He was born in 1788, was a member of 1811 in Harvard, and
grandfather of Sarah Orne Jewett, the authoress.
The writer remembers his grandfather telling him of going to Hudson as
a boy to see the "steamboat" make its first trip, and how it had been
talked of for a long time as "Fulton's Folly." One thing is sure
it was a small cradle wherein to rock the "baby-giant" of a great
century. How Fulton would wonder if he could visit to-day the great
steamships born of his invention--successors of the "Clermont" of
"Twenty tons burthen." How he would marvel, standing on the deck of
the "Hendrick Hudson," to see the water fall away from the prow cut by
a rainbow scimitar of spray! at the great engines of polished steel,
working almost noiselessly, and wonder at the way the pilot lands at
the docks, even as a driver brings his buggy to a horse-block; for in
his day, and long afterwards, passengers were "slued" ashore in little
boats, as it was not regarded feasible to land a steamboat against a
wharf. It would surely be an "experience" for us to see the passengers
at West Point, Newburgh, or Poughkeepsie "slued ashore" to-day in
little rowboats.
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