in the life of the young United States. Here was a peo- pie worn by a long and costly war al- most wholly bereft of funds for new cap 1 ital enterprise. In all the land, as some authorities declare, there was not one
 steam engine in use" at the end of the war. land it is doubtful if the first prin- i cples of it's workings were understood 1 Yet despite these adversities. a whole
 group of Americans devoted themselves l during this period to the hope and task l of making boats go by steam.
 Among the early inventors. John Fitcf 1 and Samuel Mercy of Connecticut an6
 James Rumsey of Maryland have al
 been assigned places of honor. No en 1 cvclopaedia makes mention, however, ot
 Elijah Ornsbee. Yet if those who be 1 lieve that Mercy did not produce hi: 1 boat until 1793 are correct, then thi' l Rhode Islander probably should receive credit as the inventor of the first craf ever to be propelled by steam in Nev England waters. For it was 1792 tha
 his Experiment" first crossed the har i bor of Providence and nosed it's way III | the Seekonk river This was fifteel years before Fulton's "Clermont' ap | peared on the Hudson. And whethe l Morey's success on the Connecticut riv CT be set in 1790 or 1793. it seems plai1
 that Ormsbee. in 17S2, brought steam i boating to a trial at point nearer Bos ton than it was ever again to come un
 til 1877, when the ''Firefiy'' rounde
 Point Judith to Newport and the fiminu
 tive Massachusetts" reached Boston
 own harbor from Philadelphia.
 In 1922 came the dawn of the con1meI 1 ciaI success of traffic by steam over tn
 waters from New York to New England
 The 'Rhode Island and New Tor
 Steamboat Company was organized
 and the steamers Connecticut and Fulto
 began making regular trips between Ne7 York and Providence, at 9 fare of $1'
 including mea1Sc Dow describes. the frs !. ships as follows:
 "rhe Connecticut was quite good
 looking boat She was about 150 fef long. 26 feet wide and of about 200 ton burden. She had a square engine. an
 cost about SS0.000. The Fulton was CT ormously strong, and had a little less ma chinerv in her than is new put in cot ton mill. Her wheels were turne through the medium of cos wheel with teeth about five inchf , long. She made terrific noise whe , under way. but with all her ir7arnal con motion. moved so slowly that she wa once five hours going from Providene tosNewport.
 Neither boat had upper saloons. stat' rooms or hurricane deck Both boat l burned pine wood in large copper boiler which were kept polished to the last dc gree of brightness. An enormous guar | tity of wood was necessary to keep u l steam during the long trip between Prov
 idence and New York. It was pile everywhere. fore and aft, and h d ]