large body of her manufacturers. During the year ending March, 1791, Pennsylvania and Delaware, which, as the "Lower Counties," have been included in the foregoing statements with Pennsylvania, built an amount of tonnage exceeding the average of the years 1769, '70, and '71, by 3,900 tons, or over 5,600 tons. In 1793, the amount built in Pennsylvania, was 8,145 tons, notwithstanding a desolating epidemic afflicted the city; an amount double that of any other port in the United States. These were of Southern live-oak and cedar, and were of the most substantial character, and their excellence was acknowledged everywhere. The astonishing increase of trade is evidenced in the fact that the exports of the State, or its seaport, Philadelphia, for the year ending September, 1793, exceeded all the exports of New England, by $1,717,572; and, that the mere increase of its exports over those of the previous year, are stated to have exceeded the total exports of New York in 1793, by $2,934,370. The aggregate value of goods shipped to foreign countries, in 1792, was $3,820,646; in 1793, it was $6,958,736; and for the half year ending March 31, 1794, $3,533,397. The exports of Pennsylvania, in 1793, were more than one-fourth of the exports of the whole Union.'

For her success in this branch of industry, as well as for a due share of the reputation in Ship-building enjoyed by the Colonies, Philadelphia is much indebted to the genius of several who were pre-eminent in their departments. Foremost among those we would mention the name of THOMAS GODFREY, a native of Pennsylvania, whose improvement of thẹ Quadrant which bears the name of Hadley, renders his name dear to all who are concerned in trade and navigation. His Reflecting Quadrant was first brought into use in West India vessels, about the year 1731,—'32, and was thence carried to England, where Hadley acquired the credit of the improvement. It was introduced into French ships, in 1736, by M. De Mannevillette, the Maritime Geographer, who published an account of its advantages. Dr. FRANKLIN also deserves honorable mention for the suggestion which he made for the improvement of models and sailing qualities of ships, an account of which may be found, accompanied with illustrations, in the collection of his published works. He was probably the first in this country to call attention to the advantages of water-tight compartments in vessels, which of late years has been so advantageously introduced in the vast naval structures of the age. He was led to approve and recommend the superior safety of this method of construction from the study of the arts, customs, government, and policy of the Chinese. Their prudence in this respect he especially commended; the bottom of their ships being constructed of a number of separate chambers, or com

(1) Coxe's "View of United States."

partments, a leak could only fill the chamber with which it communicated, whereby he conceived they were rendered obviously more safe than those of European construction. Some other of his suggestions were afterward adopted by the naval architects of the country.

The reputation and abilities of JOSHUA HUMPHREYS as a naval architect, contributed to the pre-eminence enjoyed by Philadelphia in Shipbuilding. His professional talents had rendered him long widely known, and after the organization of the Federal Government, when the defenseless state of American commerce forced upon Congress the necessity of providing a Naval Armament, he suggested some important improvements in the construction of the vessels ordered by that body, and was called upon to furnish drafts and models for the six frigates which formed the germ of the American Navy. Their efficiency in the service is believed to have satisfied the country of the value of his innovations, and to have led to a modification in the system of naval construction in European dockyards. The frigate United States, constructed under his immediate superintendence, at Philadelphia, proved to be one of the fastest ships of her time. Tempting offers are said to have been made to him, while abroad, to give the benefit of his talents to a foreign service.

As a Ship-carver and Sculptor, WILLIAM RUSH, probably, had few superiors in his day. The figure-heads executed by him excited no little admiration in foreign countries, and orders, it is said, were sent to him from England. He particularly excelled in the execution of figureheads representing the Indian character, in which his graceful and spirited designs were perhaps unequaled. Walking attitudes, little in use before his time, were immediately improved by him, with a degree of taste and skill in design and execution previously unequaled. The figure-head of the "Indian Trader," upon the ship William Penn, in Indian costume, excited great observation in London, it is said, and attracted numbers of artists daily, in boats, to observe and sketch designs from it. Orders were sent from England for several figures for ships building there, although the duties cost more than the first cost of the images. This circumstance is supposed alone to have stood in the way of a profitable employment of the artist upon foreign orders. Rush executed a full-length statue of Washington, for the Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, and there are several other of his works still preserved in his native city. He was the son of a Ship-carpenter of Philadelphia, and learned the business with Edward Cutbush, from London, one of the best Ship-carvers of his day.1

