70 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



the gate from Broadway, we saw what we in those days considered a crowd, 

 running towards the river. On inquiring the cause, we were informed that 

 " Jack Stevens was going over to Hoboken in a queer sort of a boat." On 

 reaching the bulkhead by which the Battery was then bounded, we saw 

 lying against it a vessel about the size of a Whitehall row-boat, in which 

 was a small engine, but there was no visible means of propulsion. The 

 vessel was speedily under way, my late much-valued friend, Commodore 

 Stevens, acting as cockswain; and I pi-esume that the smutty-looking per- 

 sonage who fulfilled the duties of engineer, fireman, and crew, was his more 

 practical brother, Robert L. Stevens. 



A few years since, at the last fair of the American Institute, held at Niblo's, 

 I was asked to serve on a committee to report upon a boat and engine ex- 

 hibited by the Messrs. Stevens, for the purpose of sustaining the claim of 

 their father to the honor of being the first inventor of the propeller. The 

 circumstances I have just recounted had taken so strong a hold on my 

 memory, that I at once recognized the engine exhibited as that which I had 

 seen at the Battery nearly fifty years before. 



In respect to the propeller I could say nothing. One of my colleagues on 

 the committee, however, Mr. Curtis, at that time United States Inspector of 

 steamboats for the port of New York, recognized, as distinctly as I had done 

 the engine, the propeller, which he had seen in the hands of workmen by 

 whom it was manufactured. The dates corresponded, the apparatus was 

 avowedly making for Stevens of Hoboken. Thus it happened that an acci- 

 dental choice had placed upon the committee two persons who were, by the 

 union of their testimony, capable of establishing the fact into the truth of 

 which they were directed to inquire. 



In the spring of the j r ear 1807, 1 had the pleasure to hear from David 

 Gordon, at that time a merchant in this city, afterwards much distinguished 

 in England as a civil engineer, an account of Fulton's trial-trip, and to learn 

 from him that there was every reasonable hope of his success. 



In the summer of the same year, while about to sit down to dinner at 

 Gregory's Hotel in Albany, in company with my predecessor in Columbia 

 College, Dr. Kemp, Mr. Selah Strong entered the room, stating that he had 

 just arrived from New York in Fulton's steamboat, after a passage of about 

 thirty -six hours. He went on to say, that, being anxious to reach Albany 

 to transact some business of importance, he had solicited permission to 

 make the voyage in the steamer, which was, after some hesitation, granted. 

 Five other persons followed him, occupying with him the six spare berths 

 which happened to be on board. Mr. Strong, then, was the first passenger 

 who ever paid his fare in a steamer, and his urgency had probably a great 

 influence on the fortunes of the invention ; for, up to that time, Fulton's own 

 views were chiefly devoted to the Mississippi and 1 its branches. An opening 

 for a successful traffic seemed to exist on the Hudson; and from that date to 

 the close of navigation the original boat continued to run occasionally, and 

 to convey passengers. 



You may readily believe that I did not fail to visit the vessel; and that I 

 could not avoid hearing the imprecations, not loud but deep, with which the 

 Albany skippers saluted what they thought would be the ruin of their occu- 

 pation. Even the more quiet burghers could not refrain from lamenting 

 that in Fulton's success was involved the ruin of their trade, and the trans- 

 fer of their business to New York. The vessel was very unlike any of its 

 successors, and even very dissimilar from the shape in which it appeared a 



