CHAPTER XXXV
ROBERT FULTON BUILDS a STEAM-BOAT
There had come to be a great need for schools. There were private
schools and there were school-rooms attached to some of the churches,
but it was in this year, 1805, that the first steps were taken to have
free schools for all.
A kindly man named De Witt Clinton was Mayor of the city, and he, with
some other citizens, organized the Free School Society that was to
provide an education for every child. The following year the first free
school was opened. The society continued in force for forty-eight years,
each year the number of its schools increasing, until finally all its
property was turned over to the city.
In the days when De Witt Clinton was Mayor the first steam-boat was
built to be used on the Hudson River. For many a year there had been
men who felt sure that steam could be applied to boats and made to
propel them against the wind and the tide. They had tried very hard to
build such a boat but none had succeeded. Sometimes the boilers burst.
Sometimes the paddle-wheels refused to revolve. For one reason or
another the boats were failures.
A man named John Fitch had built a little steam-boat and had tried it
on the Collect Pond, where it had steamed around much to the surprise
of the good people of the city who went to look at it.
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