HELPING
ARTIST BENJAMIN WEST WITH HIS AMERICAN LAND INVESTMENTS
ROBERT FULTON. Autograph Letter Signed to
Henry Drinker, Washington, DC, 18 July 1808. 2 pages, 10" x 8",
plus integral address leaf.
Best-known for developing the first successful commercial steamboat,
Robert Fulton was originally a painter of miniatures who traveled from
the U. S. to London in the 1780's to study with Benjamin West. That
American-born artist, who had settled in England in 1763, soon became
Fulton’s mentor, and the two remained good friends, even after
the younger man turned from art to engineering and invention. In that
arena, Fulton first devoted himself to canal design, then to devising
submarine weapons and a submarine vessel, and finally, to building a
steamboat. Fulton returned to America late in 1806, where he had no
luck interesting the U. S. government in his naval weapons, but where
he was very successful in constructing a commercially viable steamboat.
After the first run of his Clermont from New York City to Albany
in August 1807, Fulton, with his partner, Robert Livingston, established
a string of steamboat operations throughout the mid-Atlantic region
and along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
When Fulton returned to the U. S., he agreed to help his old friend
Benjamin West with the problem of his American land investments, made
a decade earlier. He carried a letter from West which asked Henry Drinker,
the agent for the landholdings, to give Fulton a full report on the
property. Here, a year and half later, Fulton is still pursuing the
matter, and in a letter that presses Drinker to dispose of the land,
as West clearly wished, he affords insight into the claims made by American
land promoters.
"Some days ago," Fulton explains to Drinker, "I
received a letter of my friend Benjamin Wests which has been written
as far back as May the 24th 1807. Speaking of a letter which he received
from me he says, ‘At the same time I received [a letter] from
Henry Drinker respecting my lands under his care. On that subject I
have to say that when Dr. Edwards solicited me to hold lands in Pensylvania,
he said that should myself or either of my sons go to that country,
land then purchased would in a few years nearly double their value and
be of good advantage, and in case we should not go to that country,
they would be parted with to much advantage, if not, the money returned....’"
Still quoting from West’s letter, Fulton continues, "‘[So]
that I should be perfectly safe in the purchase, [Dr. Edwards said]
he would endavour to procure Henry Drinkers friendship in this businiss.
My reply was that I had a high opinion of that gentlemans honor and
integrity and would leave it to them to adjust, agreeable to the terms
he then proposed. The lands were purchased, and as there is but little
chance of myself and sons ever going to america, those lands will be
an incumbrance to them and myself. I therefore wish to have the business
adjusted while my friend Henry Drinker is in being, for should anything
happen to him or myself, my sons will never receive any advantage from
them.’"
Speaking for himself, Fulton then comments, "You will from
this copy of Mr. Wests letter perceive that his mind has been led into
an error, on the value of american lands," certainly an understatement,
given the collapse of the American land market some years before. "Could
[the lands] however be disposed of for the first cost and expences,"
Fulton notes, "it appears that Mr. West would be satisfied
and he would feel himself under an obligation to you could the business
be speedily setteled in this way. Will you have the goodness to see
if it can be so settled, and please to write to him or me on the subject."
He has signed, "Yours with Respect Robt. Fulton."
The
letter is in very good condition, with just some slight toning. $7500.00
This image shows
only the second page of the letter.
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