Robert Fulton
The first successful trial run of a steamboat had been made several years earlier in the United States by inventor John Fitch, on the Delaware River on August 22, 1787. Attendees included delegates from the Constitutional Convention, who were observing while taking a break from their summer-long sessions at Independence Hall. The steamboat was propelled by a bank of oars on either side of the boat. The following year Fitch launched a boat powered by a steam engine driving several stern-mounted oars. These oars paddled in a manner similar to the motion of a swimming duck's feet. With this boat he carried up to thirty passengers for hire on numerous round-trip voyages on the Delaware River between Philadelphia and Burlington, New Jersey.
Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works
These ships are notable for being the first three U.S.-built ships to be powered by steam turbines. Design of the engines was licensed by W. & A. Fletcher from the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company, inventor of the turbine engine. "Governor Cobb", a 2,700 ton passenger steamer built in 1906 for the Boston-New Brunswick trade, has the double distinction of being not only America's first turbine-powered vessel, but also of eventually becoming the world's first helicopter carrier. The ship had a top speed of . The 3,750-ton sister ships "Yale" and "Harvard"—built in 1907 for the Metropolitan Steamship Company, which operated them between New York and Boston—had a top speed of and when first entering service were the fastest American-flagged vessels afloat.