Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/499

Rh Chicago, and from 1878 till 1883 taught the art and science of surgery in the Indiana medical college. He was an Indiana presidential elector in 1844, 1848, and 1856, and a delegate to the_ National Democratic convention. New York, in 1868. From 18o6 till 1839 he was a member of the legislature of Indiana, and held a seat in congress from 3 Dec, 1849, till 3 March. 1853. He was subsequently elected United States senator from Indiana, and served as such from 9 Feb., 1857, till 3 March. 1861. In the autumn of that year Dr. Fitch raised the 46th regiment of Indiana volunteers, with other troops, and was commissioned colonel. He remained in the field until November, 1862, when he was compelled to resign on account of injuries received. He commanded the land forces at the capture of Fort Pillow, at Memphis. Tenn., and also at St. Charles, Ark.

FITCH, James, clergyman, b. in Bocking. Essex, England, 24 Dec, 1622 ; d. in Lebanon, Conn., 18 Nov., 1702. He came to New England in 1638, and supplemented his previous excellent classical education by seven years of study under Hooker and Stone. He was pastor at Saybrook in 1646-'60, and was afterward installed as the first minister of Norwich. He preached to the Mohegans in their own language, induced them to cultivate land, and gave them some of his own. He published "First Principles of the Doctrine of Christ" (Boston, 1679), and several sermons.

FITCH, John, inventor, b. in East (now South) Windsor, Conn., 21 Jan., 1743; d. in Bardstown, Ky., in June or July, 1798. He received a common-school education, was apprenticed to a watch-maker, and after twenty-five years of home life rendered miserable by the ill-treatment of his father and elder brother, crowned the wretchedness of his condition by an unfortunate marriage, and in 1769 became a wanderer. Settling at Trenton, N. J., he was there exercising his trade of watch-maker at the beginning of the Revolution. The demand for arms induced him to become a gunsmith for the American forces, which exposed his property to destruction when the British entered the village in December, 1776. He joined the New Jersey troops, with whom he endured the rigors of a winter camp at Valley Forge, and afterward resumed his trade in Bucks county, Pa., occasionally traversing the country afoot to repair watches and clocks. Finally, under appointment of the state of Virginia as a deputy surveyor, he set out for Kentucky, knapsack on back and compass in hand, in the spring of 1780, and, after making extensive surveys between the Kentucky and Green rivers, returned to Philadelphia in the autumn of 1781. The next spring he invested in flour and goods the &pound;150 (Pennsylvania currency) which represented the $4,000 he had gathered in Continental currency, and began another tour of western adventure. At the mouth of the Muskingum the party was attacked by Indians, two of his companions were killed, nine taken prisoners, and his goods destroyed. Fitch had the address to conciliate the leader of the band, and the endurance to sustain the rigors of the captivity, from which he escaped, and in the winter of 1782-'3, penniless and dejected, reached Warminster, Pa. Here, 15 April, 1785, he conceived the idea of steam as a motive-power, at first for carriages, but soon for vessels. His first model of a steamboat, completed this year, bore wheels at the sides; but these, being found to labor too much in the water, were replaced (in his experiments of July, 1786, upon a skiff with a steam-engine of 3-inch cylinder) with paddles. He now besieged the Continental

congress, as well as the Pennsylvania legislature, for pecuniary aid to his project, and addressed the leading scientific and public men of that day, everywhere and at all times boldly affirming the practicability of sea navigation by steam vessels. Yet, though he elicited much interest among the best minds, his fervid predictions secured no money, and he acquired the reputation of being insane. Finally, by the construction, engraving, and sale of a map of the northwestern territory, all of which was done with his own hand, the impressions being taken on a cider-press, he raised about $800, in February, 1787, formed a company of forty shares, and began a boat of sixty tons. Meanwhile, in 1786, the state of New Jersey, and in 1787 the states of New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, had granted him the sole and exclusive rights to their waters for fourteen years for purposes of navigating by means of steam. Fitch's second boat, 45 feet long and 12 feet beam, with six oars or paddles on each side, and an engine of 12-inch cylinder, made its trial-trip on the Delaware, at Philadelphia, 22 Aug., 1787, in the presence and to the great satisfaction of the members of the convention to frame the Federal constitution, then in session there. A still larger boat in October, 1788, and still another in April, 1790 (see illustration), continued to demonstrate with their increased speed and facility the value of Fitch's invention, the latter boat being run during the whole summer as a regular passenger-boat between Philadelphia and Burlington, with a speed of eight miles an hour. Another boat, &ldquo;The Perseverance&rdquo; &mdash; designed for both freight and passengers on the Mississippi, under the Virginia patent, which gave Fitch the exclusive right of navigating &ldquo;the Ohio river and its tributaries&rdquo; &mdash; was unfortunately so damaged by a storm as not to be available before the expiration of the default clause in that patent. The stockholders became discouraged, and, Fitch's resources being exhausted, the project was abandoned. In 1791 he received a patent for his inventions from the United States, which was of little avail, and subsequently was lost by fire. In 1793 he went to France, there to build a steamboat; but, arriving in the midst of the revolutionary troubles, was unable to carry out his project, and, depositing his plans and specifications with the American consul at L'Orient, went to London. During this absence his drawings and papers were loaned by the consul to Robert Fulton, then in Paris, in whose possession they were for several months. In 1794, disappointed and penniless, Fitch returned to America, working his passage as a common sailor, and withdrew to his lands at Bardstown, Ky., which he found in the occupation of others; but in 1796 he again constructed a steamboat from a ship's yawl, which was moved by a screw-propeller on the Collect Pond in New York city. In the spring of 1798 he made and tried,