JOHN FITCH, INVENTOR OF STEAMBOATS.

BY MIRA CLARKE PARSONS.

In the closing year of this century of wonders, it is fitting: that we should give a thought to the memory of the inventors and investigators to whom the world owes so vast a debt. Foremost among them must stand the names of the men who first utilized the tremendous forces of steam and electricity.

For generations every schoolboy has been taught that Robert Fulton was the inventor of the steamboat. That honor rightfully belongs to another from whom he received the ideas, which, by means of influential friends, he was afterwards able to develop.

The heading of the map illustrating this paper,* published by John Hutchings of New York, in 1846, reads as follows:

"The world is indebted to the original idea and mechanical genius of John Fitch of East Windsor, Conn., and the perseverance and indefatigable attention of Robert Fulton, Esq., for the use of steam, and to the wealth, and exalted and estimable character of Robert D. Livingston, Esq., Chancellor of the State of New York, and American Minister to France."

Twenty-one years before the whistle of Fulton's steamboat, the "Clermont", startled the echoes among the hills which guard the Hudson, John Fitch had made a more successful experiment upon the waters of the Delaware river, upon which he propelled three steamboats of his own invention, from 1786 to 1789.

In the summer of 1849, when the 'cholera scare" almost depopulated the city of Columbus, Ohio, a family of children were sent to the adjoining town of Worthington, to spend the summer with their grandfather, Colonel James Kilbourne, who kept a hotel there, and was one of the early and honored settlers of the One rainy day, the boys in exploring the garret, came across a strange object bearing resemblance to a steamboat. It was three feet in length, having the solid wheels and upright cylinder of steam conveyances of the present day. The working

town.

*This map is now in the possession of I. N. Whiting, of Columbus..

machinery was of brass, and it seemed designed to run upon a submerged track.

Full of wonder, the boys questioned their grandfather about it, who told them the principal facts in the following paper. To one of these boys, Hon. Isaac N. Whiting, of Columbus, now an elderly man, the writer is indebted for the story, supplemented by reliable information gained from biographies now in the Ohio State Library, and to the kindly interest of Dr. J. H. McQuown, of Bardstown, Kentucky.

John Fitch, whose daughter Lucy was the wife of Col. Kilbourne, was born at East Windsor, Conn., Jan. 21, 1743. He was the fifth in a family of six children. His parents, Joseph and Sarah Shaler Fitch, were of good old Saxon origin. It is said that their ancestors were entitled to "a coat of arms and a vellum of pedigree."

His father was a stern, hard man, of the old New England type. His mother whom he describes as "an active, enterprising, good woman," died before the boy was five years old. He was taken from school when he was eight, and put to work on the farm, although he tells us in his autobiography, that he was so small that he could only swingle two pounds of flax, or thresh two bushels of wheat in a day.

He says that he was "almost crazy for learning," and we find him working evenings at Hodder's Arithmetic, until he got as far as Alligation Alternate. When he was eleven years old he heard of a book that "would tell him all about the whole world," Salmon's Geography. The price was twelve shillings. He rented some unproductive land from his father, borrowed seed potatoes from him with which to plant it, tended his crop at odd moments and "training-days," (those red-letter holidays dear to the old-time New England youth,) harvested his crop in the fall, paid back the seed potatoes, and bought the book which he soon knew by heart.

When he was thirteen he was allowed six weeks more of

* Whittlesey's Life of John Fitch, Sparks's American Biography, Vol. 16. page 98.

† See Whittlesey's Life of John Fitch, Sparks's American Biography, Vol. 16, page 94.

schooling, in which time he finished the arithmetic and learned the first principles of surveying. It was a proud day for the lad when Governor Wolcott, whose land joined his father's farm, invited him to assist in surveying it. This first and only practical knowledge of the science was afterwards used to good advantage in the wild lands of Kentucky.

His story is briefly outlined on this map as follows:

"First we find him a farmer's boy, next an apprentice to a watchmaker, then a store in Trenton, N. J., with a stock of guns and soldier's equipments, valued at five thousand dollars, all of which was destroyed when the British took Trenton, next a lieutenant in the American Army, then taken prisoner by the Indians, and sold by one tribe to another through the North West Territory, until he was purchased by an Englishman, and thus obtained his freedom. During this time he became acquainted with that part of the country, of which he made a map, and although printed upon a common cider-press, it had an extensive sale. He was next surveyor in Kentucky, then a civil engineer in Pennsylvania, and on the Delaware made his first experiment of a Steam-Boat with Paddles.

