Note p. 223 n — INDEX.
Reading edition
[124] Born in Pennsylvania, 1765; died, 1815. Student of portrait painting; went to England in 1786; soon began to study engineering and inventions; was in France, 1797–1804, where he invented a torpedo which he vainly tried to induce Napoleon to adopt; failed in a similar attempt in Great Britain, 1804–1806; returned to New York, 1807; devised and successfully propelled his steamboat Clermont from New York to Albany in 1807—the beginning of successful navigation by steam.