Newburgh has a considerable trade with the back country, and supports two or three steam-boats, running daily and exclusively between its pier and New York. If there were wanting an index of the wondrous advance of enterprise and invention in our country, we need not seek farther than this simple fact—a small intermediate town, on one river, supporting such an amount of expensive navigation. Only thirty years ago Fulton made his first experiment in steam on the Hudson, amid the unbelief and derision of the whole country. Let any one stand for one hour on the pier at Newburgh, and see those superb and swift palaces of motion shoot past, one after the other, like gay and chasing meteors; and then read poor Fulton’s account of his first experiment—and never again throw discouragement on the kindling fire of genius. “When I was building my first steam-boat,” said he to Judge Story, “the project was viewed by the public at New York either with indifference or contempt, as a visionary scheme. My friends, indeed, were civil, but they were shy. They listened with patience to my explanations, but with a settled cast of incredulity on their countenances. I felt the full force of the lamentation of the Poet:— ‘Truths would you teach, to save a sinking land, All shun, none aid you, and few understand.’ As I had occasion to pass daily to and from the building-yard while my boat was in progress, I have often loitered, unknown, near the idle groups of strangers gathering in little circles, and heard various inquiries as to the object of this new vehicle. The language was uniformly that of scorn, sneer, or ridicule. The loud laugh rose at my expense; the dry jest, the wise calculation of losses and expenditure; the dull but endless repetition of “_the Fulton folly_.” Never did a single encouraging remark, a bright hope, or a warm wish, cross my path.