He then left America and traveled through France and England, but not meeting with the encouragement anticipated, became poor and returned home, working his pasage as a common sailor to Boston; from thence to his native town in Connecticut,, thence to New York where he remained some time, then back to Kentucky, where he died in 1798."

His

Some amplication of these statements is necessary. marriage at twenty-four was an unhappy one, soon resulting in a separation, after which, for his whole life, John Fitch was a wanderer. But whether in a watchmaker's shop, or repairing arms for the American soldiers or with hand-made tools fashioning trinkets for the wives of his Indian captors, he was always and everywhere conceiving ideas which were afterwards to be born as the greatest invention of his age.

He never saw his wife after their separation, but always had a great interest in his two children, a son and daughter. The daughter became the wife of Col. Kilbourne, and it is believed

he gave her his cherished model of a steamboat, a photograph of which is now for the first time exhibited to the public.

While serving his time as a soldier at Valley Forge, he heard some officers from Virginia talk of the wonderfully fertile lands of Kentucky, and the need of a surveyor there. Returning to Warminster, Pa., he obtained the appointment of Deputy Surveyor for these wild lands. He accomplished the work successfully, his early experience serving him well in this capacity. He returned to Warminster, the owner of six hundred acres of choice land near the town of Bardstown in Nelson County, Ky. On a later trip to Kentucky to look after these lands, he was taken. prisoner by the Indians, near Marietta, Ohio. He traveled twelve hundred miles on foot before he was redeemed.

The wonderful knowledge of his captors concerning every foot of ground which had felt the touch of their moccasin, he obtained by often questioning them on their journeys, and afterwards utilized in constructing a map which is said to have been surprisingly accurate. It covers the country from the Lake of the Woods to the mouth of the Ohio river.

On a later trip to Kentucky he found much of his land occupied by unauthorized settlers, and in litigation he lost a great part of it. In 1784 he drifted back to Warminster and took up his old trade of watchmaking.

Walking home from church with a friend on Sabbath morning, in April 1785, a carriage passed them, drawn by two spirited horses. One biographer says:

"The idea, unfortunate for him but fortunate for the world, of gaining a force by steam, took possession of his thoughts, and from that time became the abiding passion of his soul."* His knowledge of the almost inaccessible lands he had surveyed, had made him understand what great value they would gain if a boat could be made to ascend the Mississippi and its tributaries. So, although the first thought was of making use of steam as a power for propelling land vehicles, the idea gave place in a few days to the utilization of it for boats.

* Whittlesey's Life of John Fitch, Sparks's American Biography. Vol. 16, pages 111-112.

He says in his autobiography, that he had then never heard of a steam engine. Although Watt had already applied stationary steam power to do the work of men in England, the unhappy state of affairs between the two countries, and the difficulty of communication, were sufficient reasons for ignorance of this fact, in the case of an uneducated man like John Fitch, whose veracity uo one who knew him ever questioned. He says:

"From that time, (April, 1786) I have pursued the idea with unremitted assiduity. Yet do I frankly confess that it has been the most imprudent scheme that ever I have engaged in."*

In August of the same year, he laid his first petition before Congress, in these words:

"Sir:-The subscriber begs leave to lay at the feet of Congress an attempt he has made to facilitate the. internal Navigation of the United States, adapted especially to the waters of the Mississippi. The Machine he has invented for the purpose has been examined by several gentlemen of Learning and Ingenuity, who have given it their approbation. Being thus encouraged, he is desirous to solicit the attention of Congress to a rough model of it now with him, that, after examination into the principles upon which it operates, they may be able to judge whether it deserves encouragement.

"And he, as in duty bound, shall ever pray.

"John Fitch.

"His Excellency, the President of Congress."

This petition was referred to a committee who never reported. He next laid the matter before the ambassador of the King of Spain, who was then in New York, who would have given him assistance if the invention should be for the benefit of his Royal Master. The historian says, "If he had accepted the offers of the Spanish Minister, he might have been rich." He refused, wishing his invention should be for the benefit of mankind.

He afterwards said, "God forbid that I should ever be in the

* Westcott's Life of John Fitch (Lippincott & Co., Phila.), Chapter 10, pages 128-129.

In his autobiography, quoted by Westcott, Chapter 10, page 130.