40 Fun Facts About Robert Fulton

Robert Fulton fell fatally ill in 1815 after rescuing his lawyer friend from which accident?

A fall through ice on the frozen river nearly drowned his friend Thomas Addis Emmet. Fulton hauled him out, got soaked, and died soon afterwards at 49.

Robert Fulton named his floating bombs torpedoes, a word that first meant which sea creature?

Electric ray was the original meaning of torpedo, from the Latin for sluggishness. Fulton borrowed it for his mines and titled an 1810 book Torpedo War.

Before he became an engineer, Robert Fulton earned his living in London in which profession?

Portrait painter was Fulton's first career, and Benjamin Franklin was among his sitters. His London pictures won so little notice that he gave up art in his late twenties.

Besides its steam engine, Robert Fulton's 1807 steamboat carried which older means of propulsion?

Sails could be unfurled on a short mast at each end of the boat. Fulton boasted that the first trip was made wholly by steam, against a light headwind both ways.

Which French ruler branded Robert Fulton a swindler after he scrapped his leaky submarine?

Napoleon asked to see the submarine in 1801, only to learn Fulton had already broken it up. The French navy thought such a weapon suicidal for its crews.

Robert Fulton's wealthy steamboat backer had once sworn in which president at a first inauguration?

George Washington took the oath in 1789 from the man who later bankrolled Fulton, then Chancellor of New York. The same partner helped negotiate the Louisiana Purchase.

Which natural disaster struck during the 1811 Mississippi debut of a Robert Fulton steamboat?

An earthquake centred on New Madrid, Missouri, the first of a violent series, reshaped the river as the boat passed. Villagers begged to be taken aboard.

After France rejected his submarine, Robert Fulton began building weapons for which country in 1804?

Britain hired Fulton to build floating mines for use against the French invasion fleet. His contract paid £200 a month plus a bounty for every ship destroyed.

Robert Fulton did not invent the steamboat, so what is his 1807 vessel credited as the first to do?

Succeed commercially is what set Fulton's boat apart: earlier steamboats ran but lost money. His turned a profit in its first three months of carrying passengers.

Robert Fulton gave his 1800 submarine which name, later reused by Jules Verne for Captain Nemo?

Nautilus was built of copper sheets over iron ribs and stayed under for an hour in trials. Verne took the name for his fictional submarine seven decades later.

Robert Fulton registered his boat as the North River Steamboat, using an old name for which river?

Hudson River was often called the North River in 1807, so the boat's working name simply said where it ran. Its famous nickname came later.

Robert Fulton's steamboat made its first trip from New York City 150 miles upriver to which city?

Albany was reached in 32 hours of steaming, a trip that took sailing sloops about four days. Regular passenger runs began within weeks.

Robert Fulton's 1807 steamboat is best known by which name, taken from his partner's estate?

Clermont was the country estate where the boat stopped on its maiden trip. Fulton himself just called his vessel the Steamboat.

While Robert Fulton's 1807 steamboat was under construction, doubters mocked it as Fulton's what?

Folly was the jeer, and Fulton wrote that barely thirty people in the city believed the boat would move a mile an hour. It overtook sloops as if they were at anchor.

Which drafter of the Declaration of Independence became the backer of Robert Fulton's steamboat?

Robert Livingston met Fulton in Paris while serving as American minister to France. He already held a 20-year monopoly on steamboats in New York, and the two agreed to share costs.

Which state, Robert Fulton's birthplace, chose him as one of its two statues in the US Capitol?

Pennsylvania sent its statue of Fulton to National Statuary Hall in 1889. The state also restored the Lancaster County farmhouse where his life began.

Robert Fulton is buried in which Manhattan churchyard, also the resting place of Alexander Hamilton?

Trinity Church holds Fulton in the family vault of his wife's relatives, at the head of Wall Street. Engineers added a monument to him there in 1901.

Which American, the Royal Academy's second president, was young Robert Fulton's teacher in London?

Benjamin West, a family friend, welcomed Fulton to London and oversaw his studies. West was a favourite of King George III and helped launch the Royal Academy.

As a teenager, Robert Fulton was apprenticed in Philadelphia to which kind of craftsman?

Jeweler's work in a Philadelphia shop was the young Fulton's first trade. Lancaster, where he grew up, was better known for its gunsmiths.

Robert Fulton gave his only son a middle name honouring which American poet, his host in Paris?

Joel Barlow, the boy's godfather, housed Fulton for seven years in Paris and nicknamed him Toot. Fulton's daughters were Julia, Cornelia and Mary.

