[Gutenberg 63140] • A Lost Chapter in the History of the Steamboat

Excerpt from A Lost Chapter in the History of the Steamboat

I recollected him then. Fourteen or fifteen years back it had been his fancy to pet me as a child. It was this that had impressed him on. my memory. "Ah, you know me now," he said: "you remember when I used to be so much with Fulton and Roosevelt and Chancellor Livingston and Dr. Mitchell, at the Navy Yard house." This was the name given to my father's residence in Washington, not far from the Navy Yard. After recalling well remembered incidents and indulging in general remarks for a while, Mr. Delacy took a survey of my scantily furnished office, and said, "not overwhelmed with business, my young friend: so much the better for me: you will have the more time to attend to something I want you to undertake. If you succeed, it will be the making of both our fortunes. I want suit brought against every steamboat owner in the United States; and you must begin with old Billy McDonald, here in Baltimore. See this;" and, suiting the action to the word, my visitor drew from his breast pocket the original parchment letters patent, now before me, signed by James Madison, President, James Munroe, Secretary of State, and Richard Rush, Attorney General, granting to Nicholas J. Roosevelt the exclusive right to his 'new and useful improvement in propelling boats by steam.'