I am well aware that there are still many very respectable and ingenious men who consider the application of the steam-engine to the purpose of navigation as highly important, and as very practicable, especially on the rapid waters of the Mississippi, and who would feel themselves almost offended at the expression of an opposite opinion. And, perhaps, some of the objections against it may be avoided. That founded on the expense and weight of the fuel may not, for some years, exist on the Mississippi, where there is a redundance of wood on the banks; but the cutting and loading will be almost as great an evil.
Scientific men and amateurs all agreed in pronouncing Fulton's scheme impracticable; but he went on with his work, his boat attracting no less attention and exciting no less ridicule than the ark had received from the scoffers in the days of Noah. The steam-engine ordered from Boulton and Watt was received in the latter part of 1806; and in the following spring the boat was launched from the ship-yard of Charles Brown, on the East River. Fulton named her the "Clermont," after the country-seat of his friend and partner, Chancellor Livingston. She was one hundred and sixty tons burthen, one hundred and thirty feet long, eighteen feet wide, and seven feet deep. Her engine was made with a single cylinder, two feet in diameter, and of four feet stroke; and her boiler was twenty feet long, seven feet deep, and eight feet broad. The diameter of the paddle-wheels was fifteen feet, the boards four feet long, and dipping two feet in the water. The boat was completed about the last of August, and she was moved by her machinery from the East River into the Hudson, and over to the Jersey shore. This trial, brief as it was, satisfied Fulton of its success, and he announced that in a few days the steamer would sail from New York for Albany. A few friends, including several scientific men and mechanics, were invited to take passage in the boat, to witness her performance; and they accepted the invitation with a general conviction that they were to do but little more than witness another failure.