CLERMONT (STEAMBOAT)

The first commercially successful steamship of the paddle steamer design, ''North River Steamboat'', operated on the Hudson River between New York City and Albany. It was neither the first steamboat built nor even the first to be operated in scheduled service, but it was the start of the first long-lasting and financially successful steamboat business. It was the product of wealthy investor and politician Robert Livingston (1746-1813) and inventor and entrepeneur Robert Fulton.
Livingston had obtained from the New York legislature an exclusive right to steam navigation on the Hudson River. In 1803 while he was Minister to France, he and Fulton built a steamboat and operated it on the Seine. With this success he contracted with Fulton to take advantage of the Hudson River monopoly.
The ship was built at Charles Browne's shipyard in New York City and fitted with steam engines from Boulton and Watt, Birmingham, England. The original dimensions were 130 feet long x 16 feet wide x 7 feet deep. The ship had a paddle wheel on each side, but also masts and sails. Skeptics called it "Fulton's Folly". The inaugural run, helmed by Captain Andrew Brink, ^[1] from New York to Albany, with invited guests, left on August 17, 1807 and arrived two days later, after 32 hours of travel time and a 20-hour stop at Livingston's estate ''Clermont''. The return was done in 30 hours with a one-hour stop at Clermont, an average speed of 5 miles per hour. ^[2]
The initial voyage of ''Fulton's monster'' was described as follows in an 1807 publication^[3]:
Scheduled service began on September 4. The ''Steamboat'' left New York on Saturdays at 6:00 in the afternoon and left Albany on Wednesdays at 8:00 in the morning, taking about 36 hours for the journey. Stops were made at West Point, Newburgh, Poughkeepsie, Esopus, and Hudson. In publicity the ship is called ''North River Steamboat'' or just ''Steamboat'' (there being no other in operation).^[4]
The ship's original enrollment of 1807 is lost, but because of rebuilding over the winter of 1807-1808, it had to be enrolled again with the federal government, and that paper gives the owners as Livingston and Fulton and the name as ''North River Steamboat of Clermont''.^[5] The rebuilding was substantial: the ship was made longer and wider, and the paddlewheels were enclosed to prevent damage and splashing. Later the name was shortened to ''North River''.^[6]
The quick commercial success of ''North River Steamboat'' led Livingston and Fulton to commission a second very similar boat in 1809, ''Car of Neptune'', followed in 1811 by ''Paragon''. An advertisement for the company in 1812 lists the three boats' schedules, using the name ''North River'' for the original vessel.^[7]
The misnomer ''Clermont'' first appeared in Cadwallader D. Colden's biography of Fulton, published in 1817, two years after Fulton died.^[8] Since Colden was a friend of both Fulton and Livingston, his book was considered an authoritative source, and his errors were perpetuated in later accounts up to the present day. The vessel is by now nearly always called ''Clermont'', but no contemporary account while the ship was running called it by that name.

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References

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References

1. "Robert Fulton and The Clermont" by Alice Crary Sutcliffe, The Century Co., New York, 1909
2. Arthur G. Adams, ''The Hudson through the Years''. Westwood NJ : Lind Publications, 1983. The one-hour stop is mentioned by Fulton in a letter to the ''American Citizen'' on August 20.
3. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15161
4. Arthur G. Adams, ''The Hudson through the Years''. Westwood NJ : Lind Publications, 1983. Other stops were sometimes made, such as Red Hook and Catskill.
5. The Fourth Annual Report on the Hudson-Fulton Celebration Commission to the Legislature of the State of New York, May 20, 1910.
6. Arthur G. Adams, ''The Hudson through the Years''. Westwood NJ : Lind Publications, 1983.
7. H. W. Dickinson, ''Robert Fulton / Engineer and Artist''. London: 1913. http://www.history.rochester.edu/steam/dickinson/
8. Cadwallader D. Colden, ''The Life of Robert Fulton''. New-York : Kirk and Mercein, 1817.

External Links

★ Hudson River Maritime Museum entry on the Clermont

★ 200 year anniversary celebration Aug 18-19, 2007 at the Clermont estate