NAVAL STEAMERS. 



States to cause to be built, equipped, and employed, one or more floating batteries, for the 

 defense of the waters of the United States. 



The building of the vessel was committed by the Coast and Harbor Defense Association, 

 to a sub-committee of five gentlemen, who were recognized by the Government as their agents 

 for that purpose, and whose interesting history of the Steam Frigate is copied in Note A, of 

 the Appendix to this volume. 



Robert Fulton, whose soul animated the enterprise, was appointed the engineer ; and on 

 the twentieth day of June, eighteen hundred and fourteen, the keel of this novel steamer was 

 laid at the ship-yard of Adam and Noah Brown, her able and active constructors, in the city 

 of New York, and on the twenty-ninth of the following October, or in little more than four 

 months, she was safely launched, in the presence of multitudes of spectators who thronged the 

 surrounding shores, and were seen upon the hills which limited the beautiful prospect around 

 the bay of New York. 



The river and bay were filled with steamers and vessels of war, in compliment to the 

 occasion. In the midst of these was the enormous floating mass, whose bulk and unwieldy 

 form seemed to render her as unfit for motion, as the land batteries which were saluting her. 



In a communication from Captain David Porter, U. S. Navy, to the Hon. Secretary of the 

 Navy, dated New York, October 29, 1814, he states, — "I have the pleasure to inform you 

 that the " Fri.TON the First," was this morning safely launched. No one has yet ventured to 

 suggest any improvement that could be made in the vessel, and to use the words of the 

 projector, ' / would not alter lier if it were in my power to do *o.' 



" She promises fair to meet our most sanguine expectations, and I do not despair in being 

 able to navigate in her from one extreme of our coast to the other. Her buoyancy astonishes 

 every one, she now draws only eight feet three inches water, and her draft will only be ten 

 feet with all her guns, machinery, stores, and crew, on board. The ease with which she 

 can now be towed with a single steamboat, renders it certain that her velocity will be suffi- 

 ciently great to answer every purpose, and the manner it is intended to secure her machinery 

 from the gunner's shot, leaves no apprehension for its safety. I shall use every exertion to 

 prepare her for immediate service ; her guns will soon be mounted, and I am assured by Mr. 

 Fulton, that her machinery will be in operation in about Bix weeks." 



On the twenty-first of November, the Steam Frigate was moved from the wharf of Messrs. 

 Browns, in the East River, to the works of Robert Fulton, on the North River, to receive her 

 machinery, which operation was performed by fastening the steamboat " Car of Neptune," to 

 her larboard, and the steamboat "Fulton," to her starboard side; they towed her through the 

 water from three and a-half to four miles per hour. 



14 



168 BULLETIN 240: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



