FULTON, ROBERT, distinguished as having been the first to establish atestranavigation on the American Peas and rivers, was bore in 1765 in Little Britain, Pennsylvania. His parents were emigrants from Ireland. lie received a common English education at a village school. Besides a foudneas for mechanical pursuits, he early displayed a taste for drawing, and in his eighteenth year went to Philadelphia, and began to paint portraits and landscapes as a means of eubsistcnce. In November 1786 he embarked for England, and on his arrival io London was received as Inmate in the house of West, the historical painter, with whom he continual to reside for some 'mare, and who also gave him instructions in his profession.
After leaving West, painting was for some time his chief employ ment; Lut with Fulton the flue arts were destined to give place to the mochanicaL Ile spent about two years in Devonshire, where he became acquainted with the Duke of Bridgewater, and projects for the improvement of canals then began to occupy the chief ehare of his attention. In 1794 he took out a patent for an inclined plane, which was intended to set aside the use of locks; he invented a machine to facilitate excavation, and wrote a work on canals, In which he first styled himself a civil engineer. He also iuveuted a mill for sawing marble, and took out patents for spinning flax and making ropes.
Fulton seems however to have had little success; and at the lntter cud of 1796 went to Paris, on the invitation of Joel Barlow, then resident minister from the United States, in whose house he resided during seven years. While at Paris two projects appear to have occupied a large portion of his time and attention: one, a carcass or box tilled with combustibles, which was to be propelled under water, and made to explode beneath the bottom of a vessel ; the other, a submarine boat, to be used for a similar destructive purpose. The first was a failure; but of his submarine boat. he made many trials and exhibitions, some of them at the expense of the French government, occatIonel &Buten and partial success, on the Seine, at Havre, and at Rouen. But for all practical purposes this was as much n failure as the other. He appears however to have clung to it. with
great perseverance, and not long before his death exhibited the power of his torpedo,' as ho called it, by blowing up an old vessel in the neighbourhood of New York.
But while at Paris Fulton had other and better pursuits. He made himself acquainted with the higher branches of science, and with the modern European languages; he projected the first panorama exhibited at Paris, and in conjunction with Mr. IL Livingston, the American ambassador, began to make experiment. on the Seine with small steam boats : a larger one was built, which broke asunder, but a second, completed in 1803, was successfuL Soou after this time he was invited to England by the English ministry, at the suggestion of Earl Stanhope, with whom Fultou had become acquainted about the time of hie introduction to the Duke of Bridgewater. The object of the English ministry appears to have been to employ him in the construction of his submarine implements of war. Alter some trials on the Thames the negoclation failed, and Fulton resolved to embark for America.
Ili 1806 Fulton arrived at New York, and soon after, with funds supplied by Mr. Livingston, commenced the construction of a steam vessel of considerable site, which began to navigate the Hudson in 1807. He afterwards built others of large dimensions, one of them a steam war-frigate, which bore his Lame. Ilia reputation became established, and his fortune was rapidly incrca'iug, when his patent for steatn-vesaels, which ha had taken out In conjunction with Mr. Livingston, was disputed, and his opponents were lo a considerable degree successful. Ills constitution had been Impaired by his numerous labours, and a severe cold which he caught by incautious exposure in giving directions to his workmen, together with the nuxlety and fret fulness occasioned by the lawsuite about his patent rights, brought his life to a premature termination on the 24th of February 1815, in his forty-ninth year. Ills death occasioned extraordinary demonstrations of national mourning in the United States.