Robert Fulton was born at Little Britain, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1765. His father, though not successful in money matters, was highly respected; he was a leader in the Presbyterian Church, and held a number of minor public offices of honor. His mother was an excellent woman who had more education than most women of the time, for she taught Robert reading, writing, and ciphering, until he was eight years of age.

Robert was then sent to school, where he acquired a good elementary education. He was not a superior scholar. Books interested him much less than painting or the shop of the gunsmith. Nobody knows who taught him to paint, unless it was Major André, who was later hanged as a spy. Major André lived for some months at Lancaster and gave painting lessons there. It is possible that Robert was one of his pupils. At all events, the boy learned, when quite young, to draw and to paint.

He had some talent, and perhaps was inspired to become an artist by the example of Benjamin West, one of America's greatest painters. Mr. West when a boy was often in Lancaster, and he painted a portrait of Robert's father and mother. Mr. Henry, of whom mention has already been made, had a number of Mr. West's pictures, and Robert used to go to his home to look at them. It may be true, also, that Mr. Henry talked to Robert, when on these visits, about his steamboat, and how fine it would be to invent one, and that these talks did much to lead him to give up art and become an engineer and inventor.

Besides being fond of drawing and painting, Robert was fond of tools. Not far from his home, there were shops where muskets were made for the soldiers of the Revolutionary War. Robert was a frequent visitor there, and he spent much time in making drawings of guns and tinkering with broken muskets.

His turn for making things showed itself early. One day, Robert was very late at school. "Robert, why are you so late?" asked the teacher.

"I was making a pencil out of a piece of lead," he replied.

The teacher looked at the pencil and found it a good one. Before many days, all the children had lead pencils.

At the age of seventeen, Fulton left Lancaster and went to Philadelphia. He gave his attention principally to painting portraits and miniatures, but he turned his hand to anything that came along. He drew plans for machinery and for carriages, and even houses. In this way he not only made his own living, but by the time he was twenty-one he had saved four hundred dollars.

While living in Philadelphia, Fulton became acquainted with Benjamin Franklin. Knowing that Fulton would never succeed as an artist unless he prepared himself better, Franklin advised him to go to London and study. Fulton decided to do this; but just then his father died, leaving his mother without a home. He therefore took a part of the four hundred dollars which he had planned to spend on his art education, and bought his mother a farm, where she lived in contentment and plenty for many years.

With a letter from Franklin to Benjamin West, Fulton set out for London, where he landed early in 1787. He had about two hundred dollars in his pocket, not a large sum with which to get an education; but lack of money has never been a bar to young men of character and energy. Benjamin West received the young man with kindness, and in addition to giving him instruction, helped him in other ways.

The story of Fulton's life at that time is told in a letter to his mother. "I had an art to learn by which I was to earn my bread, but little to support me while I was doing it. Many, many a silent, solitary hour have I spent in most anxious study, pondering how to make funds to support me until the fruits of my labor should be sufficient. . . . Thus I went on for nearly four years—happily beloved by all who knew me, or I had long before now been crushed by poverty's cold wind and freezing rain. When last summer I was invited by Lord Courtney down to his country seat to paint a picture of him, . . . His Lordship was so much pleased that he introduced me to all his friends. And it is but just now that I am beginning to get a little money and pay some debts which I was obliged to contract. So I hope in about six months to be clear with the world, or in other words out of debt, and then start fair to make all I can."

After four years of study, Fulton felt that he was ready to take up his life work. Among the friends to whom Lord Courtney introduced him was the Duke of Bridgewater, who became one of Fulton's good friends. Whether it was the talks about steamboats and about canals with the Duke of Bridgewater; or whether Fulton was carried away by what was then being written in England and America in regard to boats and waterways; or whether it was his talent for mechanics and invention grown strong, we do not know,—but Fulton suddenly gave up the idea of being an artist and decided to become an engineer.

Whether Fulton would have become a great artist or not, no one can tell. He surely had artistic ability. He had been taught by the best teachers of England, and had gained some recognition and honor as an artist. At all events, if the world lost a great artist, it gained a great inventor. Nor was his training as an artist entirely lost when he turned engineer. He was able to make his ideas clear by means of drawings, and was also able to draw his own plans and designs.

