A brilliant painter, engineer, and inventor, Robert Fulton
(1765-1815) is best known for launching the first commercially
successful steamboat. He was born in New Britain, Pennsylvania
on November 14, 1765 and as a boy excelled at drawing, painting,
and mechanics. Upon completing an apprenticeship to a
Philadelphia jeweler, Fulton supported himself as a painter of
portraits and landscapes. In 1786 he moved to England to study
painting under Benjamin West but grew more interested in
engineering and naval warfare. While living in France between
1797 and 1806, Fulton built the submarine Nautilus (1800) and an
experimental steam-powered vessel (1803). With the financial
support of Robert Livingston, the U.S. Ambassador to France,
Fulton returned to the United States to develop a steam-powered
vessel to travel the Hudson River. On August 9-10, 1807,
Fulton’s steamboat made the trip upstream from New York City to
Albany in thirty-two hours, far faster than a sailing vessel
could reliably travel. The steamboat was n