(1) The intense anxiety with which the country awaited the action of the several States relative to the adoption of the new

Constitution is well known. To the mercantile and manufacturing classes generally, it was fraught with benefits in prospect, but to

Invention of Steamboats.-It is proper, before dismissing the subject of Marine construction in Pennsylvania, briefly to notice the part taken by its citizens in introducing the splendid era of Steam Navigation. The first experiments were made on her waters. The limits of this article do not permit us to enter upon any discussion of the question of priority, which has been so warmly contested by rival claimants in this country. Nor is it our province to arbitrate the claims of different. nations to the first conception of the idea of employing steam in navigating vessels. Should we yield the originality of the attempt to England, and she to France or Italy; and should all these acknowledge their obligations for the discovery of the potent agency of steam to Hiero of Alexandria, there still remains to England and America, at least, abundant honor in the improvements of Watt, Savery, Hulls, Miller and Taylor, or Symington, in the former, and of Evans, Fitch, Rumsey, Fulton, and Stevens, in this, to compensate for the surrender. Especially may this country be content with the credit of having, through the genius of Fulton, so combined the conceptions of previous experimenters, as to produce a practical, working Steamboat; and in having, in a short time, covered the vast reach of its navigable rivers and the great expanse of

none more so than to the ship-builders, which were a numerous class in Philadelphia and vicinity.

The Federal procession held in Philadelphia, on the 4th of July, 1788, when ten States, including Pennsylvania, had ratified the new compact, was one of unusual eclat, and evinced the joy of all classes.

The participation of the ship-builders in this fête, is thus described in the fourth volume of the American Museum, and displays some of the skill of Philadelphia Shipwrights :-"The Federal ship Union, mounting two guns, with a crew, including officers, of twenty-five men, thirty feet long, and proportionally deep and wide. Her bottom was the barge of the ship Alliance, and the one which formerly belonged to the Serapis, taken by Paul Jones, in the Bon Homme Richard. The Union was a masterpiece of elegant workmanship, perfectly proportioned and complete throughout, and decorated with emblematical carving. And what was truly astonishing, she was begun and completed in less than four days. The workmanship and appearance of this beautiful object commanded universal admiration and applause, and did high honor to the

artists of Philadelphia, who were concerned in her construction. She was mounted on a carriage, and drawn by ten horses. She was followed by the Pilots of the port, and SHIP-CARPENTERS,

headed by Francis Grice and John Norris, with the draft of a ship on the stocks, cases of instruments, etc., and a flag bearing a ship supported by Messrs. Harrison, Rice, Brewster, and Humphreys, followed by Mastmakers, Caulkers, and Workmen, to the amount of three hundred and thirty, all wearing a badge in their hats representing a ship on the stocks, and a green sprig of white oak.

BOAT-BUILDERS

in a shop 18 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 13 high, who set up and nearly completed a boat thirteen feet long during the procession. These were followed by Sailmakers, Shipjoiners (twenty-five in number), Ropemakers, and Ship-chandlers, about sixty in number."

The procession, representing all the various trades, with similar displays, numbered about five thousand persons, and attracted some seventeen thousand spectators to Union Green.

its lake surface, and to a less extent the ocean, with a Steam Marine of unequaled magnitude.

To Oliver Evans, whose mind was occupied as early as 1773 with the subject of steam propulsion, both by land and water, belongs the merit of the first effective application of the high-pressure steam-engine. This is almost the only one now used on the Western river boats, or adapted for locomotives for railroads, of which he may be regarded as the inventor. The cylinder flue boiler for high-pressure engines is also his invention. Although the fame of that ingenious mechanic mainly rests upon his valuable improvements in Mill Machinery, his successful attempt to move. a Locomotive carriage in the streets of Philadelphia and a boat on the Schuylkill, with the same apparatus, by means of paddle-wheels, fully establishes, in the opinion of the British engineer, Mr. Galloway, "his claim to the first contrivance of a practical steamboat." The predictions of Evans, as to the ultimate triumphs of Steam, and of his own apparatus, have been remarkably fulfilled.