Immediately after making his decision, Fulton went to Birmingham, where he lived for two years. There he studied the great canals which were being built. He became acquainted with Watt and his engines, and saw the best mechanics in Europe at work. His active mind soon began to turn out invention after invention. He invented a double inclined plane for raising and lowering canal boats from one level to the other, a machine for spinning hemp, and one for twisting hemp rope.

A project to which he gave a great deal of time was his submarine or plunging boat. Fulton was able to go down into the water in this diving boat twenty feet or more, and move about. In this way he could get near a vessel without being seen, and then by means of a cigar-shaped torpedo which he invented could blow it up. In an experiment at Brest, in 1805, he succeeded in doing this. Fulton thought his diving boat and torpedoes would make war vessels useless, and would do away with war on the seas. He tried in turn to get the French and English governments to adopt this invention; he also offered it to the United States. Nothing, however, came of his efforts. Submarine and torpedo boats have since come into general use, but they have not put an end to naval war, as Fulton hoped they would.

We do not know when Fulton first began to think of making a steamboat. But we have his own words for saying that in 1802 he began "experiments with a view to discover the principles on which boats or vessels should be propelled through the water by the power of steam engines." Fulton did not undertake to make a successful steamboat without knowing of the failures of Fitch, Stevens, Symington, and others; and without understanding that after so many failures, men who still thought a practical steamboat could be built were looked upon as madmen. Yet it has ever been so. The men who win fame and fortune do what other people say cannot be done. Fulton learned all he could from the mistakes and failures of others. To make sure that he was right before he went ahead, he did what was still more important, he made experiment after experiment.

He built a model boat, four feet long and twelve inches wide, provided with two strong clock springs for power. Experiments were made with propellers which opened and shut like a duck's foot, with side paddle wheels, stern paddle wheels, side oars, screws, and paddles fastened to an endless chain passing over two wheels. Fulton was convinced that side paddle wheels were the best. He learned also that the propelling surface of the different paddles combined should be twice the exposed surface of the bow. In addition, he worked out a table to show the power that was needed to move boats of different sizes at different speeds. With this information, Fulton was ready to experiment on a larger scale, and he began to dream of boats that should make the trip between New York and Albany in twelve hours.

Robert R. Livingston was at this time United States minister to France. Fulton, then living in France, succeeded in getting him to advance the money to make the larger experiment, and the two formed an agreement that if the experiment proved successful, they would construct and run steamboats between New York and Albany. To protect themselves in their invention, Livingston secured from the State of New York, in the name of himself and Fulton, the exclusive right for twenty years to navigate steamboats on all waters of the state. No one thought, even in 1803, that there was any danger that such an invention would be a success.

Fulton at length set to work on a boat seventy feet long, eight feet wide, and with three feet draft. The paddle wheels were twelve feet in diameter, and the engine was about eight horse power. When the boat was nearly ready for the trial trip, a violent storm arose one night, and so beat the boat about that it broke in two and sank to the bottom of the Seine. Fulton was awakened from an anxious sleep by the shouts of his servant, who exclaimed, "Oh sir! the boat has broken to pieces and has gone to the bottom."

Fulton hurried to the river, to find that this was all too true. He labored for twenty-four hours without stopping, to raise the boat. The machinery was little harmed, but the hull was such a wreck that it had to be entirely rebuilt. This occupied several months, and the boat was not again ready for trial until August, 1803.

The trial trip was thus described in one of the French newspapers: "At six o'clock in the evening, aided by only three persons, he (Fulton) put his boat in motion . . . and for an hour and a half he produced the curious spectacle of a boat moved by wheels, . . . these wheels being provided with paddles or flat plates, and moved by a fire engine. In following it along the wharf, the speed against the current of the Seine was about that of a rapid walker, that is about four miles an hour. . . . It was maneuvered with ease, turning to the right and left, came to anchor and started again." Not only was the new boat declared a success by the French newspapers, but the success was such as to lead Livingston and Fulton to begin the building of a boat for actual service on the Hudson.