Fulton's Clermont (1807): First Commercial Steamboat Service

Robert Fulton’s steamboat, officially the North River Steamboat but remembered as the Clermont, left New York City on 17 August 1807 and reached Albany, about 150 miles up the Hudson River, after some 32 hours under way. Within weeks it was carrying paying passengers on a regular schedule. It was not the first steamboat, but it was the first to run a commercially successful service, and it opened the age of steam navigation in North America.

Background: early steamboats

Inventors had tried to drive boats with steam since the 1780s. In France the Marquis de Jouffroy d’Abbans ran his Pyroscaphe on the Saône in 1783. In the United States John Fitch demonstrated a steamboat on the Delaware River in 1787 and ran a passenger service between Philadelphia and Burlington in 1790, but it lost money and closed. In Scotland William Symington’s Charlotte Dundas towed barges on the Forth and Clyde Canal in 1803.

These efforts showed that steam propulsion was possible. What was missing was a boat that combined reliable machinery, enough speed and enough paying traffic to make a profit.

The Hudson offered that traffic. It was the main highway between New York City, already the country’s busiest port, and Albany, the state capital and gateway to the interior. Passengers and goods moved on sailing sloops whose journeys depended on wind and tide; a trip could take a day and a half in good conditions or more than a week in bad. A boat that could keep a timetable in any weather had an obvious market.

Fulton’s approach also differed from that of earlier inventors. He did not try to design a novel engine. Instead he bought a proven one from the leading British maker and concentrated on proportions: the length and shape of the hull, the size of the paddle wheels and the relation between engine power and resistance in the water, which he had studied with calculations and model tests.

Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston

Robert Fulton (1765–1815) was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He trained as a painter and went to London in 1787 to study under the American artist Benjamin West, but he became increasingly absorbed by engineering, especially canals. In France from 1797 he designed the submarine Nautilus, which he demonstrated to the French government in 1800.

In Paris he met Robert R. Livingston, the American minister to France who helped negotiate the Louisiana Purchase. Livingston held a monopoly from the New York legislature on steam navigation in the state’s waters, provided he could produce a working boat. In 1802 the two men agreed to build one. Fulton tested a trial boat on the Seine in Paris in 1803, then ordered a steam engine from Boulton and Watt in Birmingham, the firm founded on James Watt’s steam engine.

Building the boat

The engine reached New York in 1806. Fulton had the hull built at the shipyard of Charles Browne on the East River. The boat was long and narrow, roughly 40 metres (about 130–150 feet) in length, with paddle wheels on each side driven by the single-cylinder engine. It also carried masts and sails.

Fulton registered the vessel as the North River Steamboat of Clermont. “North River” was the common name for the lower Hudson, and Clermont was Livingston’s family estate on the river. Later writers shortened the name to Clermont, which is how it is generally known today.

The voyage of August 1807

The boat left its dock near what is now Greenwich Village in Manhattan on 17 August 1807. Crowds gathered to watch, and many expected it to fail. It ran upriver for about 24 hours to the Clermont estate, some 110 miles away, where it stopped overnight. The next day it covered the remaining 40 miles or so to Albany in about 8 hours.

The total running time of roughly 32 hours gave an average speed of close to 5 miles per hour, against the current and often without wind. Sailing sloops on the Hudson could take four days or more on the same route, depending on the weather. On the return trip the boat reached New York in about 30 hours.

Fulton described the trip in a letter published in a New York newspaper soon afterwards. He reported that he had passed many sloops and schooners as if they were at anchor.

Commercial service

In early September 1807 the boat began scheduled passenger trips between New York and Albany. Over the winter it was rebuilt and enlarged with better accommodation. The service made money, and Fulton and Livingston soon added more boats on the Hudson and other routes.

Their monopoly brought both profit and conflict. Rival operators launched their own steamboats and challenged the partners’ exclusive rights in the courts and in the state legislature, while neighbouring states passed laws of their own in retaliation. Livingston died in 1813, and the legal battles continued after both founders had gone.

In 1811 they built the New Orleans, which steamed down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans during 1811–1812. During the War of 1812 Fulton designed the first steam-powered warship, a floating battery launched in 1814 as Demologos, later named Fulton. He died in New York on 24 February 1815, before it was completed.

Key people

• Robert Fulton (1765–1815): painter turned engineer who designed and operated the boat.
• Robert R. Livingston (1746–1813): New York politician and diplomat who financed the project and held the steam monopoly.
• John Fitch (1743–1798): earlier American steamboat pioneer whose service failed commercially.
• Charles Browne: New York shipbuilder who built the hull.

Myths and facts

Myth: Fulton invented the steamboat. Several inventors ran steamboats before him. His contribution was commercial success and reliable operation.

Myth: the boat was called the Clermont in 1807. Contemporary records mostly call it the North River Steamboat. The name Clermont became standard later.

Myth: crowds called it “Fulton’s Folly”. The phrase appears in later popular accounts, and there is little firm contemporary evidence that it was widely used for the boat.

Consequences and legacy

Steamboats spread rapidly across American rivers. On the Mississippi and its tributaries they cut travel times and freight costs, carrying settlers and cotton and helping to tie the interior of the country to its ports. The Fulton–Livingston monopoly was challenged in court, and in Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) the US Supreme Court ruled that Congress, not individual states, controlled interstate commerce, which opened the waters to competitors.

In 1909 New York held the Hudson–Fulton Celebration, marking both Fulton’s voyage and the 300th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s 1609 voyage up the river. A full-size replica of the steamboat sailed in the festivities.

By the numbers

Timeline

• 1765, 14 November: Robert Fulton is born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
• 1787: John Fitch demonstrates a steamboat on the Delaware River.
• 1802: Fulton and Livingston agree to build a steamboat.
• 1803, August: Fulton tests a trial steamboat on the Seine in Paris.
• 1807, 17 August: The North River Steamboat leaves New York for Albany.
• 1807, September: Regular passenger service begins.
• 1811: The New Orleans begins its voyage down the Ohio and Mississippi.
• 1815, 24 February: Fulton dies in New York.
• 1824: Gibbons v. Ogden ends the New York steamboat monopoly.

Why it matters

Fulton’s steamboat proved that steam could carry passengers on a schedule and make a profit. It started a revolution in river transport that shaped the settlement and economy of the United States in the decades before the railways.