Clermont (steamboat)
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The first commercially successful steamship of the paddle steamer design, the "Clermont" left New York City for Albany, New York travelling on the Hudson River on August 17, 1807, inaugurating the first successful commercial steamboat service in the world.
The name of Fulton's first steamboat is often given as the Clermont. In fact, he never called it by that name, generally referring to it simply as the North River Steamboat, but the name often appears in the literature. The North River is an old Dutch name for the Hudson River. Clermont is also the name of the estate of Fulton's partner, Robert R. Livingston, located 110 miles [177 km] away on the Hudson River. The Clermont stopped at the Clermont estate for 20 hours enroute to Albany. On average it approximately traveled 4.7 miles per hour.[1]
The initial voyage of Fulton's monster was described as follows in an 1807 publication [2]:
| “ | The surprise and dismay excited among the crews of these vessels by the appearance of the steamer was extreme. These simple people, the majority of whom had heard nothing of Fulton's experiments, beheld what they supposed to be a huge monster, vomiting fire and smoke from its throat, lashing the water with its fins, and shaking the river with its roar, approaching rapidly in the very face of both wind and tide. Some threw themselves flat on the deck of their vessels, where they remained in an agony of terror until the monster had passed, while others took to their boats and made for the shore in dismay, leaving their vessels to drift helplessly down the stream. Nor was this terror confined to the sailors. The people dwelling along the shore crowded the banks to gaze upon the steamer as she passed by. | ” |
The captain on the Clermont was Andrew Brink, of Saugerties, New York
