Paddle Wheeler

1810 · River Steamer · Work 114 of 1,871

Paddle Wheeler, 1810, River Steamer

The engine and paddle wheel of a river steamboat in cutaway, walking beam rocking above the deck, buckets of the wheel entering the water, riverbank sliding past.

What it was used for
Around 1810 the paddle steamer was in regular service a river and estuary carrier, not a seagoing ship. Fulton's North River Steam Boat ran New York–Albany from 4 September 1807; the advertisement in the American Citizen of 2 September 1807 gave a 6 a.m. departure and fixed rates, seven dollars to Albany in 36 hours. A sloop covered the same water in about 24 hours with a fair wind, in days against it: the steamer was not faster, but it was predictable. On the Clyde, Henry Bell's Comet ran three times a week each way from August 1812, Glasgow–Greenock–Helensburgh, four shillings best cabin and three shillings second.
What was new
Steam propulsion itself was not new: Jouffroy d'Abbans ran in 1783, John Fitch operated a scheduled Delaware service from 1790, Symington's Charlotte Dundas towed barges in 1803. What was new was operation that held up — season after season upstream against the current, independent of the wind, to a published timetable and fare — where Fitch's Delaware line had folded for want of passengers. The barb: that same traffic technology was locked up by law in New York. State acts gave Livingston and Fulton exclusive steam navigation; the act of 9 April 1811 allowed seizure of rivals' boats, and the Stevens ferry to Hoboken was pushed out in 1813. The waters were opened only by Gibbons v. Ogden on 2 March 1824.

Further reading