The history of the first locomotives in America. From original ...

32 HISTOEY OF THE FIKST LOCOMOTIVES Ilf AMEEIOA.
who, in 1787, made a substitute for oars, and applied
wlieels worked by men upon a crank ;
afterward steam
was substituted by an engineer named Symington.
This boat was a double pleasure-boat upon a lake
in kis grounds at Dolswinton, The trial was so success-
ful that Miller built a boat sixty feet long, and it is said
that it moved upon tke Fortk and Clyde Canal at tke
rate of seven miles an hour ; but the vessel suffered so
much by the strain of the machinery that it soon became
unsafe and in danger of sinking, and was set aside,
and Mr. Miller's experiments were never resumed.
John Stevens, of Hoboken, next experimented in
steam-vessels, in 1791, His first attempt was made in
a boat with a rotary engine, but he soon substituted one
of Watt's machines, and navigated his vessel five or six
miles an hour. These experiments were continued up
to 1807, much to the detriment of his fortune.
The project of Gerrevois was revived in England
about this time by the Earl of Stanhope. An apparatus
like the feet of a duck was placed in a boat, and with
a powerful machine, but never gained a velocity over
three miles an hour.
In 1797, Chancellor Livingston, of New York, built
a steamboat on the Hudson River. He obtained from
the Legislature the right and exclusive privilege, on
condition that he would provide, within a year, a
boat impelled by steam that would go three miles an
hour. This he did not effect. In the year 1800 Stevens
and Livingston united and bijilt a boait to be propelled
by a system of paddles, resembling a horizontal chainpump,
and with one of the engines of Watt, but, in
consequence of the weakness of the vessel, the engine
would get out of line, and the experiment did not suc-
ceed.
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