Talk:North River Steamboat

Early uncategorized discussions
anyone out there? JoeBrennan 17:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

To do:

Get the year North River Steamboat was retired, and what happened to it. The later boats were faster so it might be as early as 1815. I have seen a modern book that has this date and that lists its name in each year's ship registry-- if we need to further establish the name!

Get a little more on Livingston's monopoly, at least what years it covered.

In my opinion this page should be renamed North River Steamboat, and referenced from Clermont. I don't know how to rename a page. But since almost everyone calls it Clermont, I am not sure I even want to rename it.

Acording to Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts (New York, Bell Publishing; 1979, page 277 of the 1981 hardcover edition) Robert Fulton did not invent the steamboat. That honor goes to John Fitch of Philadelphia in 1786. Fulton’s version, however, was much more efficient and practical. Dick Kimball (talk) 12:43, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Clermont vs North River Steamboat
I think more people know it as the Clermont, though linking both names to the same article would have been fine. Moving the article seems like overkill to me... dm 05:46, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree (though I seem to be over a year late!) that this needs to be changed to Clermont. It is referenced as such in history books and that is the name most people would use, it doesnt matter if it was official name or not, wikipedia guidelines suggest using the most common name that would be looked up, and in this case that would be Clermont. Unless someone has a problem with it I will be changing it to Clermont (steamboat) with a redirect from North River Steamboat.Camelbinky (talk) 10:53, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

The move is unnecessary, since anybody who looks for "Clermont" will find a link to the steamboat on the disambiguation page (there are quite a few things named Clermont), and "Clermont (steamboat)" already re-directs to this article. Leave it as it is, which reforces the historical fact that the name was, after all, North River. The Wiki-guideline that the most common name is used, is for thing which have several "correct" names, like variant spellings, translations from foreign languages, or even widespread nicknames. But the "Clermont" was never called that, it is a single-source error that was perpetuated already too long. Kraxler (talk) 14:02, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Since when is wikipedia the place to correct 200 year old historical errors?! In that case then I should count on you to object to the naming of the article for the city of New York as New York City, that being a historical mistake and NOT the official name of the city at anytime including today. That error coming about due to books in the 1700 and 1800's writing New York city (with a small c) to distinguish when talking about the city versus the state, parentheses for that purpose not being accepted at that time for books and over the years idiots starting calling and writing the city as New York City. Mistakes happen, and after 200 years to think that an online encyclopedia is the place to stop the "perpetuation" of errors is silly. I admit I go around and do change New York City to "the city of New York" for the same reason, so I understand where you are coming from. But I hope you see if we keep going by that criteria things can get ridiculous. Why should people have to go to a disambiguation page in order to find this page? Why not make the Clermont (steamboat) page the real page and this a redirect to it? I'm not going to fight you on this, I just wanted to point out that this really isnt the place to try and educate people on the "correct" name of the boat, especially since at one time it DID become the official name and I have a source that says the Clermont was the FIRST name and North River Steamboat was a later rename. How do you know all sources, including the one I have (Albany Chronicles by Cuyler Reynolds; look it up on google books and it will be easy to search the book for references to Clermont and North River) all stem from one sources mistake? Do you have MULTIPLE verifiable sources (that dont rely on each other) that the "error" is not indeed correct?Camelbinky (talk) 23:26, 22 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Just read the article, Camelbinky. I did never edit it, I just read it. It makes sense, and it is sourced. Moving the article is unnecessary, in my opinion, even if Clermont were the real name, since "Clermont (steamboat)" redirects here, and "Clermont" could never be the name, since that is a dab page already, no escape from that. To change the name and the redirect does not make any practical difference. Nevertheless, if you can move it, and if you want to move it, I won't stop you. About the historical correct naming (the text should be historically correct, even if the article's name is not), see what is in the article (it quotes the original re-enrolment!) and if you have sources that say otherwise (be careful about the publication date, everything published after 1817 could have copied the misnomer), add the sources to the article. Consider discussing changes to the text, and giving the sources, here on the talk page. (Please do never ask people to look something up on google or googlebooks, you should do that yourself, and propose changes stating what you have found. This is a general guideline of historical researchers' good manners.)Kraxler (talk) 01:26, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I see that "no contemporary account called her by that name" gets a citation needed tag. Citing the lack of something is a challenge. But there might be a statement to this effect in Adams's book. JoeBrennan (talk) 19:37, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Sutcliffe p. 269 says it was Clermont until the 1807 remodel, and North River after. Fulton never uses a name to refer to the boat in any of his letters quoted by Sutcliffe. It's always "the boat" or "the steamboat." Kendall-K1 (talk) 17:40, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Accounts of fear are exaggerated
See the very good dissection made by this person:

http://www.reddit.com/r/wikipedia/comments/cfgkt/apparently_people_were_terrified_of_the_first/c0s7uj3 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.53.93.159 (talk) 15:35, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Very good. The original first quote was from an opinionated writer in 1870, and for that matter the long second quote went off on a tangent about religious condemnation of steamboats. I have inserted a new first quote from Fulton himself; replaced the original first quote with what it was supposed to be, recollection of someone present in 1807, from the same book; and removed the original second quote completely. JoeBrennan (talk) 19:37, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Citation Banner
Hi Guys I just added the Citation needed Banner. There is some things needing to be proven.

August 17 2012 Deunick (talk) 22:46, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Draft
We've got three different numbers for draft: 2 feet, 28 inches, and 7 feet. None of them are supported by a source citation. I wonder which is correct? Kendall-K1 (talk) 17:01, 15 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Never mind, I see that the draft is a bit over two feet. The 7 foot number is depth, although there are different kinds of depth and we don't know which one it is. I have fixed the mis-labeled "draught". Kendall-K1 (talk) 17:09, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Displacement
Sutcliffe p. 192 quotes Fulton saying "she displaced 36.40 cubic feet" but that would only be one tonne so is obviously wrong. I suspect this should be 3640, which would be 100 tonnes. Fulton gives the displacement as "100 tons of water." Kendall-K1 (talk) 18:05, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

oof
I think the steamboat is doo doo — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:6000:1021:8509:BC1E:7B42:5695:2CD (talk) 14:06, 1 February 2020 (UTC)