The subject appears to have engaged the attention of several about the same time, and among others, as mentioned by Fitch, it was the subject of conversation between Mr. Henry, of Lancaster, Pa., and Mr. ANDREW ELLICOTT, in the year 1776. The former had even made drawings of a steamboat to lay before the Philosophical Society. In 1778, Thomas Paine recommended Congress to adopt measures for encouraging the building of steamboats on the plan of Jonathan Hulls, "to go against wind and tide," patented in England in 1736.

In 1784, JAMES RUMSEY, of Maryland and Virginia, exhibited to General Washington the model of a boat for stemming the current of rivers by the force of the stream acting on setting poles, which he patented in several States; and, among others, he obtained the exclusive right for ten years "to navigate and build boats calculated to work with greater ease and rapidity against rapid rivers," from the Assembly of Pennsylvania in March, 1785. The same thing had been unsuccessfully attempted by a farmer of Reading, Pa., in 1750.

In 1785, JAMES FITCH had completed a model of a steamboat, and in that, or early in the following year, moved a small shallop on the Schuylkill, by the agency of steam acting on paddles at the stern. The knowledge of this attempt appears to have reached Europe; for on the 22d of April, 1786, Mr. Jefferson wrote from London to Mr. Charles Thompson, of Philadelphia: "I hear you are applying the same agent (steam) in America to navigate boats." Fitch immediately set about the construction of a new steamboat, of which a description was inserted by the inventor in the 1st volume of the Columbian Magazine for Dec., 1786. On the first of the following May, he made an experiment with

this first American Steamboat upon the Delaware. She attained by accurate measurement, in the presence of Messrs. Rittenhouse, Ewing, Ellicott, and others, the rate of eight miles an hour at dead water, and afterward went eighty miles in a day.

The Legislature of the State, on March 28th, 1787, gave Fitch "the sole right and advantage of making and employing the steamboat by him lately invented, for a limited time," viz., 14 years. Fitch obtained similar privileges from the Legislatures of Delaware, New York, and Virginia.

In Dec., 1787, Rumsey made his first experiment with a Steamboat on the Potomac, at Shepherdstown. Although Fitch had clearly the precedence in point of time, his claims were strongly contested by Rumsey, on the ground that, in his early marine experiments, he contemplated the use of steam as a motive power; and, by aid of the Rumseian Society of Philadelphia, and other influential friends, was successful in maintaining his claims in the Legislatures of New York, Maryland, and Virginia; but Fitch was sustained by those of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey.

Rumsey patented in England, in 1788, some improvements in boilers; and both parties, on the establishment of the Patent Office, took out patents for their marine inventions.

There is little doubt that defects in the size of the wheels, the weight and imperfection of the engine, and other minor faults, avoided by those who came after him, alone prevented Fitch from giving to the world a practically useful Steamboat many years before the successful enterprise of Fulton with one of Watt's improved engines.

DELAWARE.-Ship-building was also carried on at a very early day, at the Swedish settlements upon the Delaware, particularly in the vicinity of the present city of Wilmington, in Delaware. In the grant of privileges to Henry Hockhammer, to establish a Colony at New Sweden, (after Minuit), in 1640, they were permitted to establish all sorts of manufactures and industry, engage in all commerce, in and out of the country, with the coast of the West Indies and Africa, belonging to friendly powers but only in vessels and yachts built in New Sweden-under promise of the Government's assistance. It is stated on the authority of Campanius, that when he arrived there in 1642, four years after Governor Minuit, and about forty years before the landing of Penn, he found Shipbuilding, boat-building, and cooper work, carried on upon "Cooper's Island." The first vessel for foreign trade belonging to that port was a brig called "The Wilmington," built in 1740, by William Shipley, D. Ferris, and others. She sailed the following year, laden with flour, shipbread-the staple production of the place, pipe staves, and the usual