Inventors . ctive manner, was born in LittleBritain, Lancaster County, Pa., 1/65, of respect-able but poor parents. His father was a native ofKilkenny, Ireland, and his mother came of a fairlywell-to-do Irish family, settled in was the third of five children. As a child hereceived the rudiments of a common vocation showed itself in his earliest his hours of recreation were passed in shopsand in drawing. At the time he was seventeenhe had become so much of an artist as to makemoney by portrait and landscape painting inPhiladelphia, where he remained until
Inventors . ctive manner, was born in LittleBritain, Lancaster County, Pa., 1/65, of respect-able but poor parents. His father was a native ofKilkenny, Ireland, and his mother came of a fairlywell-to-do Irish family, settled in was the third of five children. As a child hereceived the rudiments of a common vocation showed itself in his earliest his hours of recreation were passed in shopsand in drawing. At the time he was seventeenhe had become so much of an artist as to makemoney by portrait and landscape painting inPhiladelphia, where he remained until he wastwenty-one. After this he went to WashingtonCounty and there purchased a little farm onwhich he settled his mother, his father havingdied when he was three years old. He returnedto Philadelphia, but on his way visited the WarmSprings of Pennsylvania, where he met withsome gentlemen who were so much pleased withhis painting that they advised him to go to Eng-land, where they told him he would meet with. Robert Fulton. ROBERT FULTON 47 West who had then attained great took this advice, and his reception byWest, always kindly toward Americans, wassuch as he had been led to expect. The dis-tinguished painter was so well pleased with himthat he took him into his house, where he con-tinued to live for several years. For some timeFulton made painting his chief employment,spending two years in Devonshire, near Exeter,where he made many influential acquaintances,among others the Duke of Bridgewater, famousfor his canals, and Lord Stanhope, a noblemannoted for his love of science and his attachmentto the mechanic arts. With Lord Stanhope, Ful-ton held a correspondence for a long time uponsubjects in which they were interested. In 1793, Fulton was engaged in a project toimprove inland navigation. Even at that earlyday it appeared that he had conceived the ideaof propelling vessels by steam, and he speaks inhis letters of its practicability. In 1794 he ob-tained fro
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