Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 04.djvu/227

 FULTON

FULTON

when he established the Centennial Baptist church, Brooklyn, and became editor of The Watch Toicer. He resigned the latter pastorate in 1887 to engage in work for Romanists. As a lecturer he traversed Europe and Great Britain and America, and delivered in the Patriotic coui'ses in Boston 190 lectures between the years 1887 and 1898. The degree of D.D. was conferred upon him by the University of Rochester in 1870. He is the author of the following books: The Eoman Catholic Element in American History tl8o9); Life of Timothy Gilbert (1804): Woman as God Made Her (1867): The Way Out (1870); Sam Hobart, Railroad Engineer (1873) ; Show Toitr Colors (1881); Borne in America (1884); Why Friests Should Wed (1887); Spurgeon Our Ally (1893); How to Win Romanists (1893); The Fiijht With Rome; and Washington in the Lap of Rome (1894) ; besides many pamphlets. He died in Somerville, Mass., April 16, 1901.

FULTON, Robert, engineer, was born in Little Britain. Lancaster count}', Pa., in 1765: the son of an Iiish emigrant who came from Kilkenny and settled in Lancaster county, Pa., about 1730. When thirteen years old Robert made toy boats propelled by paddle wheels and afterward became a painter of miniature portraits and land- scapes in Philadel- pliia where he re- sided, 1782-85. lie went to London in 1786 with a letter of introduction to Ben- jamin West, and studied art with him, residing with his family in London for several years. He then made an itiner- ary through the larger estates of Devonshire, England, where his letters of introduction from West procured for him the patronage of the nobility, who employed him in pamting miniature portraits and landscapes. While tlius engaged he made the acquaintance of the Duke of Devonshire and the Earl of Stanhope, who were interested in the subjects of internal water communication by means of canals, of printing, and of general mechanics and engi- neering. Fulton had many original ideas on these subjects and thus he gained their confi- dence and was advised by them to study civil engineering, which he did. In 1793 he actively engaged as a civil engineer and in 1794 devised a double inclined plane for raising and lowering boats from different levels in the canal, which he patented. In 1794 he also patented an aji- pliance for sawing marble and in 1796 he planned

cast-iron aqueducts used subsequently in carry- ing water across the river Dee. Bridges were also built upon his plans. During his residence in Birmingham he proposed to the Earl of Stan- hope the use of paddle wheels in applying steam to the jiropulsion of vessels in 1793, and assisted James Watt in constructing steam engines. In 1794 he became an inmate of the family of Joel Barlow, author of " Columbiad, " wlio had gone to Paris to escape the displeasure of the British government. While there Fulton painted a pan- orama, the first exhibited in Paris. In 1797 he made experiments in the river Seine with a sub- marine torpedo boat and in 1801 continued his experiments off the French coast at Brest under patronage of the government. His efforts to blow up passing English ships proved abortive and the French government became disinter- ested ; but through the offices of Lord Stanhope, Fulton was permitted to continue his experi- ments in England and he went to London in May, 1804. His submarine boat was pronounced to be impracticable by a board of British experts, but his torpedo was given a new trial against the French fleet at Boulogne, where it proved harmless. In October, 1805, however, with an improved torpedo, he destroyed a brig of 200 tons provided by the British government for the pur- pose. Wher. the government exacted a condition that the invention should be communicated to no other nation. Fulton refused to comply and as he had already arranged with Robert R. Living- ston to go to the United States and build a steamboat, he sailed in 1S0.5. Wlule in Paris in 1801 he had made the acquaintance of Livingston. U.S. ambassador to France and a friend of Joel Barlow with whom Fulton was then stopping. Barlow had in his possession certain plans and specifications left in his cai-e by John Fitcli who had gone to England in the interest of steam navigation, having failed to obtain aid from the Fi'ench government. Livingston became inter- ested in the subject and Fulton narrated to him the plans of Earl Stanhope which had been dis- cussed in 1793, when he proposed to the earl the substitution of a paddle wheel for his contem- plated paddle after the design of a duck's web- foot. Under the patronage of Livingston, Fulton made experiments at Plombiers in 1802. In 1803 he made a working model of his boat which he deposited with a commission of French savants, and in the meantime built a boat sixty feet in length and eight feet in breadtli, sujjplied with a steam engine and propelled by a paddle wheel in the stern, which was moderately successful on its trial. Livingston then determined to transfer the future experiments to the Hudson river at New York. John Stevens of Hoboken, N.J., lia<l begun to make experuuents in applying steam to