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Gumpf, Sen., being an experienced angler, readily consented to allow Robert to join himself and his son in these expeditions, and made the two boys earn their pleasure by pushing the boat about the stream, as he desired to move from point to point. As the means of propulsion was simply a pole, the labor was very severe, and Robert soon became tired of it.
Messersmith's and Mr. Fenno's gunsmith shops, almost daily, and endeavored to manufacture a small air-gun." Among the acquaintances of Robert Fulton at this time was a young man, about eighteen years of age, named Christopher Gumpf, who used frequently to accompany his father in his fishing excursions on the Conestoga. Mr.
Then he went to work with Chris Gumpf, and they made a larger paddle wheel. This they set up in the fishing boat. The wheel was turned by the boys with a crank. They did not use the poles any more. The first good steam-boat was built in New York. She was built by Robert Fulton. Her name was "Clermont." When the people saw her, they laughed. They said that such a boat would never go.
Two arms or pieces of timber were then fastened together at right angles, with a paddle at each end, and the crank was attached to the boat across it near the stern, with a paddle operating on a pivot as a rudder; and Fulton's first invention was tried on the Conestoga River, opposite Rockford, in the presence of Peter and Christopher Gumpf.
Bob did not like to miss the fun of his Fourth of July. He went to work to make something like rockets or Roman candles. It was a very dan-ger-ous business for a boy. "What are you doing, Bob?" some one asked him. "The city does not want us to burn our candles on the Fourth," he said. "I am going to shoot mine into the air." He used to go fishing with a boy named Chris Gumpf.
That model was the result of Robert's fishing excursions with Christopher Gumpf; and when he returned from his aunt's he told Christopher that he must make a set of paddles to work at the sides of the boat, to be operated by a double crank, and then they could propel the old gentleman's fishing-boat with greater ease.
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