Part 22 (1/2)
=Barrytown= is just above ”Daisy Island,” on the east bank, 96 miles from New York. It is said when General Jackson was President, and this village wanted a postoffice, that he would not allow it under the name of Barrytown, from personal dislike to General Barry, and suggested another name; but the people were loyal to their old friend, and _went without_ a postoffice until a new administration. The name of Barrytown, therefore, stands as a monument to pluck. The place was once known as Lower Red Hook Landing. Pa.s.sing ”Ma.s.sena,” the Aspinwall property, we see--
=Montgomery Place=, residence of Carleton Hunt and sisters, about one-half mile north of Barrytown, formerly occupied by Mrs.
Montgomery, wife of General Montgomery and sister of Chancellor Livingston. The following dramatic incident connected with Montgomery Place is recorded in Stone's ”History of New York City”: ”In 1818 the legislature of New York--DeWitt Clinton, Governor--ordered the remains of General Montgomery to be removed from Canada to New York. This was in accordance with the wishes of the Continental Congress, which, in 1776, had voted the beautiful cenotaph to his memory that now stands in the wall of St. Paul's Church, fronting Broadway. When the funeral cortege reached Whitehall, N. Y., the fleet stationed there received them with appropriate honors; and on the 4th of July they arrived in Albany. After lying in state in that city over Sunday, the remains were taken to New York, and on Wednesday deposited, with military honors, in their final resting place, at St. Paul's. Governor Clinton had informed Mrs. Montgomery of the hour when the steamer 'Richmond,'
conveying the body, would pa.s.s her home. At her own request, she stood alone on the portico. It was forty years since she had parted from her husband, to whom she had been wedded but two years when he fell on the heights of Quebec; yet she had remained faithful to the memory of her 'soldier,' as she always called him. The steamboat halted before the mansion; the band played the 'Dead March,' and a salute was fired; and the ashes of the venerated hero, and the departed husband, pa.s.sed on.
The attendants of the Spartan widow now appeared, but, overcome by the tender emotions of the moment, she had swooned and fallen to the floor.”
The river that he loved so well Like a full heart is awed to calm, The winter air that wafts his knell Is fragrant with autumnal balm.
_Henry T. Tuckerman._
The Sawkill Creek flows through a beautiful ravine in Montgomery grounds and above this is the St. Stephen's College and Preparatory School of the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of New York. Beyond and above this are Mrs. E. Bartlett's home and Deveaux Park, afterwards Almonte, the property of Col. Charles Livingston. We are now approaching--
=Cruger's Island=, with its indented South Bay reaching up toward the bluff crowned by Montgomery Place. There is an old Indian tradition that no person ever died on this island, which a resident recently said still held true. It is remarkable, moreover, in possessing many antique carved stones from a city of Central America built into the walls of a temple modeled after the building from which the graven stones were brought. The ”ruin” at the south end of the island is barely visible from the steamer, hidden as it is by foliage, but it is distinctly seen by _New York Central_ travelers in the winter season.
Colonel Cruger has spared no expense in the adornment of his grounds, and a beautiful drive is afforded the visitor. The island is connected by a roadway across a tongue of land which separates the North from the South Bay. Above this island east of the steamer's channel across the railway of the _New York Central_, we see a historic bit of water known as--
=The North Bay.= It was here that Robert Fulton developed his steamboat invention, receiving pecuniary aid from Chancellor Livingston, and it is fitting to give at this place a concise account of
=Steam Navigation=, which after many attempts and failures on both sides of the Atlantic was at last crowned with success on the Hudson.
=John Fitch= first entertained his idea of a steamboat in 1785, and sent to the general a.s.sembly of the State of Pennsylvania a model in 1786. New Jersey and Delaware in 1787, gave him exclusive right to navigate their waters for fourteen years, which, however, was never undertaken. His steamboat ”Perseverance,” on the Delaware in 1787, was eighteen feet in length and six feet beam. The name, however, was a misnomer, as it was abandoned. These facts appear by papers on file in the State Library at Albany. After his experiment on the Delaware, he traveled through France and England, but not meeting with the encouragement that he expected, became poor and returned home, working his pa.s.sage as a common sailor. In 1797 he constructed a little boat which was propelled by steam in the old Collect Pond, New York, below Ca.n.a.l Street, between Broadway and the East River.
Exactly one hundred years separate the first paddle-boat of Papin from the first steamboat of Fulton.
_Victor Hugo._
According to records in the State Library, the steam was sufficiently high to propel the boat once, twice, or thrice around the pond. ”When more water being introduced into the boiler or pot and steam was generated, she was again ready to start on another expedition.” The boat was a yawl about eighteen feet in length and six feet beam. She was started at the buoy with a small oar when the propeller was used.
The boiler was a ten or twelve gallon iron pot. This boat with a portion of the machinery was abandoned by Fitch, and left to decay on the muddy sh.o.r.e. Shortly after this he died in Kentucky in 1798. Had he lived, or, had the fortune like Fulton, to find such a patron as Livingston, his success might have been a.s.sured. His visit to Europe may have inspired Symington's experiment on Dalswinton Loch in 1788, which made five miles an hour, and another steamboat on the Forth of Clyde which made seven miles an hour in 1789, and the ”Charlotte Dundas” in 1802, which drew a load of seventy tons over three miles against a strong gale. Something, however, was wanting and the idea of successful navigation was abandoned in Britain till after the invention of Robert Fulton which made steam navigation an a.s.sured fact.
”How necessary it is to succeed,” said Kosciusko, at the grave of Was.h.i.+ngton, and this is also as true in the story of invention as in the struggle for freedom: ”That they never fail who die in a great cause though years elapse, and others share as dark a doom. They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts which overpower all others and conduct the world at last to fortune.”
It was the writer's privilege in 1891, to deliver the unveiling address of a monument to Symington at his birthplace, Lead Hills, Scotland. In the tribute then paid to the genius of the great Scotchman who had done so much for invention in many directions, he said the difference between Symington and Fulton was this: ”Each worked diligently at the same idea, but it was the good fortune of Fulton, so far as the steamboat was considered, to make his 'invention' 'go.'”
I see the traditions of my fathers are true; I see far, far away the big bird again floating upon the waters, so far my warriors that you cannot see it, but ere two autumns have scattered the leaves upon my grave, the pale face will claim our hunting grounds.
_Aepgin, King of the Mahicans._
To quote from a British writer, the ”Comet” of Henry Bell on the Clyde in 1812, was the first example of a steamboat brought into serviceable use within European waters, and the writer incidentally added that steam navigation in Britain took practical form almost on the spot where James Watt, the ill.u.s.trious improver of the steam engine was born. The word ”improver” is well put. It has much to do with the story of many inventions. The labor of Fitch was far-reaching in many directions, and it detracts nothing from Fulton's fame that the experiments of Fitch and Symington preceded his final triumph.