In the days when De Witt Clinton was Mayor the first steam-boat was
built to be used on the Hudson River. For many a year there had been
men who felt sure that steam could be applied to boats and made to
propel them against the wind and the tide. They had tried very hard to
build such a boat but none had succeeded. Sometimes the boilers burst.
Sometimes the paddle-wheels refused to revolve. For one reason or
another the boats were failures.

A man named John Fitch had built a little steam-boat and had tried it
on the Collect Pond, where it had steamed around much to the surprise
of the good people of the city who went to look at it. But it was
considered more as a toy than anything else. Nothing came of the
experiment, and the boat itself was neglected after a time and dragged
up on the bank beside the lake, where it lay until it rotted away.

Then Robert Livingston, who was chancellor of the city, felt sure he
could build a steam-boat that would be of use. As he was a wealthy man
he spent a great deal of money trying to make such a boat; and as he was
a very learned man he gave much thought to it.

Chancellor Livingston was in France when he met another American, named
Robert Fulton, who was an artist and a civil engineer, and who also
hoped to build a boat that could be moved by steam. Livingston and
Fulton decided that they would together build such a boat.

[Illustration: The Clermont, Fulton's First Steam-Boat.]

So Fulton came back to New York and with the money given him by
Livingston began to build a steam-boat which he called the Clermont--the
name of Chancellor Livingston's country home. The citizens laughed a