Robert Fulton

A doctor found tuberculosis in him at 20, and the treatment prescribed was a sea voyage. Before that Fulton had spent six years in Philadelphia painting portraits and landscapes and drawing houses and machinery for anyone who would pay, sending money home to his mother. His father died in 1785 and he bought a farm with what he had earned. In the autumn of 1786 he sailed for England, where the American painter Benjamin West took him into his own house and kept him there for years. Fulton went on selling pictures. But the drawings that came to matter were the other kind — in 1794 he patented a system of inclined planes for hauling boats over hills, and in 1796 he published a treatise on how to build canals.

He sold weapons to both sides of the same war. Living in Paris from 1797, he built Nautilus, a hand-cranked submarine that first sailed on the Seine in July 1800 and once stayed down 17 minutes. The ministry refused twice before Napoleon commissioned the work. When the French lost interest, Fulton crossed to London in 1804, took a commission from William Pitt the Younger, and aimed his floating mines at the French fleet off Boulogne. They mostly missed, and Trafalgar in 1805 ended the Royal Navy's appetite for the idea. What worked was the boat. Backed by Robert R. Livingston, who held New York's exclusive grant on steam navigation, Fulton put the North River Steamboat on the Hudson on August 17, 1807 and reached Albany after 32 hours under way. He patented the design in 1809 and again in 1811.

He did not invent the steamboat and knew it. John Fitch had run one on the Delaware on August 22, 1787, two decades earlier, and died with nothing. What Fulton had that Fitch did not was a monopoly — Livingston's exclusive 20-year grant from the New York legislature, which the partners enforced against every rival hull on the river and which Fulton spent his last years defending in court. The weapons work sits no more comfortably. He designed mines for France to use against Britain, then for Britain to use against France, then a steam battery for the United States against Britain again. In February 1815 he was crossing the frozen Hudson when his friend Thomas Addis Emmet went through the ice. Fulton got him out, soaked himself doing it, and died on February 24 at 49.

The boat that made him was not called Clermont while it ran. That name first appears in Cadwallader Colden's biography of 1817, two years after Fulton was dead, and no contemporary account uses it — which has not stopped it being the only name most Americans know. The monopoly outlasted him by nine years and then collapsed. On March 2, 1824, John Marshall struck it down in Gibbons v. Ogden, holding that a state could not fence off navigable water against a federal licence, and the Hudson opened to anybody with an engine. The steam warship Fulton left unfinished was completed and named for him. He lies in the Trinity Church yard on Wall Street, a few steps from Alexander Hamilton.

Robert Fulton's life against the full span of the corpus.

• Inclined-plane canal patent patent
  A system for hauling boats over hills instead of locking them through 1794
• Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation book
  His argument for small canals and light boats 1796
• Nautilus invention
  Hand-cranked submarine — first sailed on the Seine in July 1800 1800
• Naval torpedoes for the Royal Navy invention
  Floating mines used in the raid on Boulogne, with limited effect 1804
• North River Steamboat invention
  The first commercially successful steamboat — New York to Albany 1807
• Demologos invention
  The first steam-driven warship in the world, finished after his death and renamed Fulton 1815

• 1786 aged ~21 Sails for England after a tuberculosis diagnosis Benjamin West took him into his own household, where he lived for several years.
• 1794 aged ~29 Patents a system of inclined planes for canal boats
• July 1800 aged 34 Nautilus makes its first voyage on the Seine It once stayed submerged 17 minutes in 25 feet of water.
• 1804 aged ~39 Switches sides and builds mines for the Royal Navy William Pitt the Younger commissioned the work. Trafalgar ended British interest in 1805.
• August 17, 1807 aged 41 The North River Steamboat leaves New York for Albany Thirty-two hours under way, with a 20-hour stop at Livingston's estate.
• January 8, 1808 aged 42 Marries Harriet Livingston, his partner's niece
• 1809 aged ~44 Takes out the first of two steamboat patents The second followed in 1811.
• February 24, 1815 aged 49 Dies in New York City at 49 He had pulled Thomas Addis Emmet out of the frozen Hudson and soaked himself doing it.
• March 2, 1824 aged 58 Gibbons v. Ogden destroys the Hudson monopoly John Marshall held that a federal coasting licence beat a state grant.

• Robert R. Livingston 1746–1813
  Chancellor of New York who administered Washington's oath and negotiated the Louisiana Purchase. partner and backer
• John Marshall 1755–1835
  Chief justice who established judicial review and strengthened the Supreme Court and federal government. monopoly struck down by
• Cornelius Vanderbilt 1794–1877
  Shipping and railroad magnate whose empire made him one of the wealthiest Americans in history. made his start defying the monopoly
• Samuel Morse 1791–1872
  Painter and inventor who developed the telegraph and Morse code, enabling instant long-distance communication. fellow painter turned inventor
• Alexander Hamilton 1755–1804
  Founding Father who established the nation's financial system and co-authored the Federalist Papers. buried beside him at Trinity