Early feathering wheels

[Paulrjordan]

I came across this little tid bit in my "feathering wheel" files and
it surprised me how early on the feathering wheel was used and guess
where?? In America of course and on the HUDSON RIVER...Ouch!!!
(Sorry again, Bill!)

In the book "Robert Fulton, His Life and It's Results" written in
1891 by Robert H. Thurston, he writes in Chapter 7 about the Stevens
Father and Son duo on the Hudson River:

"Mr. R. L. Stevens's (the son) labours and inventions in mechanics,
should have more fitting commemoration than can be given in any
passing notice. Of some of them the following is the chronological
record:

1808. Hollow or concave water-lines in the bow were introduced for
the first time in the steamboat "Phoenix;" these lines, under the
name of "wave lines," are now claimed as a recent application. On the
same vessel, in 1809, he first used the feathering-wheel with
vertical buckets on pivots."

I can't of course vouch for the accuracy of this statement, but it's
kind of interesting to find out just who REALLY invented the
feathering wheel, when and in what ship it was first used.

PJ
(still freezing in Victoria, BC Canada)

[B Worden]

That's fascinating; I wonder if there are any period sources on those wheels? (Keeping in mind the fact that it was a later relative of Fulton who created the myth that his first steamboat was named Clermont!) I've just checked "the bible," Morrison's History of American Steam Navigation (1903) and although there's plenty on the Stevens and the Phoenix, there's nothing that suggests the invention of the feathering wheel. Morrison refers to several sources, from 1812 forward; of one, a published lecture dating to the 1850s, he says of a design attrubuted to Stevens, "It were as well if the speaker had left this out, with some of his other claims." I'm going to drop an inquiry in the mail to a couple of experts on early stuff like that and see what we get back.

Anyway, one of the big influences when the feathering wheel eventually got used on the lakes was the arrival of British-built blockade runners with feathering wheels, two of which ended up here. Of course, they also had oscillating engines, and nobody paid much attention to those!

Bill