The few remaining years in Robert Fulton’s life were very busy ones. In 1809 he formed a stock company to finance the building of steam ferries to run from New York to Jersey City, and so thoroughly was Fulton trusted that the entire construction of the new boats was left solely to him. Before this time there had been rowboat and sail-boat ferries, and a “horse-boat,” propelled by paddles which were turned by the feet of four blind horses walking a tread-mill.

We can imagine how welcome were Fulton’s steam ferries. He called them “twin-boats” because he built each boat with two complete hulls, connected by a bridge or deck, which provided a wide platform for carriages and passengers. The ends were rounded, just as they are in present-day ferries, so that the boats could cross and re-cross the river without turning; and floating docks were built to receive them, also “fenders,” to avoid any shock from collision when the boats came to shore. It has been said that if steam navigation had been applied to no other purpose than to move these “floating bridges,” over streams where no other bridge could be built, he who applied it would deserve to rank among the great benefactors of mankind.

Fulton called his first ferry-boats York and Jersey, and the one he built in 1812 for the East River was named Nassau. As traffic increased between the New York terminals a new street was opened between the ferries, in 1816-18, and was appropriately named Fulton Street. The ferry over the East River, where thousands of persons daily crossed to Brooklyn and other points on Long Island, also honored the inventor, and was called “Fulton Ferry.”

These busy years of Fulton’s life were harassed by lawsuits over patent rights; for as soon as steam navigation was proved a success, certain unscrupulous speculators rushed in to try to make money by the new invention. Fulton called them “mental pirates” because they tried to steal the riches of his mind, and in many cases they succeeded in making more money from the invention than Fulton himself ever gained.

You may remember that during his stay in France Fulton had been impressed by the splendid possibilities of opening navigation on the great Mississippi River. This idea came to him when the United States purchased Louisiana. As soon as the Clermont was established as a passenger boat on the Hudson River, the partners, Livingston and Fulton, decided to engage the services of a third person who was interested in steam navigation, namely, Nicholas J. Roosevelt, a personal friend of both men and an experimenter, as early as 1781, with an original, although since abandoned, plan for a steamboat.

At this point comes in an interesting story. Fulton and Livingston thought it proper and necessary, before launching their new boat upon western waterways, to write for permission to the governor of the new state of Louisiana. The fact that they did so would never have been known had it not been for the discovery of two small boys who went to play, a few years ago, in an unused loft in Galena, Illinois. There they came across a box containing papers yellowed by age. Some were written in French, and these they did not understand, but a few were in English, and the boys, fresh from school, recognized the well-known names Livingston and Fulton, when they saw them signed at the end of a letter. So they tucked that piece of paper into a pocket, and some time afterward, when it came to light, they told a grown-up person about their find. He realized at once the value of the old papers and went in search of them, only to find that the loft had been cleaned since the boys’ visit there and all the papers cast out and burned by some ignorant person who did not suspect their value. The documents and letters had belonged to a man who had been clerk under an early governor of the state. This letter shows how keenly Livingston and Fulton realized, in spite of doubters, the advantages which were sure to follow the establishment of steam navigation:

The interest of this letter prompts a warning to all lovers of history to keep any fragment of possible value; even if old papers have no charm for you, there is probably somebody searching somewhere for just the bit of information there recorded. Don’t burn old papers merely because they are old. Read them and pass on their message.

But let us return to the story of Mr. Roosevelt. In 1809 he had married Miss Lydia Latrobe, of Baltimore, whom we must confess a brave bride. As soon as Fulton and Livingston had engaged Mr. Roosevelt’s services, he went to Pittsburgh, ordered a flat-boat to be built, and undertook the voyage to New Orleans to study the tides and river depths, and report their condition to Fulton so that he could decide whether a steamboat could make the journey down the long river against the strong currents.

Mr. Roosevelt did not travel alone, he took his young bride on the strange honey-moon trip. Flat-boats or rafts were quite common on the Mississippi. Mrs. Roosevelt has thus described theirs:

“There was a huge box containing a comfortable bedroom, dining-room, pantry, and a room in front for the crew, with a fireplace where the cooking was done. The top of the boat was flat, with seats and an awning. We had on board a pilot, three ‘hands’ and a man cook. We always stopped at night, lashing the boat to the shore. The rowboat was a large one, in which Mr. Roosevelt went out constantly with two or three men to ascertain the rapidity of the ripples or current.”

It was a six months’ voyage. Mr. Roosevelt carried letters of introduction to prominent citizens of Cincinnati, Louisville, and other cities, and found that these gentlemen listened with respectful attention to his account of the success of the Clermont on the Hudson River, but none would encourage him to hope that a steamboat would prove a safe venture for the rapid current of the western river. However, Mr. Roosevelt took soundings of depths, made maps to show the position of sand-bars, and compiled a record of the swift flow of tides and of the general weather conditions. He was thought, as Fulton had been considered in New York, a mad enthusiast, whose plan would prove a total loss to any persons unwise enough to spend money in building a boat for the Mississippi.

They did not arrive at New Orleans until the first of December, from which port they took passage in a sailing vessel for New York. They had a hard voyage, for their captain fell sick and there was an outbreak of yellow fever on board. At Old Point Comfort they decided to leave the ship, and they made the remainder of the journey by stage-coach, arriving in New York about the middle of January.

We may imagine how eagerly Fulton and Livingston studied the charts and listened to Roosevelt’s recital. The adverse criticisms of people living on the shores of the Mississippi were set aside by the facts noted by Mr. Roosevelt in his journal, or “log-book,” of the strange voyage. Fulton’s optimism was always ready to surmount any barrier. It was agreed that Mr. Roosevelt should immediately return to Pittsburgh to superintend the building of the first steamboat for western waters. Fulton drew the plan, which was very different from those he had made for the Hudson River boats, because the conditions were so unlike those in the east. And he decided to make the steam engine much more powerful to cope with the heavy currents.

Under a bluff called Boyd’s Hill, close to an iron foundry, the new boat, named the New Orleans, in honor of the city of her destination, was built. Timber was scarce and the ribs and beams for the hull had to be floated down stream from the upper forests. The local workmen could not understand the plan, and skilled ship-builders and machinists from Fulton’s New York yards had to be sent to finish the work. This boat, like that on the Seine, suffered mishap, for one night a heavy freshet caused the water to rise, set afloat all the valuable timber and backed the whole ship-yard up stream. Not once, but several times, the high water threatened to launch the boat before she was ready. But perseverance conquers all, and finally the finished boat was successfully afloat upon the waters of the Ohio River.

History repeats itself, as the old adage says. Again the scoffers gathered by the dock and river bank, laughed at the queer construction and predicted that the boat would never reach New Orleans.

When it became known that Mrs. Roosevelt intended to accompany her husband she was warned of her folly; indeed, Mr. Roosevelt was openly reproved for allowing his wife thus to imperil her life. The boat was supposed to carry passengers, but none appeared. Nevertheless, plans were carried out and during the autumn of 1811, on a bright October day, the New Orleans triumphantly steamed forth from Pittsburgh, in the presence of a great crowd of people. They cheered as the boat went down the river, but they openly prophesied that she could never come up!

From city to city the steamboat made its brave way. When, during the fourth night out, Louisville was reached in bright moonlight, the steam whistle aroused the sleeping town and the people hurried to the river, thinking that the comet of that year had fallen into the stream! When morning dawned and they could see that Mr. Roosevelt’s promised steamboat had arrived, the citizens complimented his perseverance and gave a banquet in his honor. But they all agreed that the queer vessel never could go up the river against the current, no matter how successfully she could steam down.

So Mr. Roosevelt played a good joke on them. He invited a number of friends to a dinner in the cabin of the boat. While the feast was at its height, a strange rumbling brought the frightened guests to their feet; they rushed up on deck to discover that the boat had cast off from the dock, had turned in the river, and was actually steaming up stream, in spite of all their warnings that it never could!

After they had passed Louisville, while they waited for the water to rise high enough to pass through the rapids, Roosevelt took the time to turn the boat back as far as Cincinnati, to show doubters in that city that the feat was quite possible. The voyage through the rapids was exciting but the boat darted like an arrow through them and again accomplished the so-called “impossible.”

The year 1811 was one of strange happenings. A comet blazed in the skies, a flood covered the lands in the valley, causing an epidemic of sickness, and earthquakes shook the whole region from the Missouri to the Gulf of Mexico. Small wonder that the Indians who lived in the forests along the Ohio and Mississippi paddled away in fright from the steamboat as it approached. They thought it was an evil thing.

The voyage came to an end, and a happy incident marked its close, for just before the steamboat reached the city of New Orleans, a tiny passenger arrived on board to give it final blessing, for a little child was born to Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt.

The boat was kept at New Orleans to use as a packet between that city and Natchez, but as pioneer it had proved the possibility for other steamboats to navigate the big river successfully, and they rapidly multiplied. Within twenty years after the voyage of the New Orleans hundreds of steam-propellers were paddling their easy way up and down the river. Steam navigation was a proved fact upon the Mississippi.

In this connection it is interesting to read the following extract from a letter Fulton wrote to his friend Thomas Jefferson, on April 7th, 1813. It outlines a still more extended system of steam navigation: