Demologos

(Johann Wolkersdorfer JWX-21)

Notes: A steam-powered floating battery designed for the defense of New York during the War of 1812. The name Demologos, or "Voice of the People," was Fulton's own name, but she was also called the Fulton Steam Battery or Fulton I. Authorized by Congess on 9 March, laid down 20 June, and launched 28 October 1814. Essentially two half hulls with a central paddle-wheel race. The steam boilers were in one hull and the machinery in the other. Rudders were at both ends of each hull and she could move in either direction with equal facility. Most of her armament had been captured from the British vessel John of Lancaster. The two-masted lateen rig was added on the orders of her first commander, Captain David Porter. Early in 1815 the war ended with the Treaty of Ghent and shortly thereafter Fulton died of pneumonia. Nevertheless work continued and Demologos made several trial voyages in the summer of 1815. A committee recommended that she be taken into service as a training vessel, but she was never commissioned in the navy. She made one additional trip under her own power - to Staten Island with Prseident Monroe aboard - in 1817. In 1821 her machinery and guns were removed and she became a receiving ship. She was destroyed in an accidental gunpowder explosion at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in June 1829.