Page 12 Woodward took Foulis' plans and gave them to a locomotive engineer, Vernon
Smith, who made slight alterations and submitted them to the Commissioners for
approval. This was given and in 1859 Smith had built on Partridge Island the
world's first steam fog alarm.
One can image the anger and fury of Robert Foulis. He immediately began
petitioning the government for recognition of his claim to have been the source
of the plans. The conflict was carried in the local press and Foulis was
adamant that Woodward was a scoundrel in the theft of his idea. While the
letters passed between St. John and the Provincial Government at Fredericton,
local pilots and captains were praising the alarm on the island. Captain
Winchester and Mr. S. Pike, Pilot of the steamer Eastern City, stated that
"on the whole coast of America there is not another alarm equal to the
one spoken of; ...in making the harbour on Tuesday, a dense fog prevailing at
the time...eight miles below the island we heard the Whistle, and without the
least difficulty entered the harbour...".
This was written in 1860 when St. John experienced a total of 65 foggy days in
ten months, with a total of 525 hours of fog.
Foulis' letters were ignored by government officials, causing the editor of
the Morning News to comment in 1862 that
"No man (especially a scientific one) is deserving of the treatment Mr.
Foulis appears to have received...".
Foulis petitioned the Provincial Legislature in 1864 to recognize his claim, a
task that was not too difficult as there was a long paper trail going back ten
years detailing this fog alarm idea.
In 1864 a legislature committee of JH Gray, George Kerr and James Boyd made
their report to the House.
"We have therefore no hesitation in stating, that after a careful
perusal of the papers placed before them...that Robert Foulis...is the true
inventor of the practical application of the Steam Horn or Whistle now in such
successful and beneficial operation at Partridge Island...".
Alas, this recognition was of no financial value to Foulis. By this time an
American named Dobell had patented the steam fog whistle and the Government of
New Brunswick were not prepared to compensate Foulis. When Robert Foulis passed
away in 1866 he died in poverty, but secure in knowing that it was his fog
alarm mournfully blasting away on Partridge Island.
10 More
All pages © Heritage Resources and New Brunswick Community
College - Saint John.