“I elevated myself upon a platform and addressed the assembly. I stated that I knew not what was the matter, but if they would be quiet and indulge me for half an hour, I would either go on or abandon the voyage for that time. This short respite was conceded without objection. I went below and examined the machinery, and discovered that the cause was a slight maladjustment of some of the work. In a short time it was obviated. The boat was again put in motion. She continued to move on. All were still incredulous. None seemed willing to trust the evidence of their own senses. We left the fair city of New York; we passed through the romantic and ever-varying scenery of the Highlands; we descried the clustering houses of Albany; we reached its shores,--and then, even then, when all seemed achieved, I was the victim of disappointment. “Imagination superseded the influence of fact. It was then doubted if it could be done again, or if done, it was doubted if it could be made of any great value.” But the _Clermont_, in spite of all prophecies to the contrary, had traveled under her own steam from New York to Albany, and the trip was the crowning event in Fulton’s career as inventor. At the time she made that first voyage the _Clermont_ was a very simple craft, decked for a short distance at bow and stern, the engine open to view, and back of the engine a house like that on a canal-boat to shelter the boiler and provide an apartment for the officers. The rudder was of the pattern used on sailing-vessels, and was moved by a tiller. The boiler was of the same pattern used in Watt’s steam-engines, and was set in masonry. The condenser stood in a large cold-water cistern, and the weight of the masonry and the cistern greatly detracted from the boat’s buoyancy. She was so very unwieldy that the captains of other river boats, realizing the danger of the steamboat’s competition, were able to run into her, and make it appear that the fault was hers; and as a result she several times reached port with only a single wheel. There were almost as many quaint descriptions of the boat as there were people who saw it. One described it as an “ungainly craft looking precisely like a backwoods sawmill mounted on a scow and set on fire.” Others said the _Clermont_ appeared at night like a “monster moving on the waters defying the winds and tide, and breathing flames and smoke.” Some of the ignorant along the Hudson fell on their knees and prayed to be delivered from the monster. The boat must have been a very strange sight; pine wood was used for fuel, and when the engineer stirred the fire a torrent of sparks went shooting into the sky.