It took a large amount of hard horse sense to run a river schooner successfully in the old days of frequent crises and sharp competition, and the man who could cope with the shippers and the market men, keep the weather gage of rivals and more than hold his own with wind and tide, was very apt to be a valuable man in any active business. In most cases it was the old schooner and sloop skippers that became captains of steam craft, and afterw^ards were frequently counted among the magnates of the river. Many of the older river steamboats bear the names of men who 'Tollowed the river, man and boy" for many years, and were better known at most of the landing places than the Governor of the State or the member of Assembly from the district.

Chapter IX Fulton and the Hudson River Steamboat

ROBERT FULTON, whose name is indissolubly connected with the history of navigation and no less intimately associated with the story of the Hudson River, was born in America before the War for Independence. According to the most approved precedents, he showed in early boyhood a promise of inventive ability, in combination with a taste for art; the latter cultivated under the direction of the noted painter, Benjamin West. While in London, engaged in his chosen work, he became interested in canals and wrote a treatise on Canal Navigation. This was published, the author at the same time ol:)taining patents on a double inclined plane designed to take the place of locks in small canals. This work, done by Fulton while sojourning in England, found its way across the ocean and attracted the attention of Albert Gallatin and others, who were the means of introducing the inventor and his ideas to the notice of Congress, which led to a fuller exposition of his views, prepared at the request of that body.