File:Brief biographies from American history, for the fifth and sixth grades - required by the syllabus for elementary schools of New York state education department (1907) (14579606008).jpg

Identifier: briefbiographies00turp (find matches)
Title: Brief biographies from American history, for the fifth and sixth grades : required by the syllabus for elementary schools of New York state education department
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Turpin, Edna Henry Lee, 1867-1952
Subjects:
Publisher: New York : C. E. Merrill Co.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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arswere only stage-coaches made to run on rails and thelocomotive was a crude affair,— but it was a vast im-provement on former methods of travel. Hundredsand thousands of miles of railroads were built in dif-ferent parts of the country. Now, great lines con-nect the north and south, the east and west. Hugeengines, very unlike Stephensons little Rocket, travela mile a minute: instead of taking weeks to go fromthe Atlantic to the Pacific coast, people can make thejourney in five days. Before the steam railway was invented by an Eng-lishman, an American inventor had applied the useof steam to w^ater-travel and had invented a steam-boat. James Watt, a Scotch inventor, had preparedthe way by his invention of the steam-engine. Afterthis was devised, many people thought that it would bepossible and useful to make it furnish motive power forwater-travel. Several American inventors attemptedto make boats moved by steam power and had moreor less success; but they lacked either money to carry
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ROBERT FULTON 223 out their plans or perseverance to bring them to publicnotice. While Watts was working on the steam engine, therewas born in America a boy who was to apply it snc-cessfnlly to water-travel. This was Robert Fulton, whowas born in Pennsylvania, in 1765. He was only aschoolboy during the stirring days of the AmericanRevolution. lie was a bright boy and early showed in-ventive talent. One holiday he went fishing with someschoolmates, in a boat propelled by means of poles.To avoid the labor of using these poles, Robert madesome paddle-wheels which he attached to the boat;he also fixed on the stem a paddle by means of whichthe boat could be guided. But this was mere schoolboy sport. It did not occurto Fulton till many years later to make boat-buildinghis profession. Even as a boy he determined that hewould be an artist. He spent four years in Phila-delphia working and studying; there he succeeded sowell that he went abroad. In England he was wel-comed by Benjamin West, a p

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