Robert Fulton's first experimental steamboat was tried out in 1803 on which European river?

Seine trials in Paris reached only about three miles an hour, and an earlier hull broke under the engine. Even so, they proved the design could work.

Robert Fulton ordered his 1807 steamboat's engine from which famous firm in Birmingham, England?

Boulton and Watt supplied the 24-horsepower engine. Fulton first had to get around English laws against exporting such machinery.

Which device, often rammed by rival sloop crews, propelled Robert Fulton's 1807 steamboat?

Side paddle wheels, 15 feet across, were left unprotected at first. After sloop crews rammed them, Fulton fitted guards over the wheels that winter.

Which fuel fed the boiler of Robert Fulton's 1807 steamboat on its first trips upriver?

Wood did the job: oak and pine logs raised steam at just two to three pounds per square inch. The engine sat amidships, stacked round with cordwood.

How was the submarine Robert Fulton built in France in 1800 propelled when it was underwater?

By hand crank: crewmen turned a screw propeller, and in one trial two of them beat two men rowing on the surface over a 360-foot course.

Robert Fulton's final design, built to guard New York Harbor in 1814, was the world's first what?

Steam warship Demologos had twin hulls five feet thick to shrug off cannon fire. The war ended before it could fight, and it was renamed Fulton after his death.

Which landmark Supreme Court case broke the New York steamboat monopoly Robert Fulton had shared?

Gibbons v. Ogden held in 1824 that Congress's power over interstate commerce covers navigation, voiding the New York grant. By 1840 more than 100 steamboats were working the river.

Which future railroad tycoon began as a steamboat captain defying Robert Fulton's old monopoly?

Cornelius Vanderbilt captained a rival steamboat between New Jersey and New York from 1817, while his employer undercut the monopoly's prices and fought it in court.

Which inventor ran a steamboat on the Delaware River two decades before Robert Fulton's success?

John Fitch showed off his boat, driven by banks of mechanical oars, before delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. He never made it pay.

Robert Fulton's 1811 steamboat, the first on the Ohio and Mississippi, was named for which city?

New Orleans was both the boat's name and its destination, reached in January 1812. Its captain was a great-granduncle of Theodore Roosevelt.

What happened aboard Robert Fulton's first Ohio River steamboat during its 1811 stop at Louisville?

A baby was born to the captain's wife, Lydia Roosevelt, who made the whole voyage with a toddler in tow. Her husband had surveyed the route by flatboat first.

Robert Fulton sat on the commission that recommended which New York waterway, opened in 1825?

Erie Canal planners added Fulton to their commission in 1811, and he served until his death. He had been drawing up canal schemes since the 1790s.

In his 1796 treatise on canals, Robert Fulton argued that locks should be replaced by which device?

Inclined planes would raise small boats from one level to the next. His advice was not followed: English canal engineers preferred locks.

In Paris, Robert Fulton raised money by charging the public to see which kind of giant painting?

Panorama shows paid Fulton's bills while he waited on the French government. The covered arcade built beside them is still called the Passage des Panoramas.

Robert Fulton's steam ferry Nassau began crossing the East River in 1814 from Manhattan to where?

Brooklyn finally got a predictable crossing, and the ferry made Fulton's name so familiar that the streets at both landings were renamed for him.

Which aviator flew around the Statue of Liberty at the 1909 festival honouring Robert Fulton?

Wilbur Wright flew from Governors Island, and days later a 33-minute flight up the river gave perhaps a million New Yorkers their first sight of an aeroplane.

An 1896 two-dollar bill themed on steam and electricity pairs Robert Fulton with which inventor?

Samuel Morse shares the back of the note with Fulton. Collectors prize this Educational Series as some of the most beautiful American paper money ever printed.

Which future utopian reformer shared a Manchester boarding house with the young Robert Fulton?

Robert Owen, then managing cotton mills, put money into Fulton's canal-digging machine. He later ran the model mill village of New Lanark.

A bronze Robert Fulton in the Library of Congress pairs with which explorer to represent Commerce?

Christopher Columbus and Fulton stand for Commerce among 16 bronzes ringing the Main Reading Room, two for each of eight fields of human achievement.

Until 2016, a steamboat-shaped restaurant named for Robert Fulton stood at which Florida resort?

Walt Disney World housed Fulton's Crab House in a full-size replica riverboat on Village Lake from 1996. The boat has since been remodelled as another restaurant.