Contemporary View of Fulton's Steamboat (see also p. in). The .North River after her reconstruction in 

 1807-08, with leeboards and figurehead omitted. From a watercolor said to have been made by Simeon De 

 Witt under the supervision of the North River's engineer. {Smithsonian photo 37g77.) 



Sandy Hook to Philadelphia in the summer of 1808 

 the double cylinders were replaced by a single cylinder 

 24 inches in diameter and a fly\\ heel was added to the 

 engine. The Phoenix was under construction soon 

 after Fulton returned from Europe with the engine 

 made for him by Watt in 1806; the third steam engine 

 that Britain allowed to be exported; which Fulton 

 used in the Clermont. As a result of having the English 

 engine Fulton was able to complete and test his boat 

 a short time before Stevens could fit out the Phoenix 

 and therefore obtained a monopoly of steam naviga- 

 tion in New York waters. Ste\"ens sent the Phoenix 

 to Philadelphia by sea, making her the first steamboat 

 to navigate in American coastal waters, and \-ery 

 generously gave credit to Fulton as the first to apply 

 paddle wheels to a steamboat and the first to produce 

 a useful vessel, in spite of his own lengthy pioneering 

 work with steam propulsion. Stevens had primary 

 interest in the screw propeller, but his inability to 

 build a good engine with the tools and -ivorkmen avail- 

 able in the United States had caused him to turn to 

 paddle wheels in the Phoenix. 



The Phoenix, which had been employed as a packet 

 between Philadelphia and Trenton since her arrival 

 on the Delaware River in 1808, was wrecked in 1814 

 near Trenton, New Jersey. 



The model shows a steamboat having side paddle 

 wheels in wheel bo-xes protected fore and aft by short 



overhanging guards, the wheels slightly forward of 

 midlength, a straight keel, stem curved and raking, 

 with small gammon knee head, an upright post, and 

 a round tuck, and an upper-and-lower transom square 

 stern. The entrance is moderately sharp and the run 

 rather short but straight. The midsection is formed 

 with a slight rise in the straight floor, a hard turn of 

 bilge, and a rather upright topside. The sheer is mod- 

 erate and the hull is flush-decked, with a small pilot 

 house forward, a single stack of very small diameter, 

 and the companionway to cabins well aft. Square 

 ports are shown in the sides of the hull. 



Rigged with two masts, with a square course on the 

 foremast and a boomed gaff-sail on the mainmast. 



The Phoenix was about 101 feet long on deck, 16 

 feet beam, and 6 feet 9 inches depth. Scale of model 

 is J2 inch to the foot. 



Made in the Museum from a supposedly contempo- 

 rary picture of the vessel; the data on which the model 

 was built was inadequate. The hull is very poorly 

 formed, and in this respect, at least, the model is un- 

 doubtedly incorrect. 



SIDE-WHEEL STEAMER, 1816 

 Rigged Model usnm 316742 



Chancellor Livingston 



The Chancellor Livingston was built by Henry 

 Eckford at New York for Robert Fulton and asso- 



127 



