ise funds from Federal, State, and New
York City governments as well as from individual contributors to build
the battery. The members of this committee consisted of General
Dearborn, Commodore Stephen Decatur, U.S.N.; General Morgan Lewis;
Commodore Jacob Jones; U.S.N.; Noah Brown, shipbuilder; Samuel L.
Mitchill; Henry Rutgers; and Thomas Morris.

The committee proved cumbersome and was reduced to General Lewis, Issac
Bronson, Henry Rutgers, Nathan Sanford, Thomas Morris, Oliver Wolcott,
and John Jacob Astor. Known as the Coast Defense Society and with the
name of _Pyremon_ given the ship in prospectus, they attempted,
unsuccessfully, to raise funds privately.

The estimated sums to build a battery 130 feet long, with a 50-foot
beam, capable of a speed of 5 mph, and carrying 24 long guns (18-pdr.),
was $110,000. Fulton, still the chief engineer, in an effort to interest
the Federal Government, built a model of the proposed vessel and
submitted it to some prominent naval officers--Commodore Stephen
Decatur, Jacob Jones, James Biddle, Samuel Evans, Oliver Perry, Samuel
Warrington, and Jacob Lewis. All gave their support to the Society in a
written statement and this recommendation proved helpful to the project
in Congress and in the Navy Department. In the process of passing a bill
which went to the Senate Naval Affairs Committee calling for $250,000
for the construction of the floating battery, the sum was raised to
$1,500,000 for the construction of "one or more" floating batteries and
passed on March 9, 1814.

To supervise the start of construction, the Coast Defense Society
appointed a committee consisting of Dearborn, Wolcott, Morris, Mitchill,
and Rutgers, with Fulton as engineer, and a model and drawing of the
proposed vessel was submitted to the Patent Office. The Secretary of the
Navy, although supporting the project, delayed action until he had
weighed the importance of the batteries in relation to other war needs,
for at this time the naval shipbuilding program on the Great Lakes was
considered of prime importance. He also raised some technical questions
concerning the design of the batteries, which Fulton answered with a
description of the vessel as 138 feet on deck, 120 feet on the keel, 55
feet beam (each hull to have a 20-foot beam and the "race" between to be
15 feet wide), draft 8 or 9 feet loaded, and the intended speed was to
be 4-1/2 to 5 mph. The ship was to carry 24 long guns (32-pdr.